The Gassy Gutter

A Memory of Washington.

Does anyone else remember the gassy gutter as we called it at Coxgreen? I still remember the lunatics sliding down it into the River Wear. This is before the footbridge was built and there was just a rowboat ferry there, it was actually the outlet for the effluent from the Washington Chemicle Co and I dread to think what was in it. We also used to play on the "space ships" (old storage tanks etc) on top of the "black mountains" . There was Stan and his wife in the long pull as we called it our favourite sweetie shop and Bob Witherspoon in Ken Pyles motorbike shop which started my passion for motorbikes which endures to this day. Brady Square was a different world then with adventure playgrounds all around, Bluebell wood and the waterside,the denes and woods behind Harpers stores and the pond and claypits and brickworks between the prefabs and calders and Usworth Aerodrome and camp.