It is possible that Frank P Mee and others, who were regulars at Modern and Avenue Cinemas in Norton, will recognise this lady, Mrs Mary Peacock, who managed the Regal Fish and Chip shop across the road from the Modern. Mrs Peacock was my aunt and she lived in over the shop, as it were. Her husband, Charlie Peacock, was a lab technician at the ICI. In some ways a prestige job, in those days when, for most men, work involved hard manual labour.
The sitting room was behind the fish shop. Behind that was the kitchen. To get to the staircase for the bedrooms one had to go into the shop. So the house must have been converted at some stage.
The fish preparation and production of the chips was done in a small shed at the end of the yard. The actual owner of the shop was Mary Davidson who lived in the big house on the corner of Newlands Avenue and Norton Road, and was Mary Peacock’s aunt.
Photograph and details courtesy of Fred Starr.
My mum worked at the Regal for years, she used to ride a black push bike up and down Norton Avenue to Ragworth 4 or 5 times a week, she never had any problems, even though she used to be riding many times after midnight- her name was Nita- small lady with Scottish accent, I also worked at the shop for about 2 years, putting spuds in the pealing machine in the back shed and carrying them up to the shop, I also used to mix the batter in cylindrical device with a plunger, I remember Mary and Fred well, I remember once throwing a soggy glove at Mary, saying I had found a dead rat in the potato sacks, she jumped a mile. But she was a great lady, Fred was a very small and petite person always quiet and polite.
I am pleased that Alan Wilson knew my Aunt Mary, but I do wonder if he knew me. (Fred Starr).
Until the middle fifties, my mother Frances Mcglade, used to work almost full time at the Regal. In the morning and afternoons she would cut up the fish and peel the potatoes. In the evening she worked in the fish shop itself. But when she got a job in Portrack Hospital she only did the evening job at the Regal. That is where she became very friendly with Nita, Alan’s mother.
Up to about the age of ten, during the school holidays my mother would take me up to the Regal to give her a bit of company. I have to say that I usually got pretty bored as there as there was not much to read or do. I used to like walking from Portrack to Norton though.
Fred, a blast from the past. Was your mother Frances sister to Joe Mcglade married to Josie I believe one of the White sisters? Both families were large and I believe a couple of the Mcglade’s married White girls.
I had danced with Josie from starting the big lads dances at the Palais then went in the army, on leave I would dance with Josie and often walk her back to Portrack where we would meet Joe who had asked me to look after her, he was not keen on dancing. We were friends for many years as we had known each other from the days I went with Dad on his truck to load up with bricks from Saint Anne’s.
The last I heard of them they had a B&B down Bowesfield Lane, I did see Pearl White a few years back Josie’s sister, still a beauty as they all were.
The name brought back a flood of memories and though I did not know you, may well have known some of your kin?
The Regal was always a very busy place and the girls serving were very kind to us hungry young lads as they loaded our order with scraps, and as one poster said they worked until nearly midnight and then walked or cycled home, in wartime that would be through unlit streets because of the blackout, not much better when the lights came back on as most were gas lights, more of a glim I would say.
Joe McGlade, who had a gammy leg, was my mother’s cousin. He was the son of my “Aunt” Mary Anne who lived in Watson Street. There is a picture of mine in Picture Stockton of Watson Street up to the time it got pulled down in around 1955.
Joe had four brothers, One was Billy McGlade, who married Josie. There is a picture of Billy McGlade in the Conservative club which was recently published. Josie is still alive but has Altzeimers to some extent I understand.
It is a coincidence that my mother’s name is Frances McGlade. Her husband came from the other side of Stockton and was not connected with my family tree.
I understand that the lady who helped start Picture Stockton has some connection with Kevin MeGlade who was a grandson of Mary Anne MeGlade
Correct Fred it was Billy and the bad leg was the reason he did not like dancing though Josie did, she was very good and like me I believe she took dancing lessons. They all got in the Blood Tub or the Portrack and we would have a drink before walking to the dance.
Josie will be my age a lovely girl pity she is losing memory of the past. Those days of parties in Portrack where every house opened its doors and fun was had by all. I was welcomed as that posh G– from Norton and never turned away, being able to play piano helped of course.
They were hard working people who had little yet shared it, they certainly knew how to party, Christmas and New Year were often eventful, happy days.
I wonder if S Hyatt is mixing the Regal up with another fish and chip shop in Norton. I don’t recollect a man doing the frying
He is talking about Bradley’s Half way along the High Street Norton, it was down an alley and sold both wet fish and fish and chips. Mr Bradley did the frying although they had a couple more helpers serving too. The other fish shop was in Picton Place opposite the Norton Workmen’s Club and as you went along Norton Road to Stockton there were several more. We were well served with Fish and Chip Shops at that time and it was often the mainstay of the diet in wartime.
