My old boss at Robsons Motorcycles on Bridge Road lived in the flat exactly opposite the Metropole Hotel on Bridge Road and when his ulcer keep him sleepless, he’d stand in the bay window, looking up toward the High Street and said he often saw dark swarms of rats moving across the quiet street at Barry’s Corner
My last comments on this particular subject was in 2005. Now 16th January 2019 I am now 90 years of age and was at school with Tom Sawyer in Class 4B at Holy Trinity School. I was a Norton lad and travelled every day to school in Stockton on the bus. They were happy days, sometimes we would be allowed to be bell boys on the bus (not really allowed – it depended on the conductor). Yesterday with my Grandson, Wife and Daughter-in-Law I paid a visit tracing my old family homes – these range from Westgate-in-Weardale to Milner Road and Grantham Road, Norton. None of these sites have suffered any blight in Norton, most of the houses are in excellent structural condition. However, I have heard that estates being built post war have suffered badly through lack of maintenance and general neglect and are now slums again.
I have to agree the character of Stockton has altered tremendously and most comments I agree with entirely. There are some plus points like the RIVERSIDE which after the ship building period became desolate – that section is now much improved. Regarding the Empire and Empire Arcade when the tide became high the rat population would run up Yarm Lane and be quite frightening. Personally I didn’t experience that but it was well known among Stockton residents at the time.
What people tend to forget is the huge debt owed to the North East for the prosperity of this country. I have mentioned before that my Dad fought in two wars for this country. I wonder today why we sacrificed our life, except for Hitler, which forced us into war. I still love my home roots and get enjoyment from Picture Stockton.
Kind regards to all
J. Norman Kidd
In response to Norman Kidd; salting of the roads, even in Stockton High Street, did not start until the late fifties. This more or less coincided with the use of unitary construction in car manufacture. This method left numerous rust traps on the underside and wheel wells of cars, whereby salt laden dirt would continue to corrode the car bodies well after winter had ended. Hence car bodies would start to rust through, two years after being sold. Indeed most cars were wrecks after six years. In addition, Teesside was one of the worst places in Britain for corrosion. My guess is that leaks of ammonia from the ICI, and sulphur dioxide from the steel industry (from coke production, tipping molten slag, and the burning of heavy fuel oil) gave a really bad combination, 365 days of the year.
My grandfather was apprenticed in the shipyards but lost his job in the twenties when he was blacklisted due to his trade union activities. As a time-served boilermaker he wasn’t unemployed for very long and got a job with ICI when they took over the Brunner Mond plant in 1926 and, like many folk of his generation, always referred to the Billingham plant as “The Synthetic”. Brunner Mond had been making synthetic ammonia there to be used for the manufacture of explosives, so the name stuck. I carry his 30 year pocket watch as a regular timepiece; its not quite as accurate as my quartz wristwatch but looks a sight more handsome.
At this particular time life had been fairly stable since the end of the first world war. I understand 1926 was a bad time for the North East and lots of people had a tough time if they were on the dole. If you were earning £5 per week you had a good job probably at ICI in a secure job. If you were lucky enough to have a car, most people expected them to last for years. Many of these old cars are still prize possessions. The new ones since have gone for scrap or rusted away in three years due to poor steel. Salt on the roads had some affect in the bad winters and as an EXTRA you could have your new car undersealed to protect your investment (what investment?)
Most people were lucky to have a bicycle let alone a new car. Banks did not rush to loan you money, you could only have a loan if you had collateral to secure the loan, in other words if you could not pay for the goods you lost your collateral or the goods were taken back.
It is a great pity this method appears to have gone, the country is “in hock” today.
From my earliest memories my Father was never out of work and Mothers dress making from home did give my Sister and I a good start, many were not so lucky. A lot of men did not have jobs and the children suffered. At the Norton Board School I attended until 1940, we saw children come to school with old sand-shoes stuffed with cardboard in winter and in time they would be given what we kids called the Mayor’s boots, A free issue with notches in them so parents could not take them to the pawnbroker. Kids are cruel when young and I do remember those children with no seat in their pants, coats and jumpers with holes in them being taunted by us who were better off. Most would also be hungry if the only coppers going in to the house came from their mothers scrubbing the floors of those with better incomes. Round the green quite a lot of those ordinary houses by today’s standards employed servants. Even on the green there were one or two families who had nothing. Another memory is of mother packing a brown paper bag with a small piece of bacon some butter or cheese from the farm and telling me to put that behind Mrs so and so’s front door, dont let her see you. It was her way of giving the kids something to eat but pride even in the poorest would not let them take charity. They always scrubbed steps and windowsill plus the paves in front of the house, their way of showing the world the spirit may be hungry but not broken. It was known war was on the way so things began to pick up in the late 1930’s. From around 1937 my Father was fully employed with his truck rebuilding roads and they were making a start on building new airfields. Kendrew had started building in Norton and those houses were selling as fast as he built them. The ship yards and steel works were gearing up so there was a lot more work available 1937-8-9 it rapidly increased so when the war did come most people had an income. The picture is of a time when there was probably quite a lot of money being spent in the Town. Mother never missed market day although she also did most of her shopping in Norton High Street, another quite prosperous place by then. My contribution was visiting the penny library where I read just about everything on the shelves, now who remembers those shops?
