Welcome to Memories and Stories
Chapter One. My Early Days.
Chapter Two. The 1940's
Chapter Three. British Boys For British Farms
Chapter Four. National Service
Chapter Five. Wilton Driver
Chapter Six. Meeting Doreen.
Chapter Seven. Local Shunter.
Chapter Eight , Working as a Coach Driver
Chapter Nine. Holidays.
Chapter Ten. Health Warning
Chapter Eleven Rationalisation
Chapter twelve. Incidents or Accidents.?
Chapter Thirteen. Terminal Closure.
Chapter Fourteen. Our Move To Gloucestershire.
Chapter Fifteen. Concord.
Chapter Sixteen. Finally
Message Board
Guestbook
Mail Form
|
My early days
 As I cast my thoughts back the earliest I can recall is from about the age of four. It was prewar (World War 2) days and I'd been given a small tin-plated toy as a present to mark the Coronation, it was a silver racing car and had a small Union Jack motif across the bonnet. I remember the jagged edges on the sides of the car where the two pieces of metal had been pressed together to make its shape.I can recall sitting on a grassy bank close to the Brambles Farm school and releasing the car then running to collect it. I remember wondering what was a Coronation?
Our house was number 7 Marshall Avenue, on the Brambles Farm Estate, a new area on the outskirts of Middlesbrough in Yorkshire, the largest county in the country. Middlesbrough only came into existence in 1830 when the land was purchased by a group of five Quakers.
|
Middlesbrough,s Centenary
 | This certificate was presented to my brother Ronnie at Lawson Junior School in Cargo Fleet in 1931 to commemorate Middlesbrough’s Centenary.
|
|
The Authority.
The authority established a new port for the shipment of coal mined in the southern districts of County Durham. There were vast amounts of coal in County Durham on the opposite side of the river Tees and that provided a constant supply of energy for the blast furnaces at the iron and steel works, to make pig iron. Mineral iron ore was also discovered in the nearby Cleveland hills. The pig iron was made into ingots for the steel plants then processed into steel, reheated, rolled and pressed into steel girders to be used for bridge building or made into sheet metal of various thicknesses. This was used in ship building or very thin plate used for making metal cans etc.
|
Middlesbrough Transporter .
 | | Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge over the River Tees. |
|
Middlesbrough.
Middlesbrough was famous for its iron and steel, you can go to many parts of the world and see “Made in Middlesbrough” stamped on bridge girders the most famous being the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. Labour for the steel works came from many different areas of the country and from abroad. In the public houses you could hear many foreign dialects of the men who had moved into the district to earn a living. The downside to this influx of workers was the housing problem. Back-to-back street houses were built with an alleyway running behind them where the coal man and refuse workers gained access. The toilet was in the yard, at first just an earth closet or midden, it was emptied through a hole in the wall. Eventually these were updated to water toilets attached to the drains and refuse could be flushed away. These often froze in cold winters causing the pipes to burst. Most folk had no indoor toilet or hot running water for a bath, only an old tin bath that was filled with hot water and used in front of the fire.
The children who lived close to the steel works in Middlesbrough, Cargo Fleet, South Bank and Grangetown often had a grey pallor about their faces due to the polluted, gritty, smoky, sooty atmosphere that always hung over the area, not a very pleasant place to bring up children. The Brambles Farm Estate was built to house the town's increasing population because of the expanding steel and chemical industries.
Our house was a three bedroomed terraced property with a garden front and back. It housed eleven of us. Overcrowded? The present day generation find it hard to understand the conditions of that time. There was Edna, Ronnie, Emily, Lena, Hilda though she went to live with Aunt Hilda, not a real aunt but Hilda Murtha. I believe our Hilda went to live with her because of the overcrowding. After Hilda was Betty then me and Margaret, Olga and Sylvia, plus Mam and Dad whose names were Eleanor and George. Imagine enough members for a football team all living in a three bedroomed house. Pauline the eleventh member came along later. There was no birth control here. I cannot remember any friction between us although there must have been disagreements from time to time.
