This drawing must have been done from 17 Kingsport Close, Portrack, where we lived, and shows Walton Court as it then was. In those days there was unrestricted entry to the buildings and central area, between the blocks of flats. There was also just a simple wire mesh fence to stop people getting into the central area. As can be seen, this was just used as a sort of playground obstacle by the local kids, who are climbing over it and the surrounding walls. Gone was the opportunity for the kind of mild and commonplace vandalism that my school mates and myself used to indulge in.
I see from various websites that these flats no longer belong to the Council. I would guess that at the date that this picture was drawn, 1972, the Council must have built and owned about 70-80% of the dwellings in Stockton.
Image and details courtesy of Fred Starr.
Am glad that these few pictures of Portrack have stirred a few memories with you Derek. Do he happen to know what was going on in factory-like building in the background to this sketch?. Was it connected with British Titan products, which had a smart looking office frontage on Portrack Lane?
Derek is quite right in highlighting the fact that there were large areas of privately owned houses in Stockton, so the proportion of houses owned by the Council was not anything like as high as I suggested. Nevertheless Stockton was much more dynamic than Middlesbrough in dealing with its slum problem. It provided decent accommodation for tens of thousands of people who had lived in quite poor privately rented properties. It was a major reason why house prices were held down in Stockton and helped give people a better real standard of living than in other parts of the country.
On a more personal note, if Derek is the young boy I remember, living at the Portrack Lane end of St Annes Terrace, his mother was a person of very advanced views for a woman in the 1950s. As a result Derek (or whoever it was) gave some of us a rather confused version of how babies were born. This was as much as we knew as there was no sex education in schools at the time and it was not the sort of thing that people talked about. The general opinion was that the story was unbelievable! But none of us had any better suggestions.
Hi Fred, I have no idea why I missed replying to your comments. Sometime around that period I had a PC and a backup disc blowout with minutes; recovery of most bits took a good while: forgiven?
On your first qn. The alignment looks about OK for Titan, but before the small H2S04 tower on Titan site was the a largish warehouse in the way plus a cluster of smaller ones. I am using a local gov map which I think is about 1970. I do recall a high pipe bridge crossing Haverton Hill Road. This would have been about 0.3 mile before Titan and so I believe it would have obscured the view of anything I call spot on the map, or recall I used to work at the Power Station and so my memory of the Titan area is reasonable
I get back on the other points tomorrow..
Another thought on the background to your sketch: could it be the ICI CCF tower? The current equivalent of ccf fertilizer is Growmore and I recall that it needs a good CO2 supply to produce the stuff cheaply.This still exists with it’s associated store; I believe they have a Design hold to prevent them being demolished.
I plead guilty to being Derek Wade, mother Frances of 1 St Annes. I hope that the story was not so unbelievable that ‘it got someone into trouble’. In Portrack , my learning was watching, from a safe distance, the occasional performance of older kids (before they threw bricks and threatened to thump me!!) and listening to tales of the consequences.
Re Fred Starr’s sketches,
From someone whose memory of his birthplace is getting much less good to someone who has a few years and can share a lot with us- a big thanks to you Fred.
One thing that you probably overlooked with your comment on housing is the old pre 1950’s area which still existed in the 1970’s and to a large extent also do today. Fairfield, Hartburn, Norton, Billingham etc.
Regards,
Derek
The area I am talking about is referred to as Black Farm on a 1938 Ordnance Map….These maps can be seen on the National Library of Scotland Website. The farm was nothing more than a small holding, but would have been a money spinner, in those days before frozen chickens.
The north side of the farm had a cinder track road which led down to the Coop butchery place.
The east side of the “farm was bordered by a single short row of houses on Walton Street. David Dunn, who was in my class at Portrack Primary, lived there. I think the family was quite poor.
Then after that, there was a short road full of small tradesmen, doing piecemeal jobs for industry. I remember going there with Brian Burns and talking to a welder. He gave the two of us a blue glass to look at the arc of the welding.
These buildings may have been built on Dog Hill Farm, according to the map. Then after that there was Villa farm, although I never heard any of these names myself.
The only one I do know is Portrack Grange, which was some distance down Portrack Lane. Halfway between the railway and Lustrum Beck. Where the railway once ran, under Portrack Lane, there is now a roundabout.
Walton Ct. is still owned by the local authorities… I deliver the mail there and everything is still very much as you describe it.