Cover of Remember When July 2002

When Jack Sowerby mentioned St.Aubyn's to his mother she remembered it immediately and also confirmed the spelling of it which she said was in gold lettering in the fanlight above the door. The school was one of a block of about six houses on Middlesbrough Road, just past Allwrights fish shop on the corner of West Terrace.
Coincidentally, there was a photograph on the cover of the July Issue of Teesside's favourite paper Remember When showing the area. The school was in one of the houses on the near right, although only one is showing and is boarded up.
Another coincidence is that my wife's aunt lived in one of them!
Two of the school photos have the pupils posed before shrubbery. However, if you look at the area between the house and the Citizens Club, there were public toilets but I recall it being an overgrown garden with bushes and it was probably where the photos were taken.

Coatham School. Photo from Tony Marriott of Redcar.

Once the Scholarship system was adopted, Sir William Turner's Grammar School in Redcar received an influx of pupils from around the area including South Bank and Grangetown. The school was better known as Coatham school and when I first attended there were a fair number of private pupils in our class from its previous status.
I received the following e-mail from Graham Sivills, an old pupil who runs a website of the school:

"I was fascinated to come across your website. I was born and brought up in Normanby but we attended South Bank Methodist Church and I was in the cubs there before we moved to Redcar. Later moved back to Teesville where Mum was a warden for sheltered housing just next to St Andrew's RC Church. I have a website for Coatham School (Sir William Turner's) which you might put a link to as I'm sure some slaggy islanders went there (Including Paul Daniels.)
My dad played football for Southbank Primitive Methodists and told me he used to walk miles to matches. He originally came from Grangetown. Dad worked at South Bank Wharf for Dorman Long for 50 years (in the same office) as a time clerk.

Any chance of you setting up an area for the South Bank Churches. I know the Methodist Church closed its doors on August 26th last year but I may have some old pics I could scan in for you. The Settlement had been using the Main church building for a number of years and the people had been holding their services in the old Schoolroom, but they were an aging group and although financially viable, they just didn't have the able bodied people to carry on the work themselves. But I have great memories of fine people.. Marie Cholmondoley, Dolly Pepper, Babs Porteous, Margaret and Ted Kinder, Rita Fox, Harry Williamson, Mary Stirt, Frances and Norman Ford and many others. These memories encompass Sunday School concerts, Harvest Suppers and the New Years Eve Watch Night Service when all the traffic stopped, works sirens sounded and the Methodist and Anglican churches came out into the snow and joined in a big circle and sang Auld Lang Syne. OK Maybe it only happened the once when there was snow on the ground but if we are talking about nostalgia for South Bank that was it for me.
Other memories were of Remembrance day parades with the cubs and scouts, my dad taking me to visit his work on the cross bar of his bike with a cushion wrapped round it with string to add a bit of comfort, and the same mode of transport to get me a sight of Thornaby air display. Auntie Edie Bell (She wasn't really my aunt but we called her that) who ran Bell's newsagents from where I always got the Topper and the Dandy and she sent me home some toffees at Christmas.
Other memories that are not specifically South Bank but related to the 50's were fireworks towards bonfire night. The days when you could buy jumping crackers and helicopters and flying imps (too dangerous now I guess) but sticking flights onto flying imps and launching them out of tubes we had our own doodlebugs!
Oh well, better stop before I start crying into my beer.

Best Regards
Graham Sivills"