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By Gerry Elmy, of Tokoroa, South Waikato, New Zealand, Underline
You stepped straight out of the only downstairs front door onto a narrow cobbled stone lane named Featherbed Lane.
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Dene Terrace
I was born in Ryhope Village, Sunderland, which used to be in County Durham but is now in somewhere called 'Tyne and Wear'.
This Medieval village was first mentioned in 930 AD. When King Athlestan gave the parish of South Wearmouth its townships Ryhope was one of two villages referred to. By about 1380 the population of Ryhope was around 150 people.
I was born in Dene Terrace in 1935 which makes me almost 66 as I write this story.
I have vivid memories of my early childhood.
Dene Terrace was a long row of red brick two-storey terraced houses. The fronts of the houses had no gardens. You stepped straight out of the only downstairs front door onto a narrow cobbled stone lane named Featherbed Lane.
The other side of the lane had a hedge with fields beyond. They were tenement houses, one family upstairs the other down. The rear of the house had two doors one with a flight of stairs which led to the upstairs flat.
Two families lived in each three roomed flat - small rooms at that. Cooking was done on the Blacklead stove with the oven to one side. Houses were provided to the miners by the National Coal Board at that time.
The house had a long concrete yard with a wash-house that had a copper boiler, a large wooden clothes tub and a heavy mangle. This had two rubber rollers close together and a large handle to turn and was used for getting the water out of the clothes before they were hung out to dry.
There were two toilets and two coal houses near the back gate which led out onto the back cobbled street.
A high brick wall divided each house in the street. Our end of the street was blocked off with a high corrugated iron fence. On the other side of this was a large garden.
There was only one way into the street. There would be about 30 houses on our side. At the end of our block there were two long air-raid shelters with iron doors.
The other side of the street was a duplicate of our side but it was much longer and had more houses.
The coal board did not own that side of the street. The front of those houses had large bay windows and a small garden in front.
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Each shift change you could hear the hob-nailed boots going down the cobbled street as the miners went to work
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Ryhope Colliery
Most of the men in the street worked down the local pit: Ryhope Colliery. My grandfather and uncle worked down the mines.
Miners' wages were above average in those days and a wagon load of coal was delivered free every month to every house.
Everyone used the back street as the main entrance to their house. Each shift change you could hear the hob-nailed boots going down the cobbled stoned street as the miners went to work carrying their Billy Cans. Some of them would also have their lamps with them.
Until the pit baths were built, the miners used to come home dirty and have a bath in a long tin bath which was put in front of the fire. Every house had a tin bath.
How I hated bath night! We had no bathrooms and no hot running water. The water had to be heated in big pans on the fireplace. The boiler behind the fireplace never seemed to work. The only sink and tap in the house was in a large cupboard in the corner of the room.
I often wonder now how we managed in those days but we did and they were happy days.
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The clothes lines were held up high with poles so that the bed sheets could blow in the wind like flags.
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Washday
Every day of the week was a special day in the street. One day would be washday and all the laundry would be slung over clothes lines from one wall of the street to the opposite wall across the back street.
The lines were held up high with poles so that the bed sheets could blow in the wind like flags.
Trying to walk up that long street was quite an ordeal with all those clothes! And our family just happened to live at the top house on the left.
Tuesday was baking day and all manner of breads were baked. Windows would be open a foot or more and fresh bread put onto the window sills to cool. There were round flat cakes of bread about an inch and a half thick and a foot or more across. The smell was out of this world!
The milkman came on horse and cart with his large milk urns on the back of the cart. Other bakery items, meat and groceries were delivered by horse drawn vehicles at various times of the week. You could set your watch by them. They were always on time.
Most came from the Ryhope Industrial and Provident Society. Known to everyone as 'The Store' it could provide everything from a candle to a coffin.
I also liked the rag and bone man with his horse and cart. He would take anything: Old bikes, scrap metal, old clothes. He would give us kids a balloon on a stick and we loved it.
One lady well known in the Sunderland area would come with a bundle of clothes and shoes which she carried in a bundle on her head.
Some of you may remember her: Everyone called her Mrs Moor Jinny. She would take over one of the wash-houses in the street and set the items up on a bench like a shop.
The women of the street would all gather to buy the cheap secondhand clothes and shoes. I was told the lady died a wealthy woman which I can well believe. She came to those streets for years.
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After the lamplighter went, us kids would shin up the poles and turn the lights down low. It was better playing hide and seek in the darkened street!
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Street games
I spent many happy hours playing in the back street as a child. There was tiggy, hop-scotch, top spinning and marbles - all manner of games. There would be many of us kids playing at one time.
