In the late 60’s early 70’s, as a youngster, I used to go upstairs on a Saturday morning in the Sun Inn to be taught ballroom dancing in a class by David Cochran. I remember it fondly, Mr Cochran dancing the tango and quick step with me and telling me to go quicker and quicker. I wish I had kept ballroom dancing. I don’t remember any of the steps now. Does anyone else remember him or know what happened to him?
Jenny, Cochran’s were in the town when I was learning to dance, they were above one of the shops that were demolished for the new shopping arcade. I am talking 1944 and onwards here. His wife Ruby was also teaching and they had several girls in the older class who would take us blushing lads onto the floor. Ruby looked like the film star Carmen Miranda her of the fruit salad hats and when she was teaching me Latin would say “we must be in full contact right through to our bones touching” my face was permanently red. Mr Cochran would also grab us and dance us round the room for Quickstep and Foxtrot and you are right, faster he would say difficult when dancing without music.
I advanced from Church Hall and School Hall dancing to the big boys Palais Maison and Jubilee at 16 though still going to Cochran’s (I think I was in love with Ruby, but so were all the boys). Florence one of the older girls was a real whizz at Latin, from half seven opening to nine thirty the halls would be packed with girls and few men. Flo would ask Jack O Boyle for some Latin and drag me on the floor we always got the centre of the room and an audience watching. Apart from the interval I danced all night once the girls knew you could really dance they lined up to ask for a dance. Even the girl on the tea counter, (give me a dance when I am done here and you can have a tea and bun for nothing) who could refuse a free tea and bun?
Last I heard of Ruby she was in London I believe not certain she was in a show, Mr Cochran disappeared off my radar so have no idea if they parted or he was also in London.
Frank.
According to a copy of the Hartlepool Mail from 1939. During excavations to a smoke room in the Sun Inn a six foot coffin containing a body was uncovered. The body was removed to the local mortuary. It was believed the pub had been built on top of what was once part of the nearby church grave yard.
Echoing Frank Mee’s comments, The Sun is one of the very few pubs that has not been ‘got at’ by bar-designers over the years, or even the ‘gastro-pub’ afficianados. As in there, you can still get a cheese n’ onion toastie (complete with cellophane wrapper), the perfect complement for your foaming pint of expertly hand-pulled Bass, on a Wednesday afternoon.
The large building on the right became the Victory Club in 1940-50-60 with not a very savoury reputation I believe it changed hands several times over that period.
The door on the right of the Sun Inn was a passage belonging to the Sun and the way to the toilets and back room, in my time the bar was men only and the Ladies went into the back room at weekends with husbands and boy friends taking them their drinks.
Tommy also kept some barrels of beer at the back of the bar on trestles usually mild which he and some of the old hands drank back then, one of the barrels used to get all the drip trays and when the young daft kids came in the bar being loud and feeling brave they would ask for a pint out of Tommy’s Barrel, much to our amusement you know what they got. When Tommy Died his wife took over and ruled the bar with a rod of iron.
It was a pub for drinking and after a half shift we would all go in and mark the board to play darts, it was always for a pint so you better have the money to pay if you lost. The other thing was you always played with your pint in your hand, put it on the bar and turn round it was gone, some very hard lads got in the Sun, I once stretched one of them along the bar when having put my pint down for a second he picked it up and emptied it in one, he got back on his feet and walked out, not a word was said about it, you were not supposed to sup another man’s beer.
From my time the Sun went down hill, skiffle groups folk singers kids in fancy suits to some the place lost its way and we moved off to the clubs, at least you could take your girl friend or wife or even both and sit with them.
Anyone know why the substantial building to the right of the Sun was demolished?
It looks like the right hand door into the Sun Inn was once an entrance to a yard, that passed under the first floor of the other building. The entrance must of been absorbed into the Sun Inn at some point as it survives even though the first floor above it has gone. http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2005/08/26/streets-of-stockton-59/
This used to be a very popular watering hole in the early eighties, Friday and Saturday night you could hardly get through the door for the likes of Maly Amos and little Kev Donaldson, Willie Pick and Hughie… all holding court. Graham the barman always had a sarcastic comment to throw… good times!
I remember once going there with a friend in the late sixties/early seventies and being ‘hushed’ and given ‘black looks’ after daring to speak (don’t mean a full-blown conversation – just a comment) – they certainly took their folk music ‘seriously’. I preferred the Stork and Castle which I went to for a while in the mid sixties and where the atmosphere was more relaxed. Maybe I just went to the Sun on the wrong night or sat next to the wrong person?
Yes Margaret they certainly took it seriously and to those of us brought up on a diet of Chick Henderson Al Bowley Bing Crosby and others it sounded like a bad night on the tiles for the cats.
The Town pubs started to lose their hard drinkers where eight pints were the norm most nights, the women objected to being kept apart and the working men’s clubs took off with cheap beer and entertainment with dancing thrown in. A lot of the clubs were extended with lovely lounges and dance floors so started the demise of the pub as we knew it.
The Sun lasted longer than some of them although the writing was on the wall even then, now take a run in the country or even the town and all you see are boarded up pubs some being converted to housing.
At my age we know nothing lasts forever so I do not hanker after the old days in fact often wished I had the money I spent in pubs or lost at Darts, now it is a bottle now and then at home watching Strictly on TV instead of doing the dancing I was once quite good at.
The Sun Inn on Knowles Street, Stockton c1973.
In the late 60’s early 70’s, as a youngster, I used to go upstairs on a Saturday morning in the Sun Inn to be taught ballroom dancing in a class by David Cochran. I remember it fondly, Mr Cochran dancing the tango and quick step with me and telling me to go quicker and quicker. I wish I had kept ballroom dancing. I don’t remember any of the steps now. Does anyone else remember him or know what happened to him?
