A view of Stockton High Street leading up towards the Parish Church c1944.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A view of Stockton High Street leading up towards the Parish Church c1944.
I come from a large family that went through the war years in Thornaby and remember the bombing and the land mines plus the back street shelters, also we had food shortages but we had happiness and fun and games out in the street. We never complained we had a good family upbringing, both parents one at war (navy) and the Mum working in the Globe in the ticket office was good to among friendly and very caring people.I dont agree with war but things happen and cannot be prevented, one has to grin and bear it.
I agree Keith, as I said in an earlier post it was all relevant, we were school boys and girls, it was exciting times as us lads kept up with all the latest news and moved pins on our maps as the fronts moved. The Army Cadets had a waiting list all, the Companies being over subscribed and training with real Brens and Mk2 Lea Enfields made it come alive.
It was our parents who had already been through one war who worried not us, they who had to put the food on the table, clothe us kids and hope the war ended before we were taken away from them.
If you read my memories of Norton Green on this site you will see we had wonderful times, the green the fields and the Billingham bottoms as our playground, every sport in season, roller skates on at all times and the wonderful neighbours who took us in and fed us if Mother on war work or Dad delivering materials in his truck were late home.
The local Church hall or School hall dances as we got older, Pictures that changed twice a week and as I said Cadets Scouts and other youth clubs I was into boxing all that of course after we finished the home work and chores.
Yes indeed my memories are mainly happy, my Town on the other hand was looking very neglected and my point was the picture shows a tired old lady who has been airbrushed into a model on the cat walk. The people in those crowded streets existed and came alive when the entertainment started be it a party or two drunks having a go on Saturday night, we made the most of what we had Carpe diem, fill every day was the attitude and can you blame us.
True Frank. I was lucky enough not to have lived through the war years having been born in the 1950s.I guess I remember my own childhood and the way people where then even though there was still poverty everyone always seemed to be in a happier frame of mind, but it was no doubt the mood was a happier one because of the war years far behind them.I guess I’m seeing the 1940s through rose tinted specs.
The High Street looking at its best.
Wonderful thing nostalgia “High Street looking at its best” this shows the power of the camera to give a face lift. If this is 1944 and lack of traffic plus pedestrians would say that was correct then all is not as it seems.
Five long years of war, rationing, lack of everything including paint for decorating my memory is of a dull tired and dowdy town.
1944 depending on what part of the year, had seen the invasion and some feeling it could be over for Christmas then in December the Germans struck back and we had the Battle of the Bulge, nothing but bad news what there was of it, German flying bombs carried over the North Sea on planes and released against the area so we had sirens again and nights in the shelter we had almost forgotten.
Stockton like its residents was run down wearing pre-war clothes past their best and little did we know it would get worse with almost another six years before we or the town could relax a bit.
People ask why we let the changes in the town happen I can tell them twelve years of scrimping and scraping is enough, we were weary, given the chance sanity leaves and get rid of the old in with the new takes over.
We wanted modern, new, splash out on ourselves and the town and to @#@@ with the consequence.
Today in Stockton I was watching the end of the Lindsay House and talking to one of the workmen said I saw it come I saw it go, he laughed and said you cannot stop progress. At the moment in town with all the works going on I can say I saw tidier battlefields, it will be nice when finished although it is not my town any more. Will my Grandchildren look back with nostalgia when this all vanishes sometime in the future, I am sure they will.
I agree with you on certain aspects. but it was still a happier place with happier people in it than there is now or ever likely to be even with all the so called progress.
Frank, you have a great way with words, spot on. I too saw Lindsay House ‘come and go’, good riddance I say.
Robert I would suppose that relative to the times you could say we were happy, probably at still being alive after the Bombing of 1941-42 and the odd raids after. Families were broken up with children being evacuated, Husbands and boy friends going in the forces and this being an area where a high number went into Infantry Regiments the loss of those men or the absence in some cases of years when they could not get home some regiments had a 300% turnover.
Women went into war work a lot of them sent away to ammunition factories, Land Army and also into the Forces.
Street houses crowded often two families to a house kids sleeping head to toe in the same bed, a bath in the tin bath in the yard or kitchen once a week whether you needed it or not and lucky if you went in second last before the dog? Some houses back to back no yard, helping my pal Dennis Goldsbrough with their coal round during holidays from school we would walk into the house and drop the coal next to the fire in a little cuddy with all the resulting dust, it also gave me an insight as to how poor some people were.
We would watch the Telegram delivery boys knowing full well what they carried, the yellow envelope saying sorry to report your Husband killed or missing in action. There would be word sent to the factory where the woman worked, on foot, we suspected telephones if we knew how to use them. She would be taken into the office and told to go home have a day off then come back to work it would be better for her, imagine her thoughts, certainly the neighbours would gather round and comfort her it was natural in those close knit communities.
Yes indeed we had our dance nights when cares went out the window and we enjoyed the ambience the mixing of the sexes a couple of hours of blissful forgetfulness of the war. The pictures with musicals and of an America that had no idea of war on the home front, we could dream then it was back to reality.
A forced happiness often the result of stress thinking it could not get worse, it did. I wondered why I at times found my Mother in tears not realising as a young sprog she fought to keep my Sister and I in properly fitting and clean school uniforms and walking out clothes, a battle that was continuous as I grew rapidly to six foot, She was also beginning to think I would be in the war if it did not finish soon. Rationing was not an issue with us but for some the bare minimum and as usual mothers went short to feed the children.
Was it a happier place in 1944, It was for some as I say it was relevant, the wartime spirit went a long way “we will not let the so and so’s get us down” for many it was misery, not I says he it was exciting to us lads who could not wait to get into it, fools that we were.