In the dark nights the street would be lit up by three gas lamps on one side of the street. It would be dark at around 4pm in winter. The lamplighter would arrive on his bicycle carrying his long pole for putting the lamps on. After he went us kids would shin up the poles and turn the lights down low. It was better for playing hide and seek in the darkened street!
We would often get into trouble from people in the street for turning the lamps down Miners would shout at us with shaking fists. We kids thought it was great fun! But we knew we would never get touched. Doors were never locked in those days. Everyone was helpful to each other. Kids were safe on the street.
Like a lot of kids, I liked it when the ice-cream man came into the street blowing his whistle. He would arrive on a bike with a freeze box on the front. He sold slabs of Walls ice-cream wrapped in cardboard and ice lollies in many shapes and forms. The kids loved them.
My mother would send me down to the local shops at the bottom of the street. One was a sweet shop which also sold many other items. I would get a packet of broken biscuits for a penny - quite a large packet!
By the time I walked all the way to the top of our street I would have eaten all the best cream ones! I would always get told off from the rest of the family.
I remember the flats were very overcrowded. My father and one of my uncles were away in the Royal Marines. Another uncle was in the Guards and was later to die in the war.
My grandfather, grandmother, mother, two aunties and an unmarried uncle all lived in a three roomed flat - with me, of course!
Grandmother was a large woman who always slept in her big chair. The house was lit by gas lamps. Food was simple but substantial. We made our own entertainment. If you had any problems the whole street would rally round to help.
As a lad if you did anything really wrong you could expect a good clip around the ear off the local Bobby if he came to your house. Our family used to get along very well. Everyone did their bit. Even me!
I remember starting my first school at five years old. It was the former village chapel school built in 1826-27. It was built from stone which was brought from the local beach by farmers, each giving a days work in turn until it was complete. It had a small burial ground behind.
From that school I moved up to the Ryhope Church of England school just 200 yards along the road from the village chapel school. But that was later - after the war.
The Church of England, opposite St Pauls Church, was built in1898. All my family belonged to St Pauls Church where myself and our three children, my father and many of my mother's relatives were christened. I still have some of the christening certificates.
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I used to sit with the warden in the doorway of the air-raid shelter counting the bombs as they fell while the people behind us in the shelter sang songs.
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The War
In 1939 World War Two broke out. My father was in the Marines down south and my mother decided she wanted to keep our family together. So I was taken from the village school and off we went down to the south of England to live near the barracks where he was stationed.
My aunty accompanied us to be with her husband as well. The first place we lived in was Portsmouth - a bad move on our part. We went into rented accommodation. My mother had an allowance from the Army and to make ends meet she and my aunty would sew sailors' collars to be attached to Naval uniforms. I always remember the sailors' collars stacked up around the house.
Houses were easy to get. Everyone had moved to other parts of England to get away from the very bad bombing which we received. I remember the bombing like it was yesterday. Very frightening. We had to move three times. Every time our house was hit very badly. Luckily, we were always in the shelters at the time.
Looking out of the door of the shelter you could actually see the bombs falling; dark shapes against the night sky. I used to sit with the warden in the doorway of the shelter counting the bombs as they fell while the people behind us in the shelter sang songs. You could hear the whistle of the bombs as they dropped. I am sure this will jog many a memory for those of you who went through it.
On returning to our home after hours in the shelter we found our street had been hit a number of times right up the middle. On entering our front door - or rather the nice hole where it used to be! - we found the rear of the house was a shambles. The kitchen cooker was right up the garden.
It had been a nice house. Semi detached, red brick, bay windows. There was a shop over the road and its front windows had gone. Everything inside seemed to be scattered all over the street. I remember picking up a toy tank from the pavement. I had that tank for a long time . . .
During the day I watched formations of American and British bombers going out to bomb Germany. I saw dog fights in a sky covered with vapour trails from the Spitfires and German fighters.
Our area was covered in Barrage Balloons. I remember my mother and aunty running up the street with me in tow, with bombs falling all around, heading for the nearest air-raid shelter. We had just left a cinema which had been hit by incendiary bombs.
At 66 years of age I am often told by older people that I was not old enough to be a soldier in the war. That is true, but I can always say I had my share of action - and I had nothing to fight back with like a soldier.
And, like me and lots of other people who went through the war, we never received any medals to say that we had been in action!!!
I often forget where I put my glasses now, but I will never forget some of the things I saw during the war years.
I lost an aunty and an uncle in one week to the war.
We moved to other places in the south of England, including parts of London, where again we were involved in the heavy bombing. By this time my father and uncle had gone overseas. My mother would not evacuate me. At that time I was an only child and she wanted to make sure I stayed with her.
It was three years before we saw my father and uncle again. They were in the same unit. Funny enough later in my life in the early fifties I was in the Royal Air Force and Germany was my posting. I later joined the Army Voluntary Reserve, but that's another story!
