Another wonderful view of the High Street in Stockton recently rediscovered in our archives c1955.
Photograph donated by the husband of the late Doreen Thomas (Author of Strike a Light – the Story of John Walker).
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A wonderful picture of the High St when I was the tender age of 14, love the cyclist riding down the middle of an almost traffic free road. Happy days when few people owned a car.
A very nostalgic image of the Stockton High Street I care to remember, the days of Sgt Elliot, you dare to roller skate in the High Street, would love one from the opposite side of the town hall of the same era, well done on this one.
Sgt Elliot, hard man but not so hard. When at home he would knit and make clothing for his children.
There is a legend John,Sgt Elliot he certainly sorted out the trouble outside the dance halls,but his methods would not be acceptable today.
He lived in the Police houses in Swainby Road, 2nd police house on the left. I lived in the 2nd on the right with the office in the garden.
That picture reminds me of the evenings that I used to walk across the Stockton High Street with my father to bank the days takeings at the Bank near the Royal Oak public house. Father was the manager of the Farm Stores in Dovecote Street which was a butchers shop. Father wore his white butchers coat most evenings I think these days he would have been mugged for the takings.
Peter any one trying to mug your Dad would have got a very nasty surprise, I knew Bob and his Mother they lived next door to me in Mill Lane. He was called up for the Navy at the start of the war and saw action as they lifted Dutch and Belgium Government officials from the ports as the Germans advanced, he was wounded. After his leave he went onto Minesweepers which was not a job for wimps.
After the war Bob went back into the butchery business and managed several shops in Norton and Stockton and even after he should have retired was working in the Rimswell butchers, we would often talk about the good or bad old days. Bob was a Gentleman who came across as gentle and jovial but he had seen life.
My memory of your Grandmother was her getting stuck in the blast tunnel of our shelter during an air raid. I was outside pushing, my mother was inside pulling and your Gran was yelling her head off, I had to go get your dad on Fire Watch duty and he dismantled the sand bag tunnel. After that she stayed home under the bed.