Wor Jackie And Other Memories

A Memory of Fenham.

David Kemp’s item about Fenham brought back some great memories for me. In the 1940s and early 50s, I lived in Robsheugh Place, round the corner from Ovington Grove. Now I live by the beach in Western Australia, where melanomas are more common than chilblains, but still remember the winter torture of chapped inner thighs! Holy Cross Church dominated our street, although I was never inside it. I remember the cheerful assistants at Cedar Road Co-op, who seemed to know all the customers by name, and collecting the ‘divis’ – those strange-shaped tin coins we saved up for Christmas – I’ve probably still got some. At 'The Stores', they carved butter from huge slabs and sliced the bacon to order. I also recall the black-faced miners returning from their shift and the occasional wisps of smoke from ‘The Ovens’ (Crematorium). Some of my earliest memories are of snow and ice, probably the winter of 1947 – Robsheugh was on a steep hill and the older kids tied their sledges together and hurtled down the slope, straight across St Cuthbert’s and way on up Hesleyside, with never a thought for traffic – there probably wasn’t any. Our neighbour’s mum kept the fish shop on the West Road (where I first saw shrimps), opposite the Fox and Hounds, with its pub sign that stretched right over the pavement, portraying the hunt in full splendour. We caught the bus into town every Thursday and I remember the excitement of going round the colourful market arcades, the day culminating with an ice cream in Fenwick’s café. Holiday travel now, the drudgery of airports, searches and interminable waits, cannot compare with the excitement, sounds and smells of the steam engines at Central Station. And the soccer heroes – Joe Harvey, George Hannah, the Robledo Bros. … and, of course, ’wor Jackie. I had the autographs of the whole team in about 1950 – still got them somewhere.

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