A photograph of the Stockton Parish Church 2nd Eleven football team in 1925.
Photograph and details courtesy of Andrew Benzies.
Stockton Parish Church football team, 1925
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Category Archives: Leisure, Countryside Parks and Views
A late-night scene in Stockton High Street by Elsie Cannon
This watercolour depicting a late-night scene in Stockton High Street was painted by Elsie Cannon in 1951, in Impressionist style. The vibrancy of the colours captures the lively, if somewhat chaotic end, to some weekend big night out with lots of different stories and emotions going on, all picked out by the bright, neon sign advertising the Blue Posts Hotel, just off stage. Whilst a small crowd jostles to get on board the last bus (the number 3, I recall, plied between Hartburn and Roseworth), other night owls are still partying and one or two characters are clearly the worse for drink! Meanwhile the young couple in the central foreground are too much in love to notice all these shenanigans and are dreamily wending their own way.
Elsie Cannon grew up in Stockton and studied at West Hartlepool College of Art where she met and befriended my mother’s sister, my Auntie Win. She became a close friend of the family and was known to us as ‘Auntie Elsie’. She lived with her parents in Linden Avenue, near Ropner Park and taught art at Richard Hind school. As well as local scenes, Elsie liked to paint landscapes, particularly of the Lake District and the Isle of Arran where she would spend her holidays, sometimes touring by bicycle. Later, she took up photography and deployed the same artistic talent in capturing scenes, characters and landscapes as expressed in her paintings.
I remember Elsie as a demure lady, in fact the archetypal ‘prim aunt’, and I cannot imagine that she could have sat with paintbrushes and easel in the middle of Stockton High Street, late at night to capture this surreal scene. But whatever her method, she certainly caught and ably recorded in this painting, something of the times.
Photograph and details courtesy of Robert Still.
Globe Theatre Staff, 1955
A photograph of some of the staff who worked at the Globe Theatre in 1955.
Photograph and details courtesy of Barry Jones and Madge Fagan.
Billingham Carnival 1951
During the 1950s Billingham Council organised a number of carnival days, I remember several that paraded along Cotswold Crescent past my Mothers house.
This is the 1951 carnival, it may have been prompted by the Festival Of Britain that was being celebrated in London.
This picture was taken in Station Road.
This annual event was one of four different events held in Billingham during the 1950s, the other three were the ICI Sports Day held on the Synthonia Cricket pitch on Belasis Avenue, The Billingham Show, originally held in the Billingham Green area, in later years it was held in The John Whitehead Park, the last event of the year was the travelling fair that was set up on The North End Football Ground, in the early 1960s the Billingham Trade Union Club and Kennedy Garden Flats were built on the football ground and the fair went to another venue, I can’t remember where it was.
I was five years old in 1951 and may have seen this parade but I certainly remember later parades.
The early parades consisted of local people dressing up in fancy dress and walking around the town, from conversations with other people I have gleaned that the parade started on Cowpen Lane near to where the Roseberry Bridge was later built, they walked along Cowpen Lane to the junction with Belasis Avenue then along to the Picture house then into the Green and along Station Road to the Junction Estate.
The carnival parades continued into the early 1960s and started to include the newly formed Junior Jazz Bands, many people will remember these bands, over the years the bands started wearing colourful uniforms and were quite a big thing at the time.
In the early 1960s Billingham Week was introduced, this featured live music in the Town Centre as well social events such as dances in the Billingham Arms, I have two videos of Billingham Week from 1963 and 1964, they were copied from films shot by the Billingham Cine Club, they are in colour but are silent as was usual for home movies at the time.
ICI Sports Day was a brilliant day out, fairground rides, side shows as well as athletics, I have three films of the event from 1933, black and white and silent, 1946 and 1957, the latter is in colour with a narration.
The Billingham Show will be remembered by many Billingham folk, the tents with the flowers and vegetables, local retailers had displays of their wares, the model airplane club flying tethered planes, no radio control in those days, in later years there was a motorcycle stunt team and as always a beer tent, I am sure many other towns held such shows.
I have a film of one of the shows in my collection.
Billingham week was replaced by The Folklore Festival, I remember the first one held in the Town Centre and John Whitehead Park, it wasn’t international at the beginning but there was an Irish Dancing troupe from Sunderland and I saw Maddy Prior singing in the park before she became the singer with Steeleye Span.
The fair was very much the same in the1950s as any other town fair, carousels, waltzers and assorted side shows, all the kids in the area loved it, admittedly the shortage of money meant that we didn’t actually get on the rides more than once, sometimes not even once, but the atmosphere was amazing.
If anybody else remembers these events or even similar events in other towns it would be great if you could make a comment.
I can make the films mentioned available to anybody who is interested, I can upload them to Windows OneDrive where they can be downloaded, I have limited data so I can only upload a couple at a time and I have to delete them to upload others.
Picture Stockton can give you my email address.
Photograph and details courtesy of Bruce Coleman.
A trip to the Globe Theatre, 1959/60
Children of Davy United Roll Foundry workers on an outing to see the Babes in the Wood at the Globe Theatre.
Details and photograph courtesy of Barry Jones and Madge Fagan.
Globe Theatre Usherettes
A photograph of the usherettes at the Globe Theatre when Cinderella was playing in December 1960 and January 1961. We only know the names of two of the usherettes; Carrie Pinnegar and Agnes Stephens. Does anyone recognise any of the the others?
Photograph and details courtesy of Barry Jones and Madge Fagan.
Aladdin at the Globe Theatre, 1959 – Enhanced by AI
Here are two photographs showing a pantomime outing to see Lonnie Donegan in Aladdin which have been enhanced by AI.
