Life Began In Parker Street

A Memory of Byker.

I was born in Middle Parker Street at 162 in 1946 , at the time I had one elder brother (Ernie) and one elder sister, Lil. W lived in a 2-roomed downstaires flat. My mother went on to have another 5 kids in that flat. The back room had a gas cooker an open range fire and a sink in the corner, you have to use your imagination to what life was like in there with 8 of us plus mother and father. There were 3 other families that shared the yard, which had two outside toilets (no toilet rolls then just newspaper), 4 coal houses, and a small building which was classed as the wash house, it had a cast iron bowl and below you could light a fire to boil the water in the bowl. On the otherside of the yard was an air-aid shelter which we used to use as our den and all sorts of other things by the kids in the back lane, yeh, life was hard.

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