Pea Shooter And Buses

A Memory of Newburn.

It was about 1953 when we discovered pluffers and ca caws. The pluffer was a device we used for a pea-shooter. This was a straight stem from a weed and it was about an inch or so in diameter, hollow through the centre and collected from Millfield tip where they grew in abundance. We would cut a length measuring about a foot and load our mouths up with the ammo, i.e. the ca caws. These were the berries from the hawthorn bush. Where the names 'pluffer' and 'ca caws' came from is beyond me, but they worked a treat and cost nowt, as did most of the things we used, but after an hour or so your lips used to swell up, I am sure it was from the pluffer off the tip rather than the ca caws. I have since learned these were the poisonous plant Hogweed & Hemlock - no wonder our lips swelled.

The (Gatty) catapult was chosen from the Y in a branch off a tree, but the square black lackie (elastic) had to be got from a shop in Blaydon; it was about thruppence a foot. Trouble was, the bus service was terrible to get there. You could catch it beside the Imperial and it went straight there, over the bridge, but I am sure it only ran when it wanted to. The other way was the number 16 to Scotchie Bridge then a Venture bus to Blaydon. I remember Andy Cap, the conductor on our local buses. The buses then had a platform at the back with a long chrome pole in the centre to help you on and off. Well, Andy was proud of the fact he knew the name of every stop and he would hang out the platform holding onto the pole and shout the stops as they came up, but one day he was on the number 6 which went from Throckley via Walbottle, Westerhope etc to town, this was a long way around, about an hour, if you think the 16 only took 20 minutes. Well, there was Andy coming back from town doing his usual shouting "Westerhope Stores, The Jingling Gate, Whorlton Church", when the bus turned a corner onto North Walbottle Road, and he got wrapped around a lamp post - the bus was at Walbottle Stores before the alarm was raised. They reckon he'd got a fractured skull and when he came back to work he had this huge conductor's hat on. Well, us lot used to make fun of him because he still did his stunt of hanging on the pole - but we were the mugs, because as soon as he saw us he wouldn't let us on his bus. If he was busy and there was a queue, we would sneak on and get straight upstairs among the coughers with tabs. Up he would come shouting “fares please", then he would spot us - he was straight on the bell to the driver and we were turfed off, it didn't matter where or what the weather was like.

On a different matter, I would go very red if embarrassed, and the first memory I have was when I was in the school Christmas play at the infants and I played one of the wise men - I brought myrrh. My face was like a boiled beetroot of which me Ma constantly reminded me. Next was Scotswood social club which was about 200 yards before the bridge next to Adamzes, the toilet and urinal factory. Me Da was a member there, where, on a Christmas party, I was put on the stage to sing a carol - I can still feel the pain.

Last but not least was Miss Bacon who was one of our teachers in Newburn Manor. One day in the class I said something to a friend who sat next to me, but when a word had an 's' in it, I used to make a whistle sound - that was it, "Stand up you. So you think it's funny to whistle during lessons? Well, go on, whistle a tune for the class. I bet you could have boiled a kettle on me face, I just stood there, tears in my eyes because I couldn't whistle anyway, and I think I got the belt for that. God did I hate her, not so much for the belt but for the embarrassment.

Just a few years down the line came this great fashion item the Donkey Jacket - black woollen mix, hip length, plastic stitched around the shoulders to cast the rain off and N.C.B stamped on the back. That was for the coal board. Then McAlpine the builders took them on board, followed by their wellies with a bullseye target on the side. Then there was the railway canteen down an alley by the Central Station it was open all night, you got a canny hot meal for about a bob, but you had to put half a dollar down as deposit for the cutlery. More often than not we never had the dosh for the deposit, so we would improvise with fingers in mash and gravy, or we would make a little shovel out of a cast-off Woodbine packet.