Sadness! Yes, especially at the loss of Margaret Rose, instead of the chatter of youngsters, the older members of the family were talking in whispers. They had tears in their eyes and Mam picked me up and carried me to the corner of the room and as I recollect, in what looked like a lovely new cradle covered in silk and lace lay Margaret. She lay so quietly. Why? Mam tried to explain to me that Margaret had gone to be with Jesus. “Where?” I asked. “Jesus has taken her to heaven” she said. I couldn't understand, how could she have been taken anywhere when she was still asleep in the corner of the room. “She's gone to heaven in the sky” Mam cried, “she's gone to be an angel”. I didn't see Margaret again, I would look up towards the sky hoping that maybe sometime I would catch a glimpse of her.
You may well wonder where we all slept. As youngsters we slept top to toe, some at the top of the bed and the others at the bottom, quite a sight really.
|
Meet The Family
 My Father George William with one of his brothers.
I would like to put a name to the the other person, all I can say is he lived in North Ormesby . |
1914/1918 Uniform.
My Father in military uniform during his service in the 1914/1918 war. |
Cargo Fleet.
 | My father with customers of the Crown Public House in Cargo Fleet . It was also known as the Ruin. The pub was closs to the railway crossing near Normanby Steel works. very often workers called in for a quick pint of beer or two to slake their thirst after a hard shift working on and around the blast furnace.
My father is the one on the front row holding the bottle. |
|
Dad worked at Cargo Fleet.
Dad was a man who enjoyed life, a gardening man, he revelled in a game of football playing for Cargo Fleet. A happy man always singing or whistling the songs of those bygone times and of course he enjoyed a pint of beer with the lads. Dad also enjoyed dancing, I have heard stories that at times he was cajoled into tap dancing on the table tops in the Brambles Farm Hotel. Yet he was very quiet.One of most regular sayings when tellig a story after a pint or two was. I am not jesting or joking.
Most of his time at home when not gardening down the allotment, was taken up cobbling the families boots and shoes.He bought large pieces of thick stiff leather, and with the aid of different sized lasts (A last was a piece of metal.simular shape to the footwear to be cobbled the boot or shoe was fitted over, it acted as a firm base on which to do the hammering). He spent hours cutting and shaping the leather to affect the repairs. After sole and heeling my boots, a metal toe and heel cap was tacked into position followed by large metal studs hammered into the soles to try to make the repair last longer.
Dad was not a greedy father even during the days of food rationing, If bacon was on the menu even though it only a small portion he would always see that we kids had a taste.Aye and having a number of children around him, At times we would annoy him. He would raise his hand to us youngsters, but I cannot remember a time when he hit us in anger.
Dad had always wanted a garden and here we had a garden on three sides of the house with open countryside and views looking across to Eston Hills about four miles away. I remember it was a box van drawn by a horse that was used to move us, I think it was red or maybe green, I vaguely remember the horse grazing near Brambles Farm Institute when the removal men stopped work to eat their lunches. We didn't have much furniture in fact very little but Dad like a lot of other men was quite handy with his tools and he made various articles of furniture to help fill the bedrooms. He used tea chests and other pieces of wood to make dressing tables and things, then varnished them with a dark stain. It looked practical enough but when the doors were opened there were no inner shelves to store things, however, we found them ideal places to play hide and seek in. We had a large mat in the living room made from coconut fibre and the surrounding floorboards were stained dark brown. Upstairs the boards were scrubbed white every week with carbolic soap as there was no floor covering. There was no such thing as a tablecloth, sheets of newspaper were laid across the table and discarded when dirty and later a material known as oilcloth was used. It was like a painted pattern with a cloth base and could be wiped clean. I know we were very hard-up in those days but then most families were in the same boat. Then came the war.
