Some good stuff on here mind, a lot of it applying to me as well. Plus loads of people keeping pet rabbits, which would constantly escape, either into the house leaving rabbit ****e everywhere, making the women go mental as it would be them cleaning it all up, or into next door's garden making the blokes go mental when their veg garden was decimated. And blokes shovelling up horse ****e as soon as it was dropped and lugging it into their gardens, as if the absolutely giant mountain of the stuff they'd had delivered the week before wasn't enough. Getting sent to get tabs out of the machine, (located OUTSIDE some shop!) with a half crown. People walking around with a scarf around their mouths, blood dripping from it and a desperate look in their eye. Your mam tells you they've "just been to the dentist" . You decide you are NEVER going there. Looking out to see if there was ever a different car in the street, a very rare thing. Getting involved in a " scramble" when there was a wedding. Then spending anything you picked up on ket and fizzy pop. Great piles of coal being dropped onto the street outside the houses of those who worked in the pit, and it getting shared out with those who didn't. Me running around the street with mates and a ball, convinced I would eventually play for Sunderland!
I remember playing football with mates in the summer when the days lasted forever, then one by one you's would start to have a enough and go and sit behind the "goal". After a while all but one was sitting talking, the one doing keepy ups still on the grass. Before you knew it was nearly dark, cooling down and the grass would get wet with due. Off home after a while, then do it all again tomorrow.
You were lucky. We used to go to the duck pond in Mowbray Park with a bit of thread, a match for a float and a worm for bait to catch sticklebacks.
We must have been lucky our dad bought us nets for Mobray duck pond from ower the road, Burdon road where Yates is now you got a bamboo pole with a small net, then had a sit on the lions statues for photographs
I remember the Sykse's pop van and then returning the empties for 10p off the next bottle, postie's who used drive the vans with the sliding doors open. I remember the 'Icey' van coming into my street and running out with 50p and coming back with a pocket full of kets. I remember throwing a pebble off a window and absolutely legging it. I remember getting locked up for being drunk and daft for the first time (mam not impressed ).
You must have came from a family with money, we never had the nets, but I remember the shop, used to sell tropical fish. We could afford jam though and took the jars to the park to keep the fish in to take home. Don’t know why, they always died the next day.
Probably never told anyone this before. In the 50s around 6/7 years old, my two best friends were Doris and Pauline we lived in the same cul de sac. Saturday morning we went to the Gem cinema (may have paid in jamjars) On the way back, under the wooden bridge I told them show me your bums and I will show you mine. They showed me... I then ran away.
I was born in the 50's and I remember football games on the top green with umpteen a side playing until it was too dark to continue and yes you guessed jumpers for goalposts, Building bogies out of planks of wood and old pram wheels and racing them down the back streets and the grazed knees and spelks in my backside when I fell off, Cricket in the back lane using bin lids as wickets but somehow someone always had a decent bat and ball. Walking to church on a Sunday with a tanner for the collection and asking each couple we met out promenading in their Sunday best, if they could change the tanner for six pennies, they nearly always gave us the six pennies and told us to keep the tanner, then asking the next couple if they had a tanner for six pennies and the same would happen. We made a relative fortune, we couldn’t fail because the worst that could happen is they gave us six pennies and took the tanner. Happy days
Can I just say that this is one of the best threads that I've ever seen... . My best memories from the 70's are this....... Lot's of tears here mind. Lost my mam two years ago. She was born in Durham City in 1927. All she wanted to do as a child was to be a nurse.....she was the youngest of ten children. She applied to study in the world famous London's Kings College to study medicine and nursing in the 1950's Mam was accepted. Mam then qualified as a State Registered Nurse....she then worked in Kingston hospitals, nursing World War Two service men and women. As we all watch Sunday TV............yes, Mam was one of the original 'Call The Midwife' Nurses. Mam then came home from London, back to the North East and chose to work in midwifery... She moved us three kids to Seaham where she was employed as a District Nurse... Mam had no transport. Mam done her rounds on foot. Mam was adored by everyone..... Why am I sharing this with you on this thread ? When we moved to Seaham mam knew I was mad on football. After a few weeks of us moving to Seaham, mam suprised me with two tickets to Roker Park.....Mam said, : Sunderland v Middlesbrough. She said "who do we support?" Me - I will support the winners of this match mam" Bearing in mind that this was the first time I had ever been to Roker Park.....and bieng in the Roker End as part of a crowd of probably over 30,000 fans.....stood beside my mam, who doesn't really like football..... Sunderlad either won 4-0 ...or 4-1... My everlasting best memory for this thread..............is this story ! ps, on the way out of the Roker End....Ha ha ha there was an old bloke from our road, who made sure mam wasn't pushed by the crowd leaving the ground.... Thanks for this thread people ....
Remember getting smacked in infant school about 1959 was being bathed on the night my mother noticed the red marks whats this she asked , Thought I would get a bit of sympathy told her I had been smacked off the teacher. Wrong moved I got a worse smack off her
