Looking Back

A Memory of Darlington.

Post house coffee bar (Dilaplos), I lived in there, lunch most dinner times, and back in when the shop closed. I worked in Stylo's, corner of Northgate and Crown Street. Myself and a lad called Frank Uttley(hairdresser) used to get our lunch time snacks on tic and pay on Fridays on payday. On an evening, it was straight out of work and down the bowling ally with my pal Dougie Kelly (worked at Illingworth & Co, Woodland Road) then up to the Posthouse. Most evenings someone would come in and say 'Party at so & so's place' and half the coffee bar would empty. No one seemed to mind who turned up, I've been to some very posh houses in Darlington and we never took any drink, it was always provided.
Thursday was the posh night, the night to be seen out. The suit was pressed, the latest tie and shirt, then out, but not before 'Top Of The Pops' had ended. The R & B Club. I have a memory of a dance at a pub/club on Skerne park, The Speedwell, and the Bows but the the R & B Club at the Imperial was the best. We, me and Doug, would stand at the side of the floor debating who to dance with most of the night. If you asked a girl to dance and she said NO, that was you done for most of the night. The answer came in a pair of identical twins, Mary and Betty Nicholson. They were knee high to a grasshopper, we danced with them all night and even said we would pay for them to get in the next week, forgetting that next week was Jimmy Hendrix. We stood on tables at the back with the twins in chairs on the tables. Yes, we were there.....If I'm right, I think Darlington was the last small gig Hendrix did. At the end of the night we would cross the road to the La Bamba Night Club/Casino, Only the steps left now, burnt down.
Mondays and Fridays at The Majestic. Dancing to groups, can't remember if they had a drink licence or not, think it was only soft drinks. But you went there for the girls anyway...
Other places of intrest to me, The Whimpy, Bongate, Green Tree Skinnergate, the one in Court Arcade, even the bus station had a half decent caff. The Pub in Skinnergate where Argos is now but the ones to be seen in were The Mowden and the Model T. The girls would drink brandy and Babysham, rum & black, lager and black, Advocaat, the boys a pint of beer, not lager... If you took a girl out to eat I remember a Chinese restaurant upstairs opposite Doggerts in Northgate and you fumbled along with chopsticks, what we did to impress.
In the end I joined the army in 1967, married a girl called Ann Graham who lived at 97 Greenbank Road, stayed in for 12 years before coming back. It's not the same now.
I don't think any generation of young people will have the memories that we experenced. Does anyone remember Doug Kelly, Frank Uttly, Pete Zizzler, Mary & Betty Nicholson, John Larna?
Mike Pearson, 1965 Hurworth Moor Farm & Outram Street.


Added 07 December 2011

#234271

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