[Size7 Dad Worked At Cargo Fleet]
Dad worked on the riverside as a stevedore, his job entailed loading and unloading ships cargo. On early turn, from 6 am. to 2 pm. he would get up at 4 am and walk two or three miles to the Dock Office. There a ‘gang’ or gathering of men seeking employment formed what was known as a pool of labour. They were often told that the ship had not arrived in the river and that there was no work for them at that time, the Company Representative would stamp their registration card to indicate that they had made themselves available for work. On returning home Dad would tell Mam that he'd been duck-egged, this being the colour and shape of the company stamp. There were times when he would return to work at 10 am. and work just half a shift. During the late morning, before the afternoon shift he would look across to the Smith’s Dock Shipyard and if the luffing cranes at Eston Jetty next to the shipyard had their top sections at a certain angle it indicated that there was work there. They would be off-loading an iron ore vessel and although he was registered at Cargo Fleet sometimes he'd get work at Eston Jetty or Redcar Jetty. This work was very labour intensive, a team of men would climb into the hold of the ship and shovel the iron ore into tubs, a crane would lift out the full tub and replace it with an empty one, the red dust off the iron ore would be blowing everywhere and this would go on until the hold was empty. It was akin to hard labour and yet these dockers used to fight for the work. My brother Ron followed in my Father’s footsteps and to this day I cannot understood why, If ever I suggested that I'd be interested in getting a job on the river Dad and Ron were both totally against it. Were they both safeguarding me or just jealously guarding their own jobs?
|
My Mother
 My mother Eleanor as I remember her was a very reserved lady who would go out of her way to help anyone with a problem.She must have had a very hard time bringing the family up with all the problems of feeding and clothing a large family . With little or no food in the pantry. The odd rabbit from Mr Harrison who lived a few doors away.There was always a jar of jam or two made from blackberries and things that dad grew in the allotment. Mam was an excellent cook.One of her specialities was home made bread or fadges as we called them, Fadges, today’s name for them is bread buns. Bread fadges straight from the hot oven with a smear of butter coated with Golden syrup. We thought we were in heaven. During the war mam like a lot of other mothers worked at the ammunition factory in Aycliffe, which was some thirty miles away. It was known as working for the war effort.I will allways remember she made a small aeroplane of wax and brought it home. |
Mam with Children
 | | Here is a picture of my mother with the first four of her children. Mam is holding Hilda with Ronald sitting on her left Edna is standing beside Ronald and Emily is on mams right hand side. The picture was taken around 1929. |
|
Mother with more children
 Here is a second picture of my mother taken on the doorstep of 7 Marshall Avenue in Brambles Farm around 1938. Mam is holding onto Olga. Betty is on her left. |
Mother and Neighbour
 | | My mother on a shopping trip with Mrs Smith, who lived in number nine Marshall Avenue. Mrs Smith died shortly after this picture was taken leaving 5 children Donald, Herbert, Dennis,and Barbara. The authorities took the boys away . My question is were the lads amonst the youngsters that were sent of to live in other countries. Many of those children had a very hard time and badly treated.. |
|
Sister Edna
 Edna as a young girl went to Derwent Street School in North Ormesby. Middlesbrough.Then onto Lawson School.
|
Edna
 Edna my oldest sister after having a baby at the age of twenty three, when mam died took on the responsibility of taking care of the rest of the family. She married Arthur Allport when he returned from the war, after serving a number of years as a prisoner of war in Germany. Edna was one of the very few that could turn her hand to anything taking in her stride the care of four of us plus DAD and her own baby Ann.She excelled at cooking and baking which she taught the rest of the family to do, for our futures I for one have never regretted being taught how to cook the families meals, along with the odd cake or two.A nice chocolate cake was the favourite cake for our two lads. Needle work, Edna made dresses and clothes for the girls, and trousers for me. Embroidery and china painting were among many of her talents.
|
Sister Emily.
| My sister Emily as a young girl. |  |
|
Emily
 Emily’s boy friend Leslie Crouse, lived up the avenue a few doors from us. Leslie went into the army, they intended to marry, when he returned from the service, but one night on her return home from an evening out, she collapsed and died. I have never found out the reason for her death.
|
Brother Ronald.
 As a young lad Ron liked sport especially football. He went to Smeaton street School in North Ormesby. Then onto Lawson School in Cargo Fleet.
He was in the Boys Brigade . The Boys brigade held meetings for young lads in a large hall at the bottom of North Ormesby High Street. Each Sunday morning the boys marched through North Ormesby along with their band of musicians.
