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Whitley Bay
Whitley Bay maps
Historic maps of Whitley Bay and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Whitley Bay maps
Whitley Bay area books
Displaying 1 of 1 books about Whitley Bay and the local area. View all books for this area
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Memories of Whitley Bay
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memories of Whitley Bay.
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Fond Memories of Whitley Bay
Fond memories of Whitley Bay: Taking the 17 bus from South Wellfield to the bus station, Whitley Bay, with John Taylor. Dressed in our best (and only) Mod gear we would go to the Spanish City to seek out lasses and avoid attention of any Rockers! With only a tanner each in our pockets we could get two rides on the dodgems and walk home. On summer weekends the place was always packed, I remember mooching arround Sad Sacks slot machines or sugarcones at the Venitian, collecting bottles from the beach, The GO GO CLUB to see The JUNCO PARTNERS. Watching NEWCASTLE train on the snow covered beach. And the summer holiday I once got a job on the shuggy boats on the beach opposite the Spanna! I got the sack for letting little kids go on free! Football on the beach with mates Jimmy Buckham, Alan Love, Jimmy Green, John Taylor. Jimmy Buckham and I nearly got into trouble once on St Mary's Island as... Read more
Busy Holidays at The Coast
On the lead up to the Edinburgh & Glasgow holidays, my friends and I used to prepare by building our own 'bogeys' out of some pram wheels, then on the Saturday`we would arrive at the train station and wait for the train to come from Newcastle with the Scots, we would ask the passengers as they came out of the station where they were going to stay and offer to take them and their luggage 'on the bogey' to the bed & breakfast address for a fee, sometimes we were paid half a crown (2/6d), this went on all of the holidays and we did make some money. Another money making idea was, at the end of each nice day that people spent on the beach and on the links, we would go around and collect all the empty pop bottles that were left and take them back to the shop for the deposit. Another way to amuse ourselves was to take newspapers to the Fish & Chips shop and... Read more
Aunty Bell's
My dad was a geordie and every year when I was a kid we would always visit his hometown, Jarrow, N Newcastle. I loved the northeast with all the different beaches and everything about it, as I got older I loved the northeast more, and more even though my father had passed. I loved the fact I had family here, I just wished my father was around to see it. He would have loved to see my kids up there enjoying the sea and would have taken them to visit everyone who was a relative. Some of my relatives told me that they hadn't seen the sea for years, but it was on their doorstep, I found that puzzling for I loved it and always have. I said that if I lived there I would come every day to see it, but it's different when you're older and living here. Funny that it was a place that was so important to me, and still is, I but have never taken my... Read more
Spanish City And That Very Old Car On The Links
This is an iconic picture for me in two ways. First it shows the Spanish City somewhere near its heyday (spring/summer of 1955), bringing back memories of the great band of Harry Atkinson (the Ted Heath of the Bay), who played there. I went to Longbenton C of E primary school with his son, Joss. But kindly lower your gaze to the lone car. It is a Vauxhall 14 and it is parked outside 7 The Links, my old home. Despite being 16 years old it was the coveted company car of my dad, Eric, works manager for a firm that made concrete lamp standards at the old Cramlington Airship Shed. Despite its age and wartime experiences, the Vauxhall was a good runner, regularly taking my dad, and sometimes myself, to the company's HQ in Hertfordshire. The journeys were epic 12-hour spectaculars, such was the state of the A1. The car would be full of blankets, picnic boxes and torches for use in the event of breakdowns or snarl-ups. The only... Read more
My Family at The Seaside
The people sitting on the seat in the foreground of this photo are actually my grandparents and aunt, visiting - as they regularly did - from their home in Annfield Plain, Co Durham. This photo was taken a couple of years before I was born and also before my parents were married. Sadly they are no longer alive, but little did they know they had been snapped for posterity!
Whitley Bay my Family
I was born in Newcastle and all my family. My grandparents lived at Percy Terrace and I would go every school holiday to stay with them. I loved walking along the sea front with my gran - she would walk us to Colour Coats and Tynemouth in the evening and on the way back she would buy me and my sister and brother a bag of chips and a hot chocolate. We would stay on the beach all day - it was wonderfull. My grandparents were called Selby, they had a guest house. I still have family in the North East and they are dotted around Blyth, Newcastle, Shiremore and Annfield Plan. My dad came from New Kyo in Stanley, they were called Mills. Both grandads were miners in the pits. I remember going to visit them with very fond memories.
Colman Cafe
My mother lived on the Esplanade in the 1940s just about opposite Colman Cafe. She taught in a local school. My father was a policeman in the town, and met my mother there. He related interesting stories of the bombing of the town during the Second World War, such as being knocked off his feet by a nearby blast when on air raid duty. He also told me of climbing on to roofs with a device that looked like a squeezy mop but which had an asbestos "claw" to remove incendiary bombs. On another ocasion he was sent to guard a radio station - for this he was issued with a revolver and 2 rounds of amunition!
The Venetian Cafe And Spanish City.
I remember as a child going to Whitley Bay with my grandparents. We used to go in the Spanish City, and I used to go on some of the rides - the Ghost Train, the Waltzer, and the Bumper Cars. Then we used to go across the road to the Venetian Cafe,and have a Venetian ice-cream, they were the best ice-creams ever. The Venetian Cafe is no longer there, or the Spanish City. Whitley Bay used to get very busy, especially when it was Scottish week, I believe that was in August, if I remember rightly. I also used to like going to Whitley Bay ice-rink as I got a little older, the ice-rink is still there now I believe. They were the good old days.
Brenda.