I must surrender to John and Franks’ knowledge about cars. The High Street certainly looks prosperous – more prosperous in fact, than when I was a young lad in the fifties. Maybe the “Great Depression” wasn’t as depressing as the history books make it out to have been? At least for some…
I think you will find the car at the end on the left of the picture is a Wolsey of around 1937-9 period. We cannot go by the buses as they were made to last and some very old ones ran until well after the war. I do not remember Stockton High street being filled with empty shops as it is today and the market was always crowded when I went down with my mother, that was before the war. The town Cinema’s did good business and you always had to stand in a queue to get in. When we went to early showings because of my age and came out at eight the town would have hot potato men and in season chestnut roasters doing a roaring business. It was a vibrant town well into the fifty’s yet money was not always in good supply. This to me appears to be in the 1936-39 period.
Surely its too prosperous looking for the mid-thirties? Stockton was devastated in the Great Depression. I reckon the photo dates from just before the big crash in 1929 or just afterwards before retail businesses felt the full blast of their customers’ unemployment.
John Dymond may be correct. Looks mid-1930’s to me. It is certainly how the buses (United, Crowes and so forth) to various out of town destinations parked.
A familiar scene when coming out of Holy Trinity School at 4 o’clock!
I think the dating of this photo is a bit too early. It is hard to identify the cars precisely, but many of them are clearly from the mid-1930s. In fact the car parked behind the buses on the right of the image looks suspiciously like my first car – a 1936 Frazer-Nash BMW Type 316.
My old boss at Robsons Motorcycles on Bridge Road lived in the flat exactly opposite the Metropole Hotel on Bridge Road and when his ulcer keep him sleepless, he’d stand in the bay window, looking up toward the High Street and said he often saw dark swarms of rats moving across the quiet street at Barry’s Corner
My last comments on this particular subject was in 2005. Now 16th January 2019 I am now 90 years of age and was at school with Tom Sawyer in Class 4B at Holy Trinity School. I was a Norton lad and travelled every day to school in Stockton on the bus. They were happy days, sometimes we would be allowed to be bell boys on the bus (not really allowed – it depended on the conductor). Yesterday with my Grandson, Wife and Daughter-in-Law I paid a visit tracing my old family homes – these range from Westgate-in-Weardale to Milner Road and Grantham Road, Norton. None of these sites have suffered any blight in Norton, most of the houses are in excellent structural condition. However, I have heard that estates being built post war have suffered badly through lack of maintenance and general neglect and are now slums again.
I have to agree the character of Stockton has altered tremendously and most comments I agree with entirely. There are some plus points like the RIVERSIDE which after the ship building period became desolate – that section is now much improved. Regarding the Empire and Empire Arcade when the tide became high the rat population would run up Yarm Lane and be quite frightening. Personally I didn’t experience that but it was well known among Stockton residents at the time.
What people tend to forget is the huge debt owed to the North East for the prosperity of this country. I have mentioned before that my Dad fought in two wars for this country. I wonder today why we sacrificed our life, except for Hitler, which forced us into war. I still love my home roots and get enjoyment from Picture Stockton.
Kind regards to all
J. Norman Kidd
In response to Norman Kidd; salting of the roads, even in Stockton High Street, did not start until the late fifties. This more or less coincided with the use of unitary construction in car manufacture. This method left numerous rust traps on the underside and wheel wells of cars, whereby salt laden dirt would continue to corrode the car bodies well after winter had ended. Hence car bodies would start to rust through, two years after being sold. Indeed most cars were wrecks after six years. In addition, Teesside was one of the worst places in Britain for corrosion. My guess is that leaks of ammonia from the ICI, and sulphur dioxide from the steel industry (from coke production, tipping molten slag, and the burning of heavy fuel oil) gave a really bad combination, 365 days of the year.
