Oxbridge Lane boys July 1932 Class V11A and Class VA at work in the yard.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Oxbridge Lane boys July 1932 Class V11A and Class VA at work in the yard.
My Nanna and Grandad owned the corner shop “Tavs” (Tavolieri’s) at the top of Norfolk Street. Open all hours as they say. They made their own ice-cream and my Grandad used to walk around with a cart and sell it to the kids. They are related to the Di Duca family and Tess and Vera mentioned above. My stepdad was Colin Garbutt, think the Garbutt’s were well known. Sadly they’re all gone now…
What a lot of lovely memories.
Not looked at this for ages! My dear Nan, Evelyn Robson nee Dickson, died in 1998 in her 99th year. I have a few snaps of the teachers taken in the school yard in the 1930s, which I will try at some time to send here. I am glad Anita has fond memories of her – she was a very sweet natured person and I can imagine little infants liking her. She always spoke in very high regard of Miss Lindsey, and was a very close friend of Miss Stoddart, later Mrs Harvey, a very kind person too and Dorothy Woodward, later Chesney, a lifelong friend. My Nan recalled the poverty of the 30s and occasionally having to take children to get shoes. She was very much of the make do and mend, waste not want not generation, and made most of her teaching aids herself. She spoke of a little disabled child whos mother would leave her with Miss Woodward and the youngest children, Dolly I think her name, an early form of day care for the disabled.
I started Oxbridge school in 1946. I remember Miss Dickson and remember being fond of her, which is more than I could say about some of the other teachers that taught us!.. I wont name them. Margaret Farrow would probably remember one of my sisters, Catherine.
I started Oxbridge Lane School aged 5 in 1928 and left in 1934. I remember Miss Lindsay (primary head) Miss Stoddart and Miss Williamson. Miss Stephenson was Junior head. Is there anyone who remembers the school at that time? Maybe Betty Downing, Maud Buckley, Sylvia Coxon, ?? Jordison. I also attended Oxbridge Methodist Chapel where my Mother was a Sunday School teacher. Any information would be welcome.
Some 4 years ago Ron Haslock in his memories of Oxbridge wrote, ‘Remember the Di Duca ice-cream shop on the same side of the street – there is my first memory of an espresso machine, a huge hissing affair on the counter-top. I recall that one of the Di Duca girls pushed a heavy cart around the streets, selling ice-cream cornets on hot sunny days.’
Most of us who still retain parts of our memory bank are more likely to associate the Serrechias with Oxbridge ice cream. However it is the Di Ducas, brother and sister, who I remember pushing their cart from Oxbridge and up Oxbridge Avenue and into Grangefield Estate where we lived in the tiny Aysgarth Road. I can picture them both with their cart at the junction of Aysgarth & Wensley Roads. Soon there were small children with their pennies or being escorted by Mum or Dad. It was my mother’s practice to take a basin out to the cart for six penny worth of ice cream for us to share.
My dad is the Bob Bailey that Ronald Haslock mentions I think. He”s 83 this year and still lives in Stockton. I wondered what ages the children in the photographs would have been. Perhaps my dad would be amongst them. I also attended Oxbridge School but many years later, in the 70″s! I don”t recall doing exercises in the yard quite like these photographs!
I was briefly a pupil in the Infants” section of Oxbridge Lane School but was then moved by my parents to Newtown. I think it had something to do with being a simpler walk from Grangefield Estate. Ronnie Haslock”s and Norman Franks” detailed memories of the shops on Oxbridge lane are astonishing and wonderful. I recall all those streets and going for fish and chips to the small, crowded shop in Norfolk (or was it Suffolk?) Street and biking back home to Oulston Road. Still unemployment in the pre 1939 years but many of the men dressed with pride in thier caps and white scarves (in winter) sharing their “woodies” and the racing paper as they stood on the street corners!
Re Staples Butchers in Oxbridge. My dad, Dick Jackson, told me tales of waiting at the back of the shop for the still warm pigs” bladders which they used to blow up and use as footballs. I wonder how long they lasted and who got the short straw in having to blow them up!
