The Odeon for Saturday matinee and singing the song We come along on Saturday morning greeting everybody with a smile we come along on Saturday morning knowing its all worth while Good citizen of the Oden we all turned out to be cant remember the rest can anyone finish it off
As members of the Odeon club we all intend to be Good citizens when we grow up and champions of the free We come along on a Saturday morning greeting everybody with a smile, smile, smile. Then cheer.
Me mother still sings that! I remember watching saints and Greavesy on a Saturday dinner time then watching the latest scores coming through on teletext
rock was young, me and Suzie had so much fun... Remember the pink for match reports - crowding round the radio on the supporters bus to Consett for the 3rd round draw in the Cup Halloween was a carved turnip - none of this pumpkin malarkey White dog **** anyone?
i was a proud member of 'the chipper club'...until my teens then i had no chance of escaping 'the bumps' as my birthday was in the echo. dad carrying half the fire from the sitting room on the dustpan to get a fire going in my bedroom to warm it up, waking up and drawing in the ice on the windows. 'all in football' on the green, age, ability and sex not relevant, if you could kick a ball you were in and no fecker complained if you were sh1te we just joined in and enjoyed it. going into the school sports day knowing fine well there was no way you were going to win or even get top three, many aimed just to not come last and even if you did there was no fecker to console you, offer you a safe place and counselling after they give you an award for trying...if you were sh1t you were sh1t, you accepted it and found something you were good at. one thing i really miss and it might sound daft to many is the men going to work, the flat caps, work jeans/dungarees, donkey jacket or similar, the pimpled work boots and most important the haversack filled with bait and the days paper sticking out the back pocket...then them returning home, all around the same time, dirty, knackered and looking forward to getting their feet up but every single one of them with a proud look on thier faces cos they knew they had earned for their families.
I can remember when, if you didn't meet your mates at the first pub you'd agreed on a Friday night, you could roll around town until 2am and never bump into each other. Your entire night would be asking 'have you seen so and so' ... ... you'd follow up leads and sightings like a drunken Clouseau but they'd always give you the slip
Still remember from the 60's taking your empty bottles back to the shops getting sixpence in return never seen any glass on the streets back then. Money consisted of a thruppenny bit,tanner, happeny. Dinner tickets for school meals.
I remember: Going to Newbles in Peterlee for my school uniform Sitting upstairs on the bus and looking down that little mirror thing to see the driver 10p mix ups Getting “segs” in your school shoes Building bonfires and throwing aerosols in so the would explode The joy of being sent home from school cos the weather was bad! Bus trips to seaton Carew and flamingo land during the 6 weeks holidays Queuing at the ABC to see a film
Playing out every day in the school holidays, from the minute you got up till it was dark. Football games that started with a few of you and merged into 15 a side as other kids just joined in. Making dens in the woods or going fishing at the local quarry catching roach or perch. Mam and dad both worked full time, so were normally at work so I was what would be called a latch key kid, but so was everyone else, where as these days there would probably be all sorts of outrage. One thing I do remember vividly is dad getting a call on the house phone from work (he was director of nursing services and midwifery for the NHS where we lived) and him dashing off to work to "sort an issue". Turned out that a solider who had been injured in a bomb blast was being looked after on one of the wards, someone had made a credible bomb threat so the hospital was being evacuated bit this soldier couldn't be moved, so dad was called in to advise, he ended up sitting with the soldier in ITU keeping an eye on him while the bomb squad searched the hospital as he refused to let his nurses be in danger. Turned out it was a hoax thankfully and when I asked dad why he did it, his answer was "I would never ask anyone of my staff to do something I wouldn't do, I wasn't going to see anyone of them be at risk and the lad needed to be looked after.
The illuminated Tram. The Route and times were printed in The Echo, and us kids would be out wainting for it to slowly trundle past. We would chase after it for as long as we could, then go back home happy. When the Trams were replaced by the busses, the routine was the same. Then there was the Saturday Night delivery of The Football Echo. Queues outside the paper shop, waiting for the delivery. Along comes the sp;eeding van, back door open, and without slowing down, the papers were slung into the shop doorway, to the delight of those waiting. The day sweets came 'off ration'. The idea that you could go into a shop and BUY sweets, without any coupons seemed like a miracle.
Getting your weeks wages in a little brown square envelope with the corner missing and the notes sticking out so you could check how much was inside
I remember when everyone knew who the older local bullies were when you were a kid, and once you grew up you had a chance to give them a slap. None of this hiding behind a fake account on social media. Simpler times.
