The Tarry Beck

A Memory of Cargo Fleet.

I remember pulling George Thompson from the beck at high tide. The streets were Prospect Place, Customs Row, Cargo Fleet Lane, South View, Bristol Street, Dover Street, Chester Street, Cambridge Rd and one I don't remember. I lived there for the 2nd time in 60's.Friends; George Thompson, Cliff Wigglesworth, Noreen and Christine Alders, John Hood, Les Hood, Ray Clarke, Paul Mgintey, June and Paul Manders, Susan and Sharon Bainbridge, Linda and Geoff Millward and many more. We played in the beck and on the common and football on Teeside Bridge ground. Shops I remember; Dents cobblers and Simpsons both on Chester St, Crouts (an old german woman who served frozen milky ways and mars bars - she had a shop across from Lawson school. There was a shop on Cargo Fleet Lane I can't recall the name. Behind Lawson School was a pond we used to sail on, full of old tyres. My family is me, Don, Tom, Bob, Dennis, Steve, Dave, Joan and Doreen. At the top of Cargo Fleet Lane was an old chapel that was used as a garage and on the corner was the Coop, the dairies and Robinsons chippy. My mother and father (both dead now) were Tommy and Dolly Bennett. Mam's mother, my nana, lived in 14 Chester St where I was born in 1952. Her name was Helen Payne, she had 2 more daughters, Pauline who married George Chilmaid and Violet who married Syd Palmer. I went to Ladgate School in Smeaton Street and Brackenhoe School until I left in '68 and joined Wimpeys as a painter. I married Anne Symmonds of Cambridge Rd who lived with her brother Jimmy and his girlfriend. Most families used North Ormesby (doggy) market and Smeaton Street had all you needed. Cargo Fleet is now gone to make way for a roundabout, the only thing left is a part of Cambridge Rd (where McDonalds is) and a very small part of Lawson Infants. A whole community lost and scattered all over Middlesbrough. If anyone has any personal memories they want to share, my email is donb52@hotmail.co.uk