Childhood Before Television.

A Memory of Earsdon.

I was born in 1937 but remember nothing of that year! We lived in Backworth, Northumberland where my father was the colliery engineer at the Maud & the Eccles pits. In about 1945 we moved to the village of Earsdon where I spent my early childhood. The village was on the top of a small hill and consisted of a main street and a church, St Albans, and churchyard. The village had its own primary school and a pace of life that we can only dream of today. The house we lived in had been converted from the old Town Farm and was right next door to another farm, Watson's Farm. As a kid I was able to climb over our garden wall into Watson's farmyard to play with the farmer' son Eric. I remember that the farmer's name was Tot Watson. I lived in Earsdon until I was about 13 when my parents decided to part. The years that I spent in Earsdon were the best years of my childhood and to this day I regret having been taken away from the village. My childhood was pretty much all downhill from there on. I joined the Royal Navy as soon as reached the school leaving age of 15, mainly to get away from the mess that my family had become. I was away in the Navy for over 10 years and apart from a drive through the village for a nosey in the mid 60's I never went back. With one exception, I never met anyone from my childhood after I went to sea.