223 High Street

A Memory of Marske-By-The-Sea.

I lived with my family (Matthews) at 223 High Street from 1955 until 1963, brother David, sisters Cynthia and Jackie, parents Rene and Reg. I think my parents bought the house in 1952 as my brother was born in the back bedroom soon after. My sisters were already about 2 and 8 years old by then. We had an idyllic childhood. Very 'Enid Blyton', lots of outdoor adventures and lashings of lemonade! I remember how clean the beach was and what a great playground, especially when the tide went out. We learnt to ride our bikes on the beach. The Coupes; Barbara, Stephen and Paul, ( Mr and Mrs Coupe (Nesta and Neville, I think) and Paulina, Patricia and Clifton Wickes (can't remember the names of the parents), were the children in the street, of various ages. I went to ballet lessons in the Tithe Barn, and brother went to cubs in the scout hut behind. We all went to Sunday school somewhere in a hall behind the church up the High Street. I think my first school was opposite the church. I remember the outside toilets that got frozen over in the winter, so whatever you deposited in there just sat on the ice in the loo pan! Aaahhh those were the days. In 223 there was no central heating, Jack Frost on the 'inside' of the windows as well as the outside, no double glazing. Gas street lamps outside our house. I remember the lamp lighter coming around with his pointy ladder, leaning it up against the lamp post to light the lamp. The 'rag and bone' man, a man with a knife sharpener on a bike too. My parents bought the shop next door, in the late 50's, and the cottage behind, 221 and 221A, I think. My dad knocked a doorway from 223, into the shop, so that my mother could run it while looking after the family. I remember wonderful cold winters and sunny summers, and playing outside all the time. Was it really so wonderful? Yes, I am sure it was. A childhood that was so healthy and simple. We often holidayed in the Yorkshire Dales and every other year, we would drive over to Marske to remember, to walk the beach to Saltburn, to climb about on the cliffs, ( I am sure they used to be mountains!) Marske Saltburn and Redcar are very special places to me. I know they are not the same now as in the 50's and 60's, but there are still so many echoes of a blissful childhood that I would never grow tired of the chance to be on that beach in Marske. To smell the sea air, feel the sea fret on my face, memories of the stinging sand whipped up by a breeze to then sting bare little legs, being fried to a frazzle in the summer (when was suntan lotion invented? I don't think we ever had any! Walks and games on the beach that made our cheeks rosy and healthy all year round. Heavenly.