Business Name

Memories - Anonymous

The Hike Park

Always known as this due to when one person had finished on swings they had to hike the swing back up for the next person.

The Pity Cut

A shortcut at the back of Felling Station before the Nest Estate was built – called this because it was next to the old pit.

A lot more fields and farms around the area, it was not uncommon for a horse to walk into the hallway of a house because it needed water.

Everyone tended to leave their front doors open but as one lady said maybe the crime rate would still be as high but it wasn’t worth breaking in as there was nothing worth pinching.

Games We Played - Anonymous Resident

Skips
Top and Whip
Cannon
British Bulldog
Hide & Seek
Knocky Nine Door
Monty Kitty – Everyone had to leapfrog onto each other’s back and see how many people you could get on before they all fall down.

House Prices

Houses in Elliott Street were sold by the Council and the residents were given the first chance to buy them. Most could not afford this as they cost about £120.00 per house. Houses on Valley Drive area were a lot more expensive – costing nearly £800.00 to buy brand new.

Old-fashioned gas lamps in the streets where a man came around to light them and also to put them out. The children used to wrap an old rope around the top of gas lamp and make this into a swing.

Families and Community Life - Anonymous Readers at Home Resident

Families were a lot bigger in these days and what stuck in one lady’s memory was being the tenth child and never being allowed to have a cup with a handle on (she always had a broken cup) until she got married.

There was a lot more community spirit in these days and if one family were feeling the pinch other families would cook extra for them or help them out in some other way.

There was a lot more home-baked dinners etc, people make their own jams, pickles etc. Families tended to eat together.

When there was a coal delivery people had to count the sacks – everyone got 10 but often the coalman would put one on his shoulder as a bit of a fiddle.

Wash Day
All lines would be stretched across the back lanes and when the coal wagons or binmen came everyone would rush around to try and get the lines in quickly.

Stanton’s Pies
Kept you going during war.

There were customers from a wide range of schools in the area including:

St Wilfred’s
Prior Street
Nun Street

All transport was along Sunderland Road. None up the bank to Felling.

One lady remembered horse-drawn trams and paying toll over High Level Bridge.

Games Played

Skippy ropes, tops and whips, hop skotch, concerts in yards, hike park – swings.

Sunderland Road was a thriving shopping area.

Everyone knew everybody else. A good sense of community spirit.

People would lend out tea-sets for funerals etc.

Children could play safely outside for hours, only going home for meals.

Houses had no bathrooms, only tin baths or baths in kitchen under bench.

Black fire range heated water up and did cooking.

The shelf out of oven floor was wrapped in cloth and used as hot water bottle.

Squares of newspapers used as toilet roll. The midden men would empty ashes as there were no flushable toilets.

No electricity – gas lights and candles used.

Washing done in tubs and put through mangle. All whites starched, two irons used, heated on fire.

Washing hung outside and when coalman came, everyone would run out to bring washing in.

One lady remembers steaming a suet pudding in with the clothes.

Upstairs flats. Run a line from top of stairs to front door. Key on string on back of door could be reached through letterbox.

Outside toilet in back yard.

Miners came home covered in coal dust. Had tin bath on back of door, washed in scullery.

anyone know where the Millionaire Street was?

Mildred Bolton - Readers at Home Service User

The rag and bone man used to come around the streets. If you had any old clothes the man gave you a balloon or a few pennies.

He had this great big, old, shaggy horse which was called Blossom.

I went to Sunderland Road School and our class was the first class to hit the extra year which meant I was 15 when I left school.

There was infants, junior and seinor schools. After junior school the boys and girls were seperated.

Juring the 1939 war I went to be evacuated with our school to Yorkshire.

It was the first time i saw green fields with cattle on it.

It was a different life from gateshead. I remember the sound of the guns and also the time when Vickers Armstrong was bombed.

My husband also went to Sunderland Road school.

I was the youngest of 10 children there was 5 girls and 5 boys.

My mother and father held there 50th wedding anniversary at Venerable Bede Church Hall.

It was the first time when all the children and mother and father were under the same roof.

My father was a coal miner. My father also was in the navy in the 1st world war. I had 1 brother in the army and 3 brothers in the navy and my last brother was in the air force.

We used to walk along Sunderland Road to go to Gateshead High Street

We remember the picture houses – The Ritz and Empire

there was a good quality and selection of shops on Sunderland Road – Butchers, Gallons the grocers, Dodds the butchers, Meggie Watson the home baker, Suzzy Luke the undertakers, Wards the pawn-brokers.

Felling High Street had good shops too – Heslops, 3 pork shops, Myers, Dorothy’s, drapers, Shepherds, Atkinson, Wards newsagent.

Pawn shop was run by a German family Schneiders and was targeted by local people around the war years. It then became Costello. I once went with my friend on the way to school, which made us late, and when my mother found out she told me off.

We used to go to Old Sunderland Road School which was between Nile Street and Moore Street.

Tram cars ran from Heworth to Chillingham Road in Newcastle. They were wine and cream coloured and the fare only cost coppers. You could also get a workmans ticket. There was a conductor who used to hook up the line at the terminus and a points boy on the track at the end of Sunderland Road.

You used to be able to walk along Sunderland Road all the way to the Town Moor

There were plenty of pubs on Sunderland Road.

We used to go into the cemetery and pinch flowers off the graves to put on those graves that did not have any.

Our mothers were strict and if we came in late, we were kept in the next night

We used to share a washhouse in the old terraces and use poss tubs to wash the clothes and hang the washing in the yard. If it rained your neighbours would take in your washing.

I used to earn 13s & 1d at the Crisp factory in Gateshead working from 7.30 to 7.00.

I used to work in the Ropery and had to walk most days as my mother could not afford to give me the bus fare

We used to go to Hedley’s Pawn Shop on Sunderland Road and take my brothers suit on a Monday and get it back for the weekend on a Friday. There used to be a queue of women doing the same thing. My brother put a lock on his drawer to stop my mother taking his suit, but she used to slide out the top drawer and get the suit out that way.

The Rag Shop at the bottom of East street used to buy your jam jars off you

Loppy Lloyds picture house did not even have any lops.

We used to get the lads to pay us in then ditch them when we got inside.

Scaller’s picture hall was another place we used to go to

We used to play on the Bankies and I moved to Deckham from old Gateshead, and used to cross the Bankies to go to my Aunties on Jane Eyre Terrace to run messages

When my dad was drunk he used to throw my mother out and I used to go with her, but we only went as far as the gate until he calmed down.

There were bookies runners who used to dodge into our gates to hide from the police.

All Saints Junior School was on Sunderland Road

It cost a half-penny to ride on the trams then it went up to 1d

There was also a Methodist Church on Howe Street

We played on the Bankies on our sledges, My son slid down into a parked car and did not do this again

There was a school between Nile Street and King Edward Street

Sunderland Road looks much better now that the old terrace have been pulled down and the old terraces have been had their walls and railings done. They have done a lovely job of Howard Street

We used to play in the back lanes and in Sunderland Road Park as we won’t afraid to play on our own

There was a police box next to where the library is

The tap on the outside wall of the park used to be working

NEW BUILD

· Very nice
· Very small
· Very expensive
· Too close to each other
· No privacy in gardens
· Rooms very small
· Have made great improvement in area

School Project
· Very good