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I never liked the school lunches so instead I used to go to the council workers' canteen close to the school!
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School dinners and piano lessons
My father was demobbed as soon as the war was over. We ended up back in Ryhope Village and my father, mother and I moved into small Rose Cottage in Cliff Road, next door to Florence Cottage.
Our house had a red tiled roof and was built in the 19th century. We rented it from my great uncle Mark who lived next door in another small cottage.
We lived there for a number of years. I loved that little house. I went to the Ryhope Church of England school first, then moved up to the Nelson Street School which was built in 1909.
I remember the large field beside the school called the 'rhubarb field'. It is now occupied by the telephone exchange and Presto car park.
I remember being in a class of 32 pupils. Boys at one side of the school, girls at the other. I never liked the school lunches so I used to go to the council workers canteen which was close to the school. We had an hour for lunch and I would get there just after noon. I would hand over my coloured disks which I had bought before 9am the same day and I would be given a real nice dinner plus a pudding. Sixpence for the dinner, threepence for the pudding.
Man it was good! I did this about three times per week, if my mother could afford it. School dinners were not much cheaper. It was a good school and I liked it. I had many friends at that school. Us kids played a lot around the Ryhope area. Many times we would play on the 'Duff Heaps' as we called them. This was waste coal dust stacked in heaps alongside the railway lines which lead right up to the coal mine.
It was a dangerous place to play but us kids did not seem to care much. We didn't realise the danger. Not until we were much older. To us it was an adventure.
We managed to have a piano in our small cottage. Other kids in our street were going to piano lessons 'to a teacher at the bottom of our street'. My mother thought I should learn as well so I was packed off to learn the piano.
At that time there were many kids in our road. When all the kids were out playing I used to get called to collect my books to go to piano lessons. I hated it! I especially hated it when I received a ruler over the knuckles for making a mistake while listening to the lads up the street playing cricket.
This happened many times but now I thank my mother for making me go. I still play the piano and electric organ to this day.
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On arrival at Ryhope station, the pit band would form and play all the way to the top of Ryhope Street, stopping at each pub along the way for their free drink!
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High days and holidays
I loved Christmas time. We always had a good Christmas. I had many young friends and we lads would go out to the local dances or the cinema - The Grand or the Hippodrome at Silksworth, the next village up from us.
The lads would call for me and sometimes in our little cottage there would be at least eight to ten young lads. I used to play carols on the piano and the lads would all sing. You wouldn't get that nowadays! We made our own entertainment most of the time.
Life was very much slower in those days. There were very few cars on the road. My father and mother owned a 1930-something car. An old banger I used to call it then - but I wish I had it now!
There was a little church hall at the top of our street where there would often be a small dance at weekends. That's where I learned to do my dancing: The quickstep, foxtrot, even the barn dance and many other old time dances. I was often partnered by an older person but I sure learned to dance.
As I got older I moved up to the bigger Ryhope Secondary Modern. This was quite a big school. I was to carry on at this school until I finished my schooling then went to the Sunderland College of Art.
I have many happy and not so happy memories of the Ryhope Modern School as it was known. I was getting older and I had a good circle of friends. I was into cycling and went away to the youth hostels at weekends. I did a lot of camping during the summer, mostly at Finchale Priory in the countryside near Durham City. It was a beautiful place.
My friends and I had many happy weekends camping there. We would spend a lot of time helping the local farmer get the hay in. Hard work but we loved it and we got pocket money for doing it and were allowed to camp for free.
During my school years I always seemed to be doing something after school hours: Swimming at Newcastle Road baths during week nights, the local cinema, camping or cycling at weekends. We kids always had something to do. As I said before, we made our own entertainment.
I remember the Durham Miners Gala day every year. A special train was put on for that day. It ran from one of the two stations at the bottom of Ryhope Village.
The miners would march the whole length of the village from the top of Ryhope Street right down to the station at the bottom of the old village. They marched proudly carrying their large banner.
They would leave early morning and return early evening. On arrival at Ryhope station the band would form and play all the way back to the top of Ryhope Street again stopping at each pub, inn and tavern along the way for a free drink at each one! They would arrive back at their Lodge very merry by the time they finished! It was always a good day for the families who went with them.
Well I could probably carry on with this story for a long time, but I think I have given a fair account of my childhood. I enjoyed every bit of it. I have been in New Zealand for 27 Years now but I still consider myself a Geordie. I have never lost my accent or ever want to.
I am proud to be a Geordie. In my book if you were born anywhere in the North East of England, then you are a Geordie through and through!
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Find out more about Gerry
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formerly of Ryhope, Sunderland
Copyright (c) 2000-2001 Sue Kelly. Tastes of Home