Jenny, Cochran’s were in the town when I was learning to dance, they were above one of the shops that were demolished for the new shopping arcade. I am talking 1944 and onwards here. His wife Ruby was also teaching and they had several girls in the older class who would take us blushing lads onto the floor. Ruby looked like the film star Carmen Miranda her of the fruit salad hats and when she was teaching me Latin would say “we must be in full contact right through to our bones touching” my face was permanently red. Mr Cochran would also grab us and dance us round the room for Quickstep and Foxtrot and you are right, faster he would say difficult when dancing without music.
I advanced from Church Hall and School Hall dancing to the big boys Palais Maison and Jubilee at 16 though still going to Cochran’s (I think I was in love with Ruby, but so were all the boys). Florence one of the older girls was a real whizz at Latin, from half seven opening to nine thirty the halls would be packed with girls and few men. Flo would ask Jack O Boyle for some Latin and drag me on the floor we always got the centre of the room and an audience watching. Apart from the interval I danced all night once the girls knew you could really dance they lined up to ask for a dance. Even the girl on the tea counter, (give me a dance when I am done here and you can have a tea and bun for nothing) who could refuse a free tea and bun?
Last I heard of Ruby she was in London I believe not certain she was in a show, Mr Cochran disappeared off my radar so have no idea if they parted or he was also in London.
Frank.
According to a copy of the Hartlepool Mail from 1939. During excavations to a smoke room in the Sun Inn a six foot coffin containing a body was uncovered. The body was removed to the local mortuary. It was believed the pub had been built on top of what was once part of the nearby church grave yard.
Echoing Frank Mee’s comments, The Sun is one of the very few pubs that has not been ‘got at’ by bar-designers over the years, or even the ‘gastro-pub’ afficianados. As in there, you can still get a cheese n’ onion toastie (complete with cellophane wrapper), the perfect complement for your foaming pint of expertly hand-pulled Bass, on a Wednesday afternoon.
My parents had their silver wedding party here in 1976 in the back room.
The large building on the right became the Victory Club in 1940-50-60 with not a very savoury reputation I believe it changed hands several times over that period.
The door on the right of the Sun Inn was a passage belonging to the Sun and the way to the toilets and back room, in my time the bar was men only and the Ladies went into the back room at weekends with husbands and boy friends taking them their drinks.
Tommy also kept some barrels of beer at the back of the bar on trestles usually mild which he and some of the old hands drank back then, one of the barrels used to get all the drip trays and when the young daft kids came in the bar being loud and feeling brave they would ask for a pint out of Tommy’s Barrel, much to our amusement you know what they got. When Tommy Died his wife took over and ruled the bar with a rod of iron.
It was a pub for drinking and after a half shift we would all go in and mark the board to play darts, it was always for a pint so you better have the money to pay if you lost. The other thing was you always played with your pint in your hand, put it on the bar and turn round it was gone, some very hard lads got in the Sun, I once stretched one of them along the bar when having put my pint down for a second he picked it up and emptied it in one, he got back on his feet and walked out, not a word was said about it, you were not supposed to sup another man’s beer.
From my time the Sun went down hill, skiffle groups folk singers kids in fancy suits to some the place lost its way and we moved off to the clubs, at least you could take your girl friend or wife or even both and sit with them.
I spent many a happy friday night in the back room in the mid 70s listening to trev kings bluegrass nights.
I remember playing in a group in the back room of The Sun in the 1960s. It seemed a very small room for loud live music!
Anyone know why the substantial building to the right of the Sun was demolished?
It looks like the right hand door into the Sun Inn was once an entrance to a yard, that passed under the first floor of the other building. The entrance must of been absorbed into the Sun Inn at some point as it survives even though the first floor above it has gone.
http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2005/08/26/streets-of-stockton-59/
There is a painted sign for J Wolsey & Son Ltd on the building on the left.
http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/j-wolsey-and-son-ltd-stockton/
This used to be a very popular watering hole in the early eighties, Friday and Saturday night you could hardly get through the door for the likes of Maly Amos and little Kev Donaldson, Willie Pick and Hughie… all holding court. Graham the barman always had a sarcastic comment to throw… good times!
Ah yes – and what a wonderful landlady too!
It was then and still is now home to the Stockton Folk Club.
A fine establishment.
I remember once going there with a friend in the late sixties/early seventies and being ‘hushed’ and given ‘black looks’ after daring to speak (don’t mean a full-blown conversation – just a comment) – they certainly took their folk music ‘seriously’. I preferred the Stork and Castle which I went to for a while in the mid sixties and where the atmosphere was more relaxed. Maybe I just went to the Sun on the wrong night or sat next to the wrong person?
Yes Margaret they certainly took it seriously and to those of us brought up on a diet of Chick Henderson Al Bowley Bing Crosby and others it sounded like a bad night on the tiles for the cats.
The Town pubs started to lose their hard drinkers where eight pints were the norm most nights, the women objected to being kept apart and the working men’s clubs took off with cheap beer and entertainment with dancing thrown in. A lot of the clubs were extended with lovely lounges and dance floors so started the demise of the pub as we knew it.
The Sun lasted longer than some of them although the writing was on the wall even then, now take a run in the country or even the town and all you see are boarded up pubs some being converted to housing.
At my age we know nothing lasts forever so I do not hanker after the old days in fact often wished I had the money I spent in pubs or lost at Darts, now it is a bottle now and then at home watching Strictly on TV instead of doing the dancing I was once quite good at.
Monday nights were always Folk Club night and then it was Tuesday night at the Black Horse (?) Billingham for their Folk night!
Quite right Hazel! And guess who the MC was at Billingham until I deserted for the ‘idle south’.