My grandfather was apprenticed in the shipyards but lost his job in the twenties when he was blacklisted due to his trade union activities. As a time-served boilermaker he wasn’t unemployed for very long and got a job with ICI when they took over the Brunner Mond plant in 1926 and, like many folk of his generation, always referred to the Billingham plant as “The Synthetic”. Brunner Mond had been making synthetic ammonia there to be used for the manufacture of explosives, so the name stuck. I carry his 30 year pocket watch as a regular timepiece; its not quite as accurate as my quartz wristwatch but looks a sight more handsome.
At this particular time life had been fairly stable since the end of the first world war. I understand 1926 was a bad time for the North East and lots of people had a tough time if they were on the dole. If you were earning £5 per week you had a good job probably at ICI in a secure job. If you were lucky enough to have a car, most people expected them to last for years. Many of these old cars are still prize possessions. The new ones since have gone for scrap or rusted away in three years due to poor steel. Salt on the roads had some affect in the bad winters and as an EXTRA you could have your new car undersealed to protect your investment (what investment?)
Most people were lucky to have a bicycle let alone a new car. Banks did not rush to loan you money, you could only have a loan if you had collateral to secure the loan, in other words if you could not pay for the goods you lost your collateral or the goods were taken back.
It is a great pity this method appears to have gone, the country is “in hock” today.
From my earliest memories my Father was never out of work and Mothers dress making from home did give my Sister and I a good start, many were not so lucky. A lot of men did not have jobs and the children suffered. At the Norton Board School I attended until 1940, we saw children come to school with old sand-shoes stuffed with cardboard in winter and in time they would be given what we kids called the Mayor’s boots, A free issue with notches in them so parents could not take them to the pawnbroker. Kids are cruel when young and I do remember those children with no seat in their pants, coats and jumpers with holes in them being taunted by us who were better off. Most would also be hungry if the only coppers going in to the house came from their mothers scrubbing the floors of those with better incomes. Round the green quite a lot of those ordinary houses by today’s standards employed servants. Even on the green there were one or two families who had nothing. Another memory is of mother packing a brown paper bag with a small piece of bacon some butter or cheese from the farm and telling me to put that behind Mrs so and so’s front door, dont let her see you. It was her way of giving the kids something to eat but pride even in the poorest would not let them take charity. They always scrubbed steps and windowsill plus the paves in front of the house, their way of showing the world the spirit may be hungry but not broken. It was known war was on the way so things began to pick up in the late 1930’s. From around 1937 my Father was fully employed with his truck rebuilding roads and they were making a start on building new airfields. Kendrew had started building in Norton and those houses were selling as fast as he built them. The ship yards and steel works were gearing up so there was a lot more work available 1937-8-9 it rapidly increased so when the war did come most people had an income. The picture is of a time when there was probably quite a lot of money being spent in the Town. Mother never missed market day although she also did most of her shopping in Norton High Street, another quite prosperous place by then. My contribution was visiting the penny library where I read just about everything on the shelves, now who remembers those shops?
I must surrender to John and Franks’ knowledge about cars. The High Street certainly looks prosperous – more prosperous in fact, than when I was a young lad in the fifties. Maybe the “Great Depression” wasn’t as depressing as the history books make it out to have been? At least for some…
Who agrees with me that at this time we had the Regal Cinema? Ken is right I would say about 1938 and the cars look about right for that time.
I think you will find the car at the end on the left of the picture is a Wolsey of around 1937-9 period. We cannot go by the buses as they were made to last and some very old ones ran until well after the war. I do not remember Stockton High street being filled with empty shops as it is today and the market was always crowded when I went down with my mother, that was before the war. The town Cinema’s did good business and you always had to stand in a queue to get in. When we went to early showings because of my age and came out at eight the town would have hot potato men and in season chestnut roasters doing a roaring business. It was a vibrant town well into the fifty’s yet money was not always in good supply. This to me appears to be in the 1936-39 period.
Surely its too prosperous looking for the mid-thirties? Stockton was devastated in the Great Depression. I reckon the photo dates from just before the big crash in 1929 or just afterwards before retail businesses felt the full blast of their customers’ unemployment.
John Dymond may be correct. Looks mid-1930’s to me. It is certainly how the buses (United, Crowes and so forth) to various out of town destinations parked.
A familiar scene when coming out of Holy Trinity School at 4 o’clock!
I think the dating of this photo is a bit too early. It is hard to identify the cars precisely, but many of them are clearly from the mid-1930s. In fact the car parked behind the buses on the right of the image looks suspiciously like my first car – a 1936 Frazer-Nash BMW Type 316.