Children of ICI employees on Stockton station at the beginning of an outing c1954. Photograph courtesy of Brian Bennison. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Children of ICI employees on Stockton station at the beginning of an outing c1954. Photograph courtesy of Brian Bennison.
The girl on the right of the photo is Maureen Stephenson who went to Newtown & Newham Grange Schools.
I confess to be the little boy at the front right with my Aunty, Jean Abbot(nee Dalkin), stooped down next to me. My young Uncles Kenny and Alan Dalkin are also in there. Their father, (my grandad), Ellis Dalkin, worked at Cassell works and they all lived in Ewbank St. The annual summer outing and the Panto visit at Christmas were the highlights of our social life!
Sorry, I should have done this when I first posted this picture. I can confidently identify two of the children. The first boy from the left is myself and the girl in the centre-front with ribbons in her hair is my twin sister Janice.
Irene MacLean. Hi Irene, hit the nail on the head this time, they lived at Daventry Ave and you are spot on with St Johns church and the toffee cakes. If you go back to 9 Dec 07 under; t6755 The Angel of Stockton, there is a little story I put on about them there. Roy.
To Roy Parkin.Did your cousins live on what we used to call “Little Ragworth”I think I can remember Dennis”s Mum making toffee cakes in Yorkshire pudding tins and selling them.I think she went to the St.Johns Church school guild with my Mum-in the 50″s.Those toffees were delicious,
Australia Services – Back in the early 1960’s at Roseworth Junior School, we had Australia services, where the whole school used to gather periodically, sometimes weekly to say goodbye to our friends who were about to emigrate to Australia. Mr Knowles the Head used to carry out the services which included a few songs, a long speech and a little crying, going away forever to a place past Redcar, I presume this sort of thing went on in all schools within the borough. I am sure that someone at the school, probably the head kept a record of all those departed. Cant remember any other services such as, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand, but I am sure they were in there as three of my cousins emigrated to South Africa with their families in the 1960’s, Bernard, Michael and Dennis Parkin from Ragworth. Roy.
I was looking through the photos on your site and was interested in this one and thought the tall girl aged about 11 looked like my late sister Sandra Halliday nee Higham, the more I looked the more I was convinced it was her. Then I started to think the young lad to her right peeking out could be me! I sent the link to my niece in Billingham, Sandra”s daughter and she also thought it was her mum. After a few more ponderings over it I started to look at the other people and lo and behold the penny dropped when I saw my Dad Harold Higham stood at the back left, just behind a lady only showing half his face. I would have been 6 and Sandra was 11, and can remember going to Redcar, perhaps it was this trip.
I can remember many a cut leg or knee from those tin plate spades, they were lethal. And why was it that you could never find the bucket and spade from last year and always had to beg your folks to buy a new one for the trip to Seaton Carew or Redcar. My older sister Kathleen was an evacuee when the whole of Newlands Convent in Middlesbrough was relocated to Malton in Yorkshire. I can see her now with the usual label, her gas mask, and a pair of Wellingtons strung together with string around her neck. Our gas masks weren”t in cardboard boxes though, our Dad had metal canisters made for us at the Malleable and they got knocked about so much and had so many dents in them if we”d ever had a gas attack we”d never have been able to get them open.
Buckets and spades – Do you remember in the 1950’s your bucket and spade for the beach, your bucket was made entirely of tin plate and the spade had a wooden shaft with the business end once again being made of tin plate. I remembered this after seeing the picture ref, t6792, the same picture could be akin to evacuees waiting to leave London in the Blitz, all smartly dressed with their get lost labels on. I see all the little boys are keeping up their end, short pants and all. Change the tin bucket for a cardboard box then off we go. Roy.