At the age of 18 years Ronny was called up to serve in the Royal Navy.
|
Ron At HMS Collingwood
| Ron joined the navy in October 1943 and trained at HMS Collingwood. |  |
|
HMS Vestal
 Ron while serving on a minesweeper out in the Far East His ship was attacked by Japanese planes. The Ship HMS Vestal was sank.
VESTAL, Minesweeper (940t, 10/9/43) Sunk by aircraft, off Puket, Siam (Thailand), 45/07/26 |
HMS Squirrel.
 | Later a ship named HMS Squirrel Ron was also serving on hit a mine and was also sank.
Thailand, SE Asia Landing Support - In East lndies Fleet operations against the Phuket Island area off the west coast of southern Thailand, including mine clearance, fleet minesweeper "SQUIRREL" is mined and sunk on the 24th. Two days later on the 26th, kamikaze aircraft attack for the first and last time in the Indian Ocean theatre. Fleet minesweeper "VESTAL" is hit and scuttled. Heavy cruiser "Sussex" is very slightly damaged by a near miss. These are the last major Royal Navy warship casualties of the War
SQUIRREL, Minesweeper (940t, 16/8/44) Damaged by mine off Puket, Siam (Thailand). Sunk by own forces, 45/07/24
|
|
Ron and Mildred
 Our Ron after he returned from the Navy , Met and married a lass called Mildred Corner, Mildred had lived with her mother and brothers on Marton Road Middlesbrough. Ron and Mildred later had two girls. Linda and Susan. |
Hilda
 Hilda was mams fourth child.She went to live with Hilda Murtha and Dick Armstrong down in Cargo Fleet. They were very good friends of mam and dad. Why did our Hilda go to live with them. Thats a question I would like answering. Was it because of overcrowding? Was it because hilda Murtha and dick Armstrong could not have children?. were children often given away? Beats me.
On the other hand our Hilda was well cared for
dick owned a very large allotment on South Bank road opposite the Chapel. and old Hilda had a butchers shop in the old toll house in Cargo Fleet.
The picture is of our Hilda on her wedding day to a chap out of the RAF Ron Butress. |
Lena
I am afraid there is no picture of Lena.as a young girl Lena was often poorly and spent a lot of time in West Lane hospital Middlesbrough suffering with the dreaded TB Lena died at home in her early teens. |
Elizabeth (Betty)
 Schooling days for Betty started when Brambles Farm School infants was first built. Then the junior classes and the onto Lawson Girls school at Cargo Fleet.
Betty later married Raymond Craster in 1953. |
Betty
 Betty on her wedding to Raymond Craster |
George
 I was the seventh child of George W & Eleanor Spenceley.Born in 1934. Schools I attended was Brambles Farm Infants, and Junior Schools.
At the age of eleven years after failing my eleven plus.The senior school I went to was Lawson Senior Boys school in Cargo Fleet. I left School at fifteen years of age, and started a career in farming under a scheme run by the YMCA/ British Boys For British farms. |
Margaret
Sadly there is no picture of Margaret who died
in her infancy . |
Olga
 Olga was born three years after me.
I think Olga and I were always closest as brother and sister and still are. As youngsters we went on errands together and often played together usually when one was in trouble the other one was very close by.
|
Sylvia
 It was while I was in the army. Sylvia also left home and found work at Loughborough University. and Brush enginering as a blue print tracer. It was there she met and married Derek Guess. Times seemed hard for her,she was expecting a child . Silvia and Derek Came home to live with us. |
Pauline
 Here is our Pauline as a young lass on a Sunday visit to Millbrook to see the family. |
Pauline
 Pauline on holiday. |
Ann
 Ann on her wedding day to Bill Thomas.
|
Friends in Marshall Avenue
Our neighbours were very friendly and most of our relatives lived within a mile of us. The nearest being Aunt Jinny and Uncle Jack Spenceley who lived two doors away. Across the road lived Aunt Nellie and Uncle Ben Chillmaid, the Robinsons, Smiths and Trainers were all very close, Aunt Ethel, Aunt Kitty and Uncle Edgar all lived in Pallister Avenue and Aunt Becky lived in Turford Avenue but we didn’t seem to bother with them. I mustn't forget Mr and Mrs. Raine for they were very kind but much better off than us. They were one of the very few families that I knew who owned a car. I remember as a tot crossing the road to Mrs.Raine’s where I would receive a bag of goodies (sweets). At home every Sunday morning we all got a treat, two or three sweets mainly candy fish that tasted like pear drops, they would be left in our places on the table in the living room.
