Knockie Nine Doors

A Memory of Newburn.

This is about 1951 and Millfield Lane was opposite the allotments and the clay field. On the dark nights we would tie thread to the door knockers and lead it across the road and up the bank to a grassy hollow where we could see but not be seen from the houses, then a sharp tug on the thread would bring a puzzled face to the door, a couple of knocks on the same door would have us in hysterics. Then we came up with the idea to tie two adjacent doors together by the door knobs with string, knock on the doors and vanish back into our grassy hollow. The people had to walk around from the back street to open the doors. Buzzers! We would stuff the bottom of the iron rainwater pipes with newspaper and light it, once it got going the noise was a loud buzzing drone. Sorry every body!!
On the back street of Francis Terrace there was a footpath leading past the gable ends of Millfield Crescent and this was on a slope. the next game of ours was to get hob nail boots on, run at the path then slide down with our boots sending sparks flying. It didn't take long before we were queuing at Bobby Haddocks the cobbler for more studs, these we just put in ourselves as almost everyone had an iron boot and shoe last.
There was some characters when I think back, Duggie Rendal was a coal miner and lived with his parents also a brother called Bernard and sister called Joyce. the mother and sister were salvation army people. Duggie was a bit on the simple side, they say he gave his mother his wages and he got pocket money which he used to buy sweets, he would always stop you in the street to give you a sweet out of the packet and he must of been in his twenties a powerful built man as well. He always wore a hat a coat and a scarf, If he was here today I don't think people would take kindly to this man offering sweets to kids. Another was Annie Clarkson, a huge old lady who would sit on her front step with her bottle of Amber Ale and smoking a clay pipe.
Then there was a man called Kit Bateman who worked at the pit, but when not at work would run everywhere he went, he was a proper Billy Wiz and to this day I never found out why. Then there was Fred Syrett, the man who collected the rents, and John Horlicks who worked for him, doing all the repairs in Millfield. Fred had pigs, ducks, hens etc up at the allotment. (Me ma said I once let his ducks out because I felt sorry for them locked up.) Anyway, he used to slaughter the pigs in the back yard of 1 Millfield Lane, the blood used to run down the gutters into the drains and we used to wait for the bladder as it made a great football. Honestly.  
The off door licence was at the bottom of Millfield Bank next to T T Walker's yard, and it was sort of built into a wall, it was really damp and foistey when you went in, I think the woman who owned it lived in Lemington. Anyway, we used to take the bottles back then and get thruppence off the empties. Then we cottoned on that if we went to the Conservative Club around the back (that's where all the empties were kept) we could then take them to her, that was a canny little earner until she realized she was getting more empties than she was selling, so she put a stamp on hers in the shape of a blue star. Guess who made a stamp the same as hers out of a cork?!!