This is an aerial view of the Club Fiesta also showing the Melba Bar which is now the Grange Tappas Bar, Norton Road. Possibly late 1960s/early 1970s…
Photograph and details courtesy of Peter Jordison.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
My Heritage app states that my English family relatives lived at 93 Norton Road, the building next to Fiesta, which is currently La Porto (previously DIY, Carpets, Melba Bar).
Just looked to see if anyone had any comments about the “Dales Milk Bar”. Great to see the responses. Please keep them coming.
Jim Dale
I lived in Norton Avenue. the Rec ,tennis courts and putting green were at the back of our garden.
In the late 60s we went to see the swimmer Brian Phelps at the Fiesta! We wondered what he would do without a pool! He did a gymnastics display! We also saw Guy Mitchell there as well.
Opposite the Modern laundry was an off licence-Winterschladens. It was the only shop open on a Sunday. Also a couple of doors down was the roller skating rink me and friends went to probably in the early 1960s. I can’t remember what it was called (the name Carlton comes to mind).
Does anybody remember the school Dalry? It was a school set back off the main Norton Road about 50 yards along from the Fiesta towards the village . It closed in the 1950s. It was used in the mid 1960s as a youth club.
Any memories of it would be great!
Quite right Angela – according to my brother, the roller skating was at the Carlton Ballroom. We used to go there on a Saturday morning in the mid-1950s.
I saw Guy Mitchell at the Fiesta. I think it might have been his last tour of GB. He didn’t have a backing group and the Lipthorpes helped out. Sadly it was a poor performance by them all and that included Guy Mitchell. What a come down from his greater days.
What were the buildings to the rear/right of the Fiesta used for?
It was called the Modern Laundry.
I worked at the Fiesta in 1973 in the Scampi Bar which had previously been the casino as the carpet had a playing card pattern , I started as a waitress taking out the scampi baskets to the customers and the dressing rooms for the cabarets so met many of the stars that performed there .
My earliest memory of the Fiesta was attending an ICI Christmas party for kids on a Saturday afternoon sometime in the 1970s. If I remember correctly the entertainment was a magician followed by a few songs from a band called Middle of the Road.
Have you read Keith’s book ‘Club Fiesta The Real Story’ it explains how he created the nightclub
My gran lived in Waterford Road. As a small child I have great memeries of Norton, we kids used to go in a apple orchid and get plenty of apples. We would go to the moden picture house on a Sat morning and watch the Lone Ranger. We used to watch the steam trains on the railway and I remember all the pubs which I enjoyed a pint in as a young man.
Talking about the Fiesta Fawns,it reminds me of a girl I went to school with. Her name was Yvonne Nugent, and attended Roseworth Secondary Modern, she lived in Radstock Ave on the Roseworth estate, while working at the Fiesta she met and later married Bobby Ball of Cannon and and Ball fame.
Reading the two pieces from Karen and Carole no doubt the two ladies mentioned were usheretes but the one I and many others remeber was the male usher that being Stan Paterson from up the Avenue better known to most of the lads who sneaked into the Modern via the side door as Spam Patto he would chase us all around the picture house but never caught anybody.
In later years when it became the Fiesta my brother worked on the doors with John Foster and later became the stage manager ensuring the acts got on stage on time, my brother Peter Wakenshaw was great friends with Billy Kelly who was resident compare and comedian he got to know many off the acts that appeared on the Fiesta and like all others who knew the doormen like Peter and Frank Lucas we all got in free on occasions.
I seem to recall that Patto was the security man at the Avenue and Bill Douglas at the Modern.
I seem to remember that the modern laundry was always known locally as the bag wash.
Nightclubs were rather seedy places in those days, and very few had any glamour attached to them. Many of the acts lacked stage presence, which indicated that the making of a number 1 single in a recording studio did not enable the singer to acquire stage professionalism. The Fiesta, Norton and it’s sister club the Fiesta, Sheffield, was an exception and both clubs enjoyed modest popularity under the leadership of local businessmen Keith Lipthorpe and his brother Jim, from Teesside, who had purchased an old Cinema in Norton, and converted it into a nightclub. They named this club “The Fiesta”. The club interior was dark with much of the light coming from the lamps built into each table.