We always looked forward to a wedding, well not for the wedding itself, weddings were girls things, but for when the bride and groom returned from church, it was the custom that they would throw handfuls of pennies from the front bedroom window to the children waiting outside, there'd be such a scramble for the money.
|
Greener Pastures
Our home in Marshall Avenue was far too small for such a large family as ours so it was about 1939 when we moved to a new larger house on the same estate. 89 Millbrook Avenue. It was a four bedroomed terrace house with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The bathroom had a bath and hand basin but no loo. Downstairs there was a hall, large living room, kitchen and fourth bedroom. The loo was in a separate washhouse with the coalhouse attached.
Do you not think it strange how looking back on your younger days you can remember most of the names of the families that lived in you street or avenue. But in modern times it is often difficult to know the name of the family next door.
On the Brambles farm estate in Middlesbrough. Millbrook Avenue had many four bedroomed homes and I can still remember most names living there in the 1930's40's and 50's. Names like Coverdale,Gallager,Harrison, Sinclare, Mason. Boon. Crouse , Taylor's, Hills, Baines, and Peate's, Lynas, Power's, Graham's. And many more they all had large family homes. We all stopped to talk when we met in the avenue.
Everyone came outside to listen to arguments about kids fighting and mothers giving vent to their feelings.
Then on the Saturday night after the pubs closed. Fathers returning home with very little money left from the wages the had collected on that day and overspending in the pub on the way home. That was the time when real arguments started between husband and wife. Were they really good days?
|
My Chores
Being a boy in a large family of mainly girls I often had to run errands for groceries to Peters Store on Cargo Fleet Lane. It was a general store selling all sorts of things, groceries, fruit and vegetables, cures for different ailments such as coughs and colds, to a packet of safety pins for the baby’s nappy. Take Olga and Sylvia with you I’d be told. I'd be about nine, Olga would be six and Sylvia four. The shop was about a mile from home and when we arrived I'd hand over a note to Mr. Brough, he'd make up the order and pass the goods back to me, I'd have to ask him to put it on the bill and Dad would pay it in full when he got his money on the Saturday. The shopping was very heavy to carry and the string handles on the carrier bags used to cut into our fingers. I would carry two bags, Olga one and poor little Sylvia, she was so small she often found it difficult to walk back home, many times when she was very tired I'd end up giving her a piggy back.
|
Hintons Flour
I was about eight or nine when for some reason dad volunteered for me to go a message for Mr. Brough, I was to go with another lad who was a few years older than me. We had to take Dad’s wheelbarrow to Hinton’s grocery warehouse over the border in Middlesbrough, collect 1 cwt. of flour, made up in two pound paper bags and return with it to Peters store. I got up very early that morning and set off to meet the other lad. He didn’t seem at all interested in the errand, “Eh” he said, “Its your Dad’s barrow so you can push it”. I said, “OK but you'll have to help me push it on the way back”. He just grunted and walked along beside me, we went under the bridge at the station and on to Bridge Street and stopped outside the Hinton's warehouse. He banged on the door and a thin faced chap opened it. I handed him the note, he looked at us and then at the barrow and mumbled something under his breath, he turned and went back inside. A few minutes later he returned with another fellow who also looked at the barrow and shook his head then spoke in a sympathetic voice, “Mr. Brough doesn’t realize what a problem he's given you two lads”. We loaded the barrow which was quite deep but it was soon overflowing. The chap turned to the other lad and said, “Here, you're the biggest you take the handles and push”. The barrow didn’t need any pushing as the direction we were heading was down hill and as soon as he picked up the handles we were off. I was trying to steady the barrow and stop the bags from falling off but within about fifty yards he hit an uneven paving stone that jarred his hands and he let go. The front end of the barrow dug into the soft ground sending me flying headlong on to the wet pavement, a number of bags burst scattering flour all around. The other lad started shouting at me in a fit of temper as I tried to replace the unbroken bags that had fallen off. “Here its your............. barrow” he shouted, “you push the..........thing”. I took hold of the handles and I'm sure my arms stretched a couple of inches with the weight. It wasn’t long before the barrow tipped over again and the other lad burst into tears of frustration and threatened to go home and leave me to manage myself. It took us many hours to get back to Peters store only to receive a good telling off for damaging so many bags.
