Reading about Mayor Temple made me dig deep in my memory bank. I’d left Tilery Boys School Christmas 1962… it was August 1963 when a young lad Freddy Davis ran out of the field where I lived in Swainby Road, crying saying a child had fallen into the water at the disused clay pit and couldn’t be seen. I grabbed my swimming trunks, ran to the clay pit and started looking for the child, my mates Freddy Newby, George Thomas, George Thomas, Franky Large and Jimmy Manion arrived soon afterwards. We searched until two Police Officers arrived with a very long rope. We lads took turns swimming under the brown water feeling the muddy bottom in the hope of finding the child, the two Police Officers stood on either side of the banks as one lad set off from one side to meet the lad from other side in the middle. It was awful. We searched for ages before the Frogmen arrived. When I climbed out of the water, I looked up and saw how all the people from the nearby streets, Swainby, Danby, Tilery and Portrack had gathered above us, it really was the saddest of times as the child was eventually found, but it was too late. Some years later the clay pit was filled in, looking back it was a miracle no other child drowned in the pit.
Image and details courtesy of Derek Casey.
The clay pit, or ‘claggy’ as we called it, was certainly an attraction for the kids in Tilery and Portrack during the 1950s. My dad worked for Blacketts for a while delivering the bricks and also driving the excavator to dig out the clay. I was told that the infilling of the pit included the remains of the old houses from Portrack such as Lumley, Leonard and Lambert Streets.
As I lived in Swainby Road at this sad time I can remember this incident very well ,but it still made no difference as kids we still went swimming in the crane hole as we called it up until it was drained and filled in with household waste and other waste materials.
Hi Lenny, yes I swam in clayhole even when I was courting Rita, it was a magnet to kids, I well remember just before this tragic event brothers Allan & Freddy Davis sitting on the rafts we used to build out of old railway sleepers, both lads sat on a raft and didn’t realise it had drifted well away from the steep sides, both lads were crying and frightened, I had to swim out to the raft and push it back, their mum Freda thanked me, again another near miss. In recent years I went to Darlington library to track down the newspaper article, the news reporter had spoken to my dad (Bob Casey) for ages about clay hole & Freda Davis came over to our house 155 Swainby Rd and also spoke to a reporter telling of near miss with her 2 sons, I was really shocked at reading the news article all those years later, it bore no resemblance to what was said by my dad or Freda Davis, I still have the news clipping, it really was shocking news reporting. On a happier note it was a great road to grow up in, I thought the world of your brothers Alfie, Ernie & Andy, never failed to cry laughing when I was with them, those lads and others give me a bank full of treasured memories Bless every one of them.
Derek.
Brave attempt Derek 👏👏👏.
Signed by Harry Rigg, who took over the headmaster’s role from my grandfather.
The article by Derek Casey brought back mixed memories in many ways. For the family of Freddy Davies, great sadness, I left Tilery in 1960 and moved on with my parents to Billingham. I can clearly recall playing in that disused clay pit. A few of us even had a raft on it. Franky Large , if he is the same one that I recall, had a sister Ada who married my uncle Frank. While the Manion’s Portrack home was over Portrack lane from our home in 1, St Anns Tce and his Dad enjoyed the frequent pint with mine in the ‘Gerry’. Harry Rigg was the Head Master first at St Anns school and then at Tilery and a great fella he was. Mixed memories.
I lived in Headlam St Tilery and remember the clay pit I was about 8 or 9 when we used to go looking for newts and tadpoles, used to dig up bits of fancy pottery and put it in a tin and played shops, that was about 1953/54, we had good fun but we didn’t see danger x
While the bravery of the boy I assume is Derek Casey is in no doubt, in his action in a forlorn attempt to rescue the missing child. Being a retired police officer, the officers who attended the incident were being highly reckless in allowing/assisting Derek to seek the child in what was a potentially dangerous environment. Two boys could have died that day.
However Derek deserves recognition for his heroic attempt. When all thought of personal safety is forgotten in the heat of the moment. The officers need sacking.
The older brother of my late friend,Pam Higgins, drowned in that water in the 1940’s.
Hi Maureen, not sure which water for the drowning in 1940, the clay pit we are talking about was dug some time in mid to late 50s in the old farm field at the end of Swainby Road, the clay was used for Blacketts brick works between Tilery & Portrack, this was second clay hole opened as first was stopped after years of use.
All the best.
Derek