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It's lovely to read about Old Shields over the years, but what about West Harton? I have not read about it, so I decided to put pen to paper. After all, most of Shields people were born in West Harton Hospital.
I will start with West Harton Church of England School, not listed on friends-reunited I am sad to say. The school was part of All Saints Church; part of the old school had been a church before it became a school, including its outside toilets. The vicar would often come to teach, the classrooms were divided by sliding door which could be pushed back so that we had four classes together. Several times a year (Harvest festival, Christmas and Easter) the whole school would go to church by the cinder path (a short cut) behind the school, by the allotments and we would come out by the vicarage. Our fathers were mainly miners, dockers, seamen and railway workers, with my father being a miner. Once a year the miners would have a sports day for the miners children on the field behind Harton pit and the now John Reid road. Each child was given a goodie bag, its contents being a cake, sweets and a stick of rock. Shopping in Bolden Lane; (Fad as we knew it) with the council depot off Boldon Lane where you would report any housing repairs that needed doing. There was an old Post Office, with its lovely toy display, Goodfellow cake shop, the CO-OP, a hardware shop and Jackson the papershop with whom both my brothers had paper rounds with. There was also Fine Fare, one of the first of the supermarkets. I remember my mother getting library books from a shop, which also sold sweets by the ¼ and chocolate at the front of the shop. Then the new library was built at the other end of the Boldon Lane. I also remember buying bread in greaseproof paper with a picture of the lifeboat printed on the paper. Then the paper was recycled for my Dads bait which he took down the pit. There was also the popular pawn shop on Stoddart Street, where the women would pawn their husband's suits on Monday, until Friday, and then retrieve them for the weekend. At the top of Stanhope Road there were the trolley buses, fruit and flower shop, chip shop, china craft, chemist, White's dairy who delivered our milk and Adam baby shop. And who remembers Wright biscuit factory? .
Tyne dock railway station was another means of transport, for us it was a short train trip to High Shields to an aunt or to laygate shopping. Whilst talking of Green Lane, who remembers the old bottling factory as we knew it? (Charrington). Our neighbours (women) used to go to work there, wearing their wooden clogs that you could hear as they walked past. If you needed to phone for a doctor the factory office would do it for you for 2d (old penny's), due to the fact that nobody had phones in the early 60's. There were also the old railway cottages in green lane; two up two down, with wooden props at the end of the cottages to keep the walls up until the people were re-housed to Whitleas & Brinkburn. I remember going home from school at dinnertime. Everyday the steam train would stop the traffic at exactly 12o'clock in Green Lane; the man in his box would shut the gates to let the train go by. Looking back it was quite a busy area. Then there is the famous fish and chip shop (Ramseys!!!) in Green Lane, the old one before it was rebuilt further along but it was a lot smaller. The old one had bottle green walls and the kids used to carve holes in them to write their names on. On Good Friday the owner Mr Patterson would sell wet fish only, therefore no chips. What do today's children remember in years to come, a dying town? Copyright by Christine Balaam 2005 |