I remember a few more of the teachers in the infants at Oxbridge. Miss Williamson was in the last class before I moved to the junior school. Miss Vincent was teacher in the 2nd Class. Regarding the shops Lampughs was next to Bells then Moores, Dodds fish shop,Ramsdales cake shop, Archers tobbaconists, Nicholsons Groceries, Then came a butchers and on the corner was Doherty”s Offlicence. On the other corner of Sheraton Street was Staples Butchers who killed animals at the back. A greengrocers was next door followed by Yellows newsagent. and the Ice Cream shop on the corner of Light Pipe Hall Road. In 1947 this belonged to Serrechias. On the opposite corner was the Oxbridge Hotel which is still standing
No additional teacher names were added by Joan, unfortunately. One other memory has stayed with me for some strange reason! I recall using the glossy paper from some catalogue or other?) handed out by the teacher with a pair of scissors, with instructions to cut out designated shapes for some project or another. Ingenuity took pride of place over available resource material in those days. Recycling way back then?
Yes, I recall three of the names, including Miss Dickson”s that you have listed. Unfortunately, once again, my memory lets me down as to their charateristics, features, mannerisms, etc. I will ask my surviving sister, Joan, who lives in Essex, of any memories she has of these four influential people from our past. Joan is a little older than me but perhaps was a more observant person consequently in the Oxbridge Lane school days? You see, this was not our first primary school as we moved into Stockton around 1935. Joan doesn”t have internet and so any response might take time. I will phone her today on this.
Does anyone recall Miss Dickson -infant teacher from 1930-1947? She is my grandmother and is still with us age 97 I would love to tell her that old pupils remember her. She often talks of her time teaching. Miss Lyndsey Miss Stoddart Miss Demain names she talks of
I attended Oxbridge Lane School until the plus 11 exams,and that would be in 1938. There are many memories, some vivid, some vague, to recall today. Wan”t Miss Twynham a teacher or principal? Miss Hick”s name also comes to mind. I also recall the daily routine of the caretaker, whose name fails me now,pulling a low-slung buggy across the school playgound, on which was sitting a barrel of steaming water, ready to start the cleaning and scrubbing routine. I have the impression that this man lived in a house at the school (correct me if I am wrong?), and was quite crippled, or perhaps born with a shortened leg – no built-up shoe for him to compensate. I also remember Bell”s store outside the school walls on Oxbridge Lane,(perhaps it is visible inone of the school pictures in your collection?) a treasure-house of candy treats at our age, with the Bell family-members participating in the operation that included the sale of numberless household items and food. Another memory is of the butcher shop close by, fascinating and horrifying simultaneously, as there was a slaughter-house at the rear where many a sheep met its fate. This memory also includes steaming containers of water for the frequent cleansing required. Remember the Di Duca ice-cream shop on the same side of the street – there is my first memory of an espresso machine, a huge hissing affair on the counter-top. I recall that one of the Di Duca girls pushed a heavy cart around the streets, selling ice-cream cornets on hot sunny days. On another plane I recall dressing up in pajamas, jersey,wellington boots, and bandanna, complete with pencilled-in wicked moustache and wooden sword in hand, as “our class” portrayed a band of pirates for a pageant or similar event. The names, Bob Bailey, Henderson, Stuart Holmes, John Borrie, Tom Dumble,Frank Kidd (who then lived on a farm where the “new” secondary school was eventually built in Fairfield)Fred Gibson,Ken Garbut,Anderson,are recalled, as was the then acclaimed school athlete, “Dot” Henderson, with Doreen Falconer, Beth Arkless, Angela ?, (whose Dad was an invalid) – my contempories one and all. Too bad my records and my memories are inconclusive about the remaining pupils with whom I shared a space at Oxbridge Lane School prior to the Second War.
My grandma is one of the Di Duca girls. Vera and her step sister Tess. They are both still alive, Tess is 90 and Vera 86.
My father grew up in Stockton and left in 1968 to go to Africa. He lived at 8 Trinity Street and went to Yarm Lane primary Oxbridge Lane primary and Fairfield secondary modern his best mates were Pete and Colin better known as Gigi and Finchy. If any one remembers him let me know he is turning 60 on the 30th Sept.
Oxbridge was my school and a very good school. My name was then Margaret Farrow, I left in 1954. does anyone from that school remember me? EG Pat Smith- Jean Franklin -???