1940s And 50s

A Memory of Fenham.

I was born in 1942 and lived in Ovington Grove behind The Lonnen. My memories would fill several books, but for starters:- the Regal; Quadrini's; Number 2 blue bus; Holy Cross Church; Cowgate then Wingrove Schools; playing football by the hour in the street; rag and bone man in a pony and trap; ice cream cart pulled by a horse - how people rushed for the manure to put on their roses; wearing black boots every day bar Sunday; chapped legs in the winter in our little shorts; girls always seemed to get chilblains; the terrible winter of 1947; taking a picnic to the Moor consisting of bread and jam and a bottle of sugared water; the pit still being worked at Denton Burn; the bus sheds on Silver Lonnen; Sunset brickworks and quarry, where we played and caught newts; cycling to Ponteland to catch tiddlers. It's easy to look at it all through a golden haze of nostalgia but for the first time ever every man had a job, everybody had a roof ever their heads, clothes on their back and food in their bellies. It was a canny childhood and I wouldn't have swapped it for the world. It gave me an abiding love of me native Toon and I am still to be found at the Shrine of St James every match day after 60 years.

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