|
Paper lad at Seamans Newagents
I started work at Seamans the newsagents delivering papers, a few on a morning but the bulk at tea time after school. The papers would arrive at the shop, the shopman counted them out into different rounds for each of us lads to deliver, we were each given a piece of card with the names, roads and numbers of the houses that had to have a paper. A straight forward job you would think and most days that was so but on occasions Olga and Sylvia wanted to go with me, then things did go wrong. We'd get to the last close of prefabricated houses and find that we were a couple of papers short, it would be too late to go back for more as the shop would be closed. The following morning there would be an inquest into why I was short and what had I done with them? The reason was quite simple either I'd taken the wrong number out or one of us had delivered a paper into the wrong house. I always got the ticking off whoever’s fault it was.
|
Slaggy Island Coke Ovens
 | The above picture was used with the use of FREE PHOTO .COM
During the war,Heating a four-bedroomed house was a real problem, apart from the cost coal which was in very short supply. Sometimes Dad would take a push bike and go to collect sea coal that had been washed up on the beach, at other times he'd have to buy it. The sea coal was black but very fine like sand and it had to be packed into small bags made of newspaper before it was put on to the hot coals of the fire. As it got hot it would congeal and so burn, if it failed to do this then the bags would burst and their contents would spill through the grate into the ashes and be wasted. Coke was an alternative to coal but most of the goodness had already been taken out of it to make household gas.
On a Saturday morning the gas works at South Bank would sell coke to the general public. for about five bob a cwt, We had set off early with the intention of beating the queue of other people wanting the coke, but no-matter when we got there others would be already waiting. Imagine up to two hundred people all with some means to transport a hundredweight of coke back to their homes, there would be wheel barrows, bikes, bogeys, prams, push chairs and handcarts, anything with wheels.
The folk in the queue would be shuffling their feet and blowing on their hands, slapping their arms around their bodies trying to get the blood to circulate some warmth, particularly into their fingers, it was always bitterly cold. At half past seven the gates would open and the crowds would rush in, this often caused squabbles about queue jumping. As we waited our turn we'd watch what was going on around us, the smoke seeping from the sides of the coke ovens created colours ranging from a dirty yellow through various shades of grey to black, the smell was like rotten eggs being sulphurous. The coke was made from fine coal that was poured into the top of the ovens, there it was sealed to exclude as much air as possible and after heating would pass out by-products such as gas, tar and liquids for bensole etc. At various intervals a large metal railway wagon would pass along the side of the battery of ovens, a long narrow door would open and the red hot coke from the sides of the oven would pour out breaking up as it hit the vehicles, it sent out a blast of searing hot air towards where we stood. The heat soon disappeared as the wagon was shunted under a very large sprinkler to cool the coke, this in turn sent clouds of steam and particles of grit flying across to the waiting crowd.
That set of another round of complaints. One of the most annoying times would be after waiting for two or three hours and reaching the front of the queue we'd find they'd run out and we'd have to wait for the next batch. The red hot coke coming from the ovens always had to be douched with cold water before it could be sold it was so hot. What a relief it was when we'd got the coke on the barrow and we'd be heading for home, with a bit of luck this would give us heat for another week. Once home it was my job to break the large lumps into small manageable pieces for the fire.
Take a look at my next chapter. The 1940's .
|
|
This page has been visited  times. |
