Could this possibly be Sir Frank Brown and his family in the early 1900s? I believe the driver of the tram is Mr G.E. Sedgewick.
Photograph and information courtesy of Pete.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Could this possibly be Sir Frank Brown and his family in the early 1900s? I believe the driver of the tram is Mr G.E. Sedgewick.
Photograph and information courtesy of Pete.
It definitely is the Norton terminus for the trams, as a boy of about 8 years old in 1928 I remember walking there from Parkfield to roll my Easter paste egg on the Norton gree. My mother gave me bread and jam sandwiches and a bottle of water and one penny so I could get the tram back home to the Parliament street stop at the end of the day. It was a day out we kids used to enjoy, during that period my uncle George Iceton was a tram driver so I would wait for his tram and have a free ride back home and buy some sweets with the penny. Those days we kids were allowed to walk to the parks and Norton green, it was always safe to do so
My grandad used to drive the trams, big Jack Brown drove into a tobacconists window and when the lady crawled out he asked her for 10 Woodbines – lol. Would love to see a pic off him driving a tram.
The gentlemen who drove these early examples of ‘modern’ mechanised public transport must have been a hardy breed indeed, having about the same protection from hot sun, driving rain or raging blizzards, as centuries of horse-drawn stage-coach or cab-drivers had endured before them. It would be inconceivable these days, to make a person actually stand upright (not sit) for hours on end in such conditions, simply to earn their living. It’s probably why there used to be a strong traditional cough medicine still available from Chemists when I was a child in the 1950’s specifically named, ‘Cabdrivers Linctus’. Bouts of debilitating, possibly deadly bronchitis surely being an occupational hazard to these men, decades before anti-biotics became widely available, or Health & Safety regulations came into force.
Looks like the terminus at Norton Green to me. I believe the clock which can be seen above and behind the tram is still there.
Do any of the more learned contributors to the site recognise the location at which this photograph was taken [Norton perhaps]?
Norton Green at the terminus. The clock is the give away. To the right of this is where Blackwells the butchers is situated.
My wifes g/father was a conductor/driver on the trams. He moved from Scotland where he was a tram driver in Edinburgh.
I would not call myself more learned though the answer to me is obvious.
That is the clock at the tram terminus on Norton green, behind through the windows you will see the window of what I knew as Hawes shop a General dealer who also had a Farm off Calfallow Lane. As a Scout I camped in Hawes Wood now I think part of the Golf course.
The clock is still there though the building has gone through several make overs since this picture was taken.
A guess would be the inauguration of the first electric tram and I state this is a guess plus probably the building of the tram shed half way along Norton High Street. Though Trams ran from Norton to North Ormesby where my Grandparents lived and I probably did ride on them I was too young to have memory of that, my first constant memory was of them taking up the tram lines yet leaving the turn off into the Tram Sheds until well after the war.
My opinion is now it is time to replace those Trams with a modern system which would open up the Town for shopping again and remove some of the many cars from the road for short journeys, Norton Green is now one huge car park, it would be lovely for it to be clear of cars when they light up the tree they put in last week and probably an open air Carol Service as happened when I was a child.