Interior view of St Marys Church in Norton c1960.
Photograph and details courtesy of J Heward.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Interior view of St Marys Church in Norton c1960.
Photograph and details courtesy of J Heward.
Picture Stockton Archive 
St. Mary’s Church as we knew it is now known as St Mary the Virgin probably always was although from my earliest memory of going there as a family in the 1930’s from pre- Norton Board days to the Burial of my Wife six years ago it was plain St Mary’s.
Norton still a village at that time and the life was around the Churches, Friends Meeting house and other denomination Churches in and around Norton.
How things change we would never have thought of not attending Sunday Service, the meat would go in the oven, the Yorkshire puddings mixed, vegetables from the garden prepared then well scrubbed dressed in our Sunday best we attended the morning Service. My Father and Mother had been too young to be in the first world war though old enough to have known what it was all about and have Family killed and wounded or served in it, to them Church was from the heart for those who did not come back. To me it was a boring part of life that had to be suffered before that lovely roast lunch, my name is probably still scratched on the back of the pew as I stood there, well my ear still stings from the clip I got.
If we missed the morning service we would attend the evening one on summer nights then came the after Church stroll down the High Street and back onto the Green meeting and greeting well that was the parents and us as youngsters when we got older we were allowed to walk in groups down Mill Lane across the Willowgarth and back up Station Road to the Green. “Oh the adventure of it all” or so we thought.
The Sunday Church Parade once a month Bands playing and us Army Cadets creased and shining marching to Church then down the High Street and back to William Newton to dismiss, it was wartime and we were proud to wear the uniform, Peacocks all to impress the girls.
When I go into the Church yard there are so many of my family around me plus people I knew then. Children I went to school with and so many friends, the girl who kissed me properly is next to my Parents, I smile at that memory she was two years older than me a massive gap to a fifteen year old, she was getting towards Mothers age after all? and instead of the nervous peck I expected I got the full monty, I thought my inside was being sucked out, never forgotten and still a vivid memory.
St Mary’s was and always will be a link in my life from childhood to the present day as it has been for more than a thousand years, in todays fast track life it may not seem so but believe me it is still the glue that holds us together from generation to generation and long may it be so.
Frank.
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