The Fiesta opened in 1965 (closed 1976) customers enjoyed chicken in a basket, with lettuce and tomato or scampi and chips, before watching a cabaret show featuring artistes like Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield, The Drifters, Cliff Richard, Shirley Bassey, Tommy Cooper, Olivia Newton-John, the Three degrees, Gary Glitter, Fred Trueman, and the veteran American Rock and Roll legend Bill Haley of ‘Rock Around The Clock fame. The beer served was Cameron’s. The most popular act was Martin St James, an hypnotist that played the club regularly – . Other acts included: The Bee Gees, Bruce Forsyth, Cilla Black, Freddie Starr, Glen Campbell, Ken Dodd, Les Dawson, Larry Grayson, Mike and Bernie Winters, Mike Read, Norman Wisdom, The Drifters, The Temptations, but eventually the entertainers fees, accommodation and demands made the club unprofitable and it went into Voluntary Liquidation. Most patrons will remember the attractive waitresses working there, who wore outfits styled on the famous Playboy Bunny girl’s outfit. A local beauty Queen Miss Bishop Auckland (who was also Miss Tyne Tees) worked at the Fiesta, along with many others who collectively were called ‘Fawns’.
My father John Foster worked on the doors at the Fiesta. I remember him going to work looking so smart in his suit. He would often take my sister and I to meet some of the stars . Great memories .
Your father Karen was a good friend of my father-in-law Bill Hepple and me when he lived at the bottom of Trent Street and we met in the Brown Jug. He would always help me jump the long queues at the Fiesta as well. I would go to the phone box outside the club and phone reception and then go to the doors.
Read ‘Club Fiesta The Real Story’ to find out how the unique atmosphere was created.
Looking at this photo again I must correct my recent views on it. This is now the Salsa Bar which was built in the very early 60’s by a builder called Arthur Thompson who lived in Oakwell Road, who was also was responsible for building the newish houses in Ragworth Road and Oakwell Road. I did describe the right hand widow in the photo as the Laundry shop but on 2nd view I can see the toilets on the right of the Salsa and out of view to the right again was the Laundry shop which today is the DIY shop.
I should have said that the Melba Bar now the Salsa Bar was built in the early 50’s and not the 60’s.
In the early 60’s the concept of a luxurious ‘nightclub’, with both cabaret, restaurant and gambling facilities, was very new to the population of Teesside and most of the UK, where a different age of post WWII affluence and full employment was developing. However, by the late 60’s, new Government legislation decreed that the profitable ‘gambling’ aspect should be stringently controlled. This by both taxation, heavy insurances and also by making it less accessible to the nightclub guests, via placing the gaming-tables in a separate part of the premises rather than openly available in the auditorium/bar areas.
In the Fiesta’s case, it involved the building of a new annexe. This can be seen to the left of the original cinema building and was named the ‘Rosewood Lounge’, being accessed by a dedicated stairway from the auditorium level. The gambling aspect of the business was and had been essential in funding the top-level international cabaret acts that so many of us had previously been able to see at close-quarters on that stage.
By placing the gaming in a ‘separate’ area, this meant that the ‘casual’ flutter by most ordinary attending guests, as opposed to dedicated gamblers, dramatically reduced takings. As a result the quality and status of the cabaret acts had to be cut-back, which in turn ultimately meant a drop in attendances.
Whilst the ‘cabaret club’ had catered to a wide age-group, the rise of discotheque-clubs in the late 60’s, catering solely to the 18-30 age group and requiring simply a single DJ to provide the total ‘entertainment’ experience, certainly looked more viable option. The Club Fiesta had experimented with this concept in their sister club ‘Pharoahs’ (also on Norton Road, but somewhat nearer to Stockton centre), before the Fiesta premises itself became such a club, ‘Black Cats’ in the early 80’s.
The general public would never again, get the chance to get so, ‘up close and personal’ with some of the greatest entertainment acts in the world, on such a regular basis.
We had our engagement party in 1975 at the Fiesta, the Barron Knights were on! Fond memories of great times there with our large group of friends, rolling out to try and find a taxi home (there was a taxi office nearby) and having to walk home a few times! We saw Gladys Knight and the Pips, Guys and Dolls, and The Searchers (later in their career but still great) there too. I loved the little lamps on the tables and the upstairs where you could have “scampi in the basket”, the ladies bathroom was lovely too. Very classy nightclub. We used to go to the Newlands for a drink beforehand, noticed on a visit “back home” that the Newlands is long gone.. and the Fiesta is a CHURCH!!!
I remember going there when it was a cinema, with my Grandmother. We used to play on those steps while waiting for a bus for years. We often went to the Melba bar for ice cream to eat while we waited for the bus.
I was in the Club Fiesta the night Elvis Presley died – it was my eighteenth birthday – they made the announcement, then all the lights out for a few seconds
OH THE MEMORIES OF THE MODERN, DALES AND THE FISH AND CHIP SHOP OVER THE ROAD. I DIDN’T KN0W IT AS A NIGHT CLUB AS I MOVED FROM TEESSIDE IN 1958. BUT MY HEART IS STILL THERE.