S Hyatt was referring to the Norton Fisheries where Mr Bradley did the frying and also mentioned in the same comment that she did enjoy the sausage pastties at the Regal fish shop.
The Carlton had roller skating sessions in the mid-1950s on Saturday mornings for young people. I remember Pepsi Cola doing a promotion there one week with free bottles of Pepsi given away to the skaters.
I lived in Keithlands Avenue (just around the corner from the fish-shop) which was next to “Broughs Supermarket” and across the road from the two cinema’s. I used to got there regularly and remember Mary well – she always gave me extra chips!
I used to go there and, while I was waiting, to Winterschladen’s for a drink.
I too was a lab. tech at ICI Billingham.
You must be one of THE Gilhooleys! I was at Richard Hind with Mick (1952/57) and his younger brother Tony lives near my younger brother, Colin, in Rook Lane.
Yes I am one of those Gilhooley’s, but you are wrong about Mick – he was my brother (now deceased) and he went to Richard Hind. Tony is my cousin and lives in Rook Lane.
Tony is the older brother of Kevin (Australia) & Terry, he played wing half in a good Richard Hind team with Dougie Cattermole & managed by Ken Sawyer.
Thanks, Paul. I’ve met Tony, but got his place in the family wrong! I did, however, go to Richard Hind with Mick (1952/57) and am the same age as he would be were he still alive.
After its dance hall days I seem to remember the Rink became a roller skating venue for a short time.
Could Frank Mee or others confirm? Was there not a plain and simple dance hall next door to the Regal? This was long before the Avenue Cinema closed down, and the Modern became the Fiesta Night Club.
It was my Uncle Charlie’s job as a lab assistant which first indicated to me. as a lad form Portrack, that one could get work doing chemistry. And of course, in those days the best jobs on Teesside were with the ICI. When reality began to dawn about the time I did my “O” levels I was getting more interested in physics and so after the sixth form at Stockton Grammar, I joined Dorman Long to become a metallurgist.
There was Fred, it had been a snooker hall for years then it closed down and opened as a Dance hall. It later became a car parts shop and now you can get anything to aid the handicapped, I am thinking of getting one of those electric chariots though it will be a 4×4 with go faster stripes, all us pensioners could play Polo on the Green, now that would take us all back to the happy days of youth.
I started Modern Dancing there, it was mixed old fashioned and modern with a live band, lots of us younger ones danced there under the eagle eye’s of an ex policeman and his wife, we did not mess with ex or indeed any policemen in those days so it was quite sedate.
The Dance Hall was called the Carlton, no idea why and the Regal did good sales when we got tossed out at I think ten o clock, I did say it was sedate.
Ah, sausage patties, worth riding my bike from Roseworth to get them. Believe it or not, I eat them regularly, they are a traditional delicacy here in old Shanghai!
The Regal fish shop was my filling station after pictures or dances for years, I knew the lady by sight though it was always so busy a bit of back chat as you were served was about it. First house pictures would finish at eight and it was straight over the road for a bag of chips and scraps, the girls behind the counter were always kind to us young hungry kids.
The Dances once I started going to the main ones in Stockton always had the last dance ending at ten forty five and every one out by eleven, the last bus to the Regal caught them closing up and cleaning down though they always had enough in the hot plates for the late comers.
I remember the Regal and the staff as a wonderful place for the best fish and chips, during the war it was a mainstay as they were never on ration. Friday was always fish day so on the bike down to the Regal and a big bag of fish and chips for the family. Mother fell out with Bradley’s who were nearer so the Regal got our custom.
As an end piece we lads and lasses walking down the High Street Norton would be met by the girls Dads making sure they were straight home and no hanky panky as we called it, in those innocent days we never really knew what that meant.
The Norton fish shop was beautiful and Mrs Bradley was a lovely lady, her husband did all the frying and in the 50s and 60s they used pure dripping, the taste was fabulous. We always had scraps on top of the chips, couldn’t afford the fish to go with them, unless mam and dad bought them. I have to say in all honesty that the Regal sausage patties were gorgeous, only wish I had tried them earlier. Such a shame no one does them today.
Ask for a patty down south and they would not know what you were talking about. Their nearest to this were fish cakes.
Ask for a sausage patty anywhere else in Stockton, they would not know what you were talking about.
My step-grandmother lived in nearby Victoria Avenue so we must have used this fish-and-chip shop. Incidentally, I once had a girlfriend whose father was manager of the Modern. We used to get free seats.
Re: the lab technician comment, my Dad, Harry Smith, was also a lab technician. ICI must have been short of them as he was, with others, taken from a manual job and specially trained by ICI to become a technician. He was then transferred to ‘staff’ status and a pensioned position. Quite an opportunity and the pension was a considerable benefit to him and my mother in later years.