This watercolour depicting a late-night scene in Stockton High Street was painted by Elsie Cannon in 1951, in Impressionist style. The vibrancy of the colours captures the lively, if somewhat chaotic end, to some weekend big night out with lots of different stories and emotions going on, all picked out by the bright, neon sign advertising the Blue Posts Hotel, just off stage. Whilst a small crowd jostles to get on board the last bus (the number 3, I recall, plied between Hartburn and Roseworth), other night owls are still partying and one or two characters are clearly the worse for drink! Meanwhile the young couple in the central foreground are too much in love to notice all these shenanigans and are dreamily wending their own way.
Elsie Cannon grew up in Stockton and studied at West Hartlepool College of Art where she met and befriended my mother’s sister, my Auntie Win. She became a close friend of the family and was known to us as ‘Auntie Elsie’. She lived with her parents in Linden Avenue, near Ropner Park and taught art at Richard Hind school. As well as local scenes, Elsie liked to paint landscapes, particularly of the Lake District and the Isle of Arran where she would spend her holidays, sometimes touring by bicycle. Later, she took up photography and deployed the same artistic talent in capturing scenes, characters and landscapes as expressed in her paintings.
I remember Elsie as a demure lady, in fact the archetypal ‘prim aunt’, and I cannot imagine that she could have sat with paintbrushes and easel in the middle of Stockton High Street, late at night to capture this surreal scene. But whatever her method, she certainly caught and ably recorded in this painting, something of the times.
Undated photo of a group of nurses and a patient during Christmas on the ward at Stockton and Thornaby Hospital. My mother Catherine is pictured where it is written “me”.
During the 1950s Billingham Council organised a number of carnival days, I remember several that paraded along Cotswold Crescent past my Mothers house.
This is the 1951 carnival, it may have been prompted by the Festival Of Britain that was being celebrated in London.
This picture was taken in Station Road.
This annual event was one of four different events held in Billingham during the 1950s, the other three were the ICI Sports Day held on the Synthonia Cricket pitch on Belasis Avenue, The Billingham Show, originally held in the Billingham Green area, in later years it was held in The John Whitehead Park, the last event of the year was the travelling fair that was set up on The North End Football Ground, in the early 1960s the Billingham Trade Union Club and Kennedy Garden Flats were built on the football ground and the fair went to another venue, I can’t remember where it was.
I was five years old in 1951 and may have seen this parade but I certainly remember later parades.
The early parades consisted of local people dressing up in fancy dress and walking around the town, from conversations with other people I have gleaned that the parade started on Cowpen Lane near to where the Roseberry Bridge was later built, they walked along Cowpen Lane to the junction with Belasis Avenue then along to the Picture house then into the Green and along Station Road to the Junction Estate.
The carnival parades continued into the early 1960s and started to include the newly formed Junior Jazz Bands, many people will remember these bands, over the years the bands started wearing colourful uniforms and were quite a big thing at the time.
In the early 1960s Billingham Week was introduced, this featured live music in the Town Centre as well social events such as dances in the Billingham Arms, I have two videos of Billingham Week from 1963 and 1964, they were copied from films shot by the Billingham Cine Club, they are in colour but are silent as was usual for home movies at the time.
ICI Sports Day was a brilliant day out, fairground rides, side shows as well as athletics, I have three films of the event from 1933, black and white and silent, 1946 and 1957, the latter is in colour with a narration.
The Billingham Show will be remembered by many Billingham folk, the tents with the flowers and vegetables, local retailers had displays of their wares, the model airplane club flying tethered planes, no radio control in those days, in later years there was a motorcycle stunt team and as always a beer tent, I am sure many other towns held such shows.
I have a film of one of the shows in my collection.
Billingham week was replaced by The Folklore Festival, I remember the first one held in the Town Centre and John Whitehead Park, it wasn’t international at the beginning but there was an Irish Dancing troupe from Sunderland and I saw Maddy Prior singing in the park before she became the singer with Steeleye Span.
The fair was very much the same in the1950s as any other town fair, carousels, waltzers and assorted side shows, all the kids in the area loved it, admittedly the shortage of money meant that we didn’t actually get on the rides more than once, sometimes not even once, but the atmosphere was amazing.
If anybody else remembers these events or even similar events in other towns it would be great if you could make a comment.
I can make the films mentioned available to anybody who is interested, I can upload them to Windows OneDrive where they can be downloaded, I have limited data so I can only upload a couple at a time and I have to delete them to upload others.
A photograph of the usherettes at the Globe Theatre when Cinderella was playing in December 1960 and January 1961. We only know the names of two of the usherettes; Carrie Pinnegar and Agnes Stephens. Does anyone recognise any of the the others?
Photograph and details courtesy of Barry Jones and Madge Fagan.