Oh yes, I remember the fish and chip shop too, and we sometimes went to buy chips. The smell of the fish and chips always made us feel hungry. It would be the late 1950’s, and 1960’s when I knew this area. My Nanna lived in Somerset Road, off Norton Avenue.
The first house on Norton Avenue, number 17 next to Fergusons the green grocers was where I lived with my mam and dad. Just round the corner in Drake Road lived my mam’s 2 sisters, I spent many a happy day there and later in Grange Road. I have alway’s thought of Norton as home and have lot’s of great memories.
My daughter lived in Drake Road more recently, until about 4 or 5 years ago.
Four of our family were associated with the Regal Fish and Chip shop, across from what was the Fiesta, but was formerly the Modern Cinema. My Great-Aunt Maggie owned the Regal. My Aunt, Mary Peacock, lived in and over the fish shop, with her husband Charley, who worked at the ICI as a lab assistant. When I was little, my mother used to cut the fish and peel the potatoes for chips (this was done mechanically,) but it was wet and damp, as well as serving in the evernings and my Grandmother used to clean the shop.
My aunty was an usherette at the Modern cinema many years ago and reckons she saw 7 Brides for 7 Brothers scores of times!
Karen, I think my mother-in-law worked as an usherette at the Modern! Her name was Hilda Duff (maiden name Burnett) – did your aunty work with her I wonder? Sadly she passed away in 2001. She often talked about working there and seeing all the movies.
I remember my mother taking me to the pictures and we went to the Modern. I’d be about ten and horror of horrors the film was “Romeo and Juliet”! Some years later I recall going with friends and we smoked ourselves sick. I think we got into a bit of a fight with some lads in the milk bar next door…
I can remember when the coffee bar to the right of the Fiesta (a former cinema) was a laundry, my mother used to send me from Thornaby in the 1950s with laundry to leave to be washed, this was wet-laundry (not dry cleaning) At that time the main Stockton clothes wash house was part of Stockton Council baths situated behind Church Road, Stockton, inside it there was quite a number of Stockton women to be seen pounding away by hand at their clothes being washed inside open tubs made from galvanised steel holding the hot water. You had to book a tub, if you didn’t you ran the risk of turning up and being sent away because they were full.
About this time a national company started opening washing centres called ‘The Launderette’, which became the rage, then electric washing machines appeared with Hoover and Vactric offering a small white single tub washing machine with an hand wringer attached for £29.99, you emptied it with a bucket. Later they brought out ”twin-tub washers”, one tub used to wash the clothes, the other tub was to spin-dry the clothes, it even had a rubber hose to empty it with by draining the dirty water into the sink.
Following in their sales-wake was the soap powder companies offering Daz, Omo, Oxydol and Lux flakes soap powders, we used Lux so walked to school with our heads held high – wearing our white than white shirts and school ties. It was the tie that did it, all school tie wearers adopted a superior air. A few years later the phrase ‘soap opera’ appeared because ITV programmes stopped mid-way through a drama program to inform housewives that Persil washed led the way, followed by Daz which had ‘added UV150 UltraBrite’, no one knew what it meant but it sounded good
Bob, if you look at the photo to the right of the Modern/Fiesta you see a building with 2 front bays. The bay to the left was the ‘ice cream parlour’ and the right hand bay was the laundry shop where you took your washing. They did have vans that did collections and deliveries.
Long before it was any of that it was the Modern Cinema Dales Milk Bar and behind it the Laundry.
I have memories of the family going to the first house at the Modern then an ice cream in Dales or better still a milk shake.
Some of us young posers would take our girls in there for an ice cream and hope they would choose something in our price range.
It was quite busy on that corner, Two Cinema’s, The Carlton Dance Hall, Regal Fish Shop and Dales although then you could buy most of your wants in the Village.
Later years my Wife and I favoured Tito’s rather than the Fiesta and Saw Tom Jones when he had just started out.
Norton was and still is home to me with happy Memories to boot, after courting all over Teesside and indeed Great Britain when it comes to army service I married a Norton Girl and we had 60 very happy years. Home town home girl must be the recipe for something good.
“The Dales Milk Bar”. My dad, Jim Dale, owned the shop but we moved away about 1952 when I was 4. Would appreciate anyone’s memories of it. My mother was called Ruth.
Oh my god! I remember going to the Club Fiesta for my 21st birthday, and seeing Gene Pitney, this brings back memories…
You may enjoy ‘Club Fiesta The Real Story’ by Mr Keith Lipthorpe his true account of how he created the nightclub