Good Old Days In Consett

A Memory of Consett.

I came from Ludlow in 1944 to live with a great aunt & uncle (when I was 13 months of age) in Priestmans Avenue. I started school at The Grove and have many good time memories with friends of that time. As you recall, the winters were bad and the summers so hot that we would burst the tar bubbles with our fingers and sit on the railway enbankment next to the bridge at the top of the bank from the Grove. Never considered the danger of engines crossing full of red hot ore - we were happy popping white pods on the bushes.
The highlight was when the huntsmen and their dogs came blowing their bugles, or the rag and bone man came to give us a ride on his trap in exchange for jam jars or rags.
I left the Grove 1951 to return in 1959 as a teenager and worked in the glove factory in Castleside. After Marriage in 1963, I lived in Shotley Bridge and worked in the hospital laundry moving to Templetown in the 60s. I worked in Consett Iron Company canteen for a while, before the family, and dodged the engines on the open tracks with the pram on my way to Consett - no health and safety. When my young son woke in the night we would watch the activity in the engine yard from the bedroom window. Passed the house the other day - the house is still there but how Consett has changed.

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