The post with original photos courtesy of Barry Jones and Madge Fagan can be seen here.
Photographs courtesy of Ron Watson.
Aladdin at the Globe Theatre, 1959
A pantomime outing to see Lonnie Donegan in Aladdin at the Globe Theatre for Davy United Roll Foundry workers and their families.
The show also included the Marie De Vere Dancers.
Photos and details courtesy of Barry Jones and Madge Fagan.
Pantomime Outings to the Globe
These photos show pantomime outings to the Globe Theatre for Davy United Roll Foundry and ICI workers and their families.
The Davy Ashmore trips to the theatre were organised by my father-in-law, George Fagan, who also used to organise summer outings. Each child was given a bag of fruit and a drink. They all got ice cream in the interval. I think he knew someone backstage and so got permission for the photos.
Photos and details courtesy of Barry Jones and Madge Fagan.
David Crawford at the Billingham Bowl c. 1964
A photo of David Crawford, a member of the Durham County Ten Pin Bowling team, in action at the Billingham Bowl.
Image and details courtesy of Anthony Crawford.
Durham County Ten Pin Bowling Team
A photo of the Durham County Ten Pin Bowling team c. 1964 who represented Durham County on at least a dozen occasions.
Back row (L to R): David Crawford from Billingham, Bob Bailey from Stockton, John (from Sunderland.
Front row: the lad on the right was Bryan but I can’t remember the name of the lad on the left. Both were from Sunderland.
Image and details courtesy of Anthony Crawford.
‘Teesside Smells’ Publication
In digging around in my old stuff I came across these two hand made publications from my misspent youth. I only have the first two copies (whether there were anymore only your readers could say) from the local punk rock/new wave days in the late seventies. They were filled with lot’s of articles and band info. I spent many a night in the Teessider pub watching some very fast and certainly furious youth of the day do their thing. Great times.
Photograph and details courtesy of Mike Bellerby
Ropner Park Lake, 1981
Not great photographs but I haven’t seen any photographs of Ropner Park lake in a completely frozen state on Picture Stockton and I doubt that many people will have seen anybody rowing a dinghy on it. The humans are ‘Macky’ of Fairfield and Keith G of Oxbridge.
Photographs courtesy of MF Wilson.
The Old Baths in Billingham
Billingham “Billy” Baths is where I and many many others were taught to swim by the marvellous Olive Atkinson.
The shot of the building I can date to around 1960, to the right of the picture there can be seen a car on the perimeter road leading to the ICI offices, these were opened in 1959, straight ahead is the roundabout at the junction of Central Avenue and Cowpen Lane, St. Johns church was later built on the corner and it opened in 1961/62.
When facing the baths, to the left were a number of single storey pre-fab buildings, these housed the welfare and medical centre, it is where we went for our Polio jabs in the 1950s, also they supplied the famous National Dried Milk and exceptionally tasty orange juice.
To the right of the baths were some tennis courts surrounded by a high fence, I never saw tennis being played there but I did see the Police running the Cycling Proficiency Examinations during the 1950s.
The shot of the diving board dates from the 1950s, one of our favourite escapades was for a group of lads to gather near to the boards then we would all run up the boards and with a loud yell all jump together and “Bomb” the pool, this led to a lot of whistle blowing and finger pointing by the attendants, we were never thrown out but we did get some ear bashing.
The long shot of the pool is also from the 1950s and was taken from the diving board area looking toward the front of the building, the opening behind the man in the dark suit was the entrance to the lads changing rooms, the balcony and part glazed roof can be clearly seen.
The pool had underwater lighting along the two long sides, we used to sink under the water and we could see past the bulb and reflector and see the maintenance men going about their business.
The shot of Olive Atkinson and her prize winning team is a newspaper clipping from 1962, my thanks to Ann Martin for the loan of this image.
Before being taught the correct way to swim I used the usual dog paddle method of swimming, neither of my parents could swim so we were very much on our own when messing about in water.
Two of the things I disliked about the baths were the foot trough between the changing rooms and the pool and the huge extractor fan in the changing rooms that caused a near gale, both were freezing cold.
I was very lucky learning to swim as I was a pupil at Billingham South Modern School for one year 1957/58 and we had swimming lessons there, when we were transferred to Stephenson Hall on the Billingham Campus site there were no swimming lessons available.
Swimming was one of the great loves of my life and I continued swimming well into my 50s, I taught two of my younger brothers to swim, both gained the ASA gold badge and one became a professional diver, they in turn taught my two sisters to swim and they in their turn taught my two youngest brothers.
Details courtesy of Bruce Coleman.
Stockton Sledging
Since the snow is with us I’d like to show you a picture from the early 1970s. It is of a group of friends from the Newtown area (photo actually taken in Mellor Street with the Rocket public house in the background) sitting on probably the largest sledge in the North East.
There is actually room for six kids on there. I remember once dragging it all the way from Newtown along the black path and on to Newham Grange park. It was an epic journey for us young’un’s as like now the sun beat down from a cloudless sky. When we eventually got there the sun had started to melt the snow and not more than two of us at any one time could ride it otherwise it just sunk. After about half an hour it was a mush fest so we left the park and trudged back home. It only ever came out once more when we persuaded my dad to drive us on the moors Road (A171) to that big hill a couple of miles past the Lockwood Beck Reservoir. That lasted even quicker than the park trip when the farmer came out and politely asked us to leave. So my sledge went back under my brother’s bed, never to see any more snow. The sledge was scrapped sometime in the late 1970s.
Photo and details courtesy of Michael Bellerby.