(Illustration: Tyne View) 

I wonder if you can still perfectly describe the house you lived in as a child, what it looked like, and which memories of it, are foremost in your mind? I suppose the younger you were when you moved on from there, I suppose the dimmer these recollections will be?

I think back to the house we lived in, until I was eleven years old, in Church Street, Coach Open, Willington Quay; a house which had, for a long while, been marked out for demolition to make way for the new Tyne Tunnel. It was situated at the end of a row of shops, so that was really convenient for us.

It was a happy ‘home’, despite the fact that houses then, had no central heating.

In winter, you could scrape your name into fronds of ice on the bedroom windows with a fingernail, and also watch your breath billow out in a fleeting, misty cloud; these upstairs rooms were a real contrast to the one downstairs, as there was always a good fire in the hearth.

Lighting our fire though, from scratch, was always a bit risky.

The fire itself was initially lit using crumpled paper, sticks and coal, but to speed the job up, an open newspaper was held against an upright shovel, which was balanced on the fender, as a ‘blazer’, to get a draught going underneath. Sometimes the newspaper caught fire, if we didn’t spot it quickly enough turning brown! This practice was so well-rehearsed, but it caused some anxiety on my part, as it seemed fraught with danger, and I would watch the paper like a hawk.

But then my parents proudly invested in an ‘all-night burner’. Because of this, our fire could now be banked up at nights with coal dust, and the draught flap shut down for the night. In the morning all that was needed for a blazing fire, was to pierce the coal surface with a poker, and open the flap slightly at the bottom, and voilà, there it was!

Heat, glorious heat!

Of course, fires as efficient as ours caused a lot of soot to gather in the chimney, and that’s when the chimney sweep, with his black face, and his dirty flat cap, would pay us a visit.

One pole had a circular bristle brush on it that went up the chimney first. This pole was inserted into the grey cloth which had been attached to the fireplace. Then as the brush was pushed upwards through the hole, other segments of the pole, about eight of them, were added on one by one, until the brush came right out of the top of the chimney! We would hurry outside to see it appear. But then the exciting part began, as he gently pulled the circular brush back down, detaching each of the pole segments as they emerged. You should have seen the vast amount of soot which came down into the cloth, making it billow out slightly. Then the soot was wrapped up and taken away.

So, we were always warm when we got washed and ready in front of our fire, before going to school.

(Why does a ‘liberty bodice’ come to mind at this point? I disliked this item of clothing intensely, as it was thick and rather restricting. It was worn on top of our vests to keep us warm throughout the day, when winter closed in. )

Our back yard was typical of houses then, small and compact with two outbuildings. Someone before we lived there, had cemented shards of glass bottles into the top of our high brick wall, to keep trespassers out, just outside the back door; it ws a scary sight.

One outbuilding was a coal-house, which held coal in place with fitted planks of wood, and on one occasion, we discovered a wild looking cat hiding inside, with her batch of kittens. She hissed and snarled at us on opening the door, so we stayed clear of them all, until someone came to remove them.

This brings me to the outdoor loo, right next to the coal-house, with its torn-up newspaper pieces hanging on string, from a hook on the wall; these papers were an early substitute for loo roll, which of course, hadn’t yet been invented. Izal toilet rolls soon came onto the market, (its paper supposedly kinder to the skin and less ink on it) but believe me, 'wiping' was still, very much, an unpleasant experience, that is unless you crumpled the paper up first.

Dad kept an old paraffin lamp lit in there, in winter, to keep the water in the loo from freezing. A cunning plan!

Lifting the latch of our back door brought us into the backyard, and straight into our small kitchen. Outside of its window, a long, grey, tin bath hung neatly outside on the wall. We did occasionally bathe in it, but the several kettles of hot water which were poured into it, didn’t stay warm for very long.

A ‘modern’ Ascot heater on the kitchen wall gave us instant hot water though; but we used it sparingly.

Two massive old, brown leather chairs squatted like sentinels by the fire in the main living room. They were so cosy, and I loved snuggling up beside my dad on the one nearest the fireplace. A large cupboard lay to the right of the fire. This was the place where I first saw a spider, when one crept slyly out of a cereal packet, and made a sudden dash for freedom, heading straight for me. No wonder I don’t much like spiders.

I remember the bamboo wallpaper which decorated the walls, it was ‘fashionable’ then, and kept our living room fenced in, all around, most jungle-like. And I remember the table where we sat for our meals, and Joan and I having to race around it once or twice, to dry the calamine lotion which had been dabbed on our spots, whatever spots they were? I still can’t understand how Joan and I got those spots at exactly the same time? We seemed to share everything, even a single finger of Kit Kat biscuit at tea time. One sister would cut it in two, the other chose which half they wanted. Mam got one too, and dad the remaining two! After all he was the breadwinner.

Our front passage had two doors at the front of the house; the inner one had small ruby and sapphire stained-glass panels set into its large window. But, there was also a third door, a secret door, which had led at one time into the post office next door, as our house had once been the postmaster's house. I would sometimes slide the bolt along very quietly, and push it, to see if I could open it, to play in there, but I never succeeded. I found out later that it had been bricked in on the other side, and all my efforts had been for nothing.

Upstairs we had three bedrooms, the smallest, of these had a gas lamp, with mantle, on the wall! It's strange, the memories that rise up in full colour, when you think back to the house you grew up in.

I once got a splinter in my thumb once (we called them spelks then), and it was quite painful. I recall sitting on the bed in my parents’ bedroom, feeling sorry for myself, as my dad was on his way upstairs to remove it. That’s when I heard a bloodcurdling scream from the Post office, below, next door. We rushed into the shop, to find out that a robbery had taken place, the postmistress had been coshed and her head was bleeding, and my dad and Andy, the butcher, (whose shop was near, and who owned a car), gave chase down Tyne View, and along to East Howdon. They caught the robber, who had run away across the field in that direction. What heroes they were that day!

Unfortunately, my dad hadn’t forgotten about the spelk in my thumb! 

There was another high moment of drama in that house, which involved a pet of ours; a young black and white young cat called Dinky, which escaped once. We were so worried about her; a few days later, she came home, looking very sheepish, dishevelled and dirty. Sometime later, it was announced that she was about to have kittens! How did that happen? Not wild ones, might I add, like the ones we found in our coal house, but her very own. However, it didn’t go well for Dinky. From the little information we were given, after my dad’s visit to the vet with her, over in Jarrow, it seemed that the first kitten was blocking the way to the others getting out, and sadly the vet was away on another call at the time.

So dad was asked to return later. The second time he returned home, he broke the sad news to us that Dinky had died! The vet hadn’t returned to the surgery, and his assistant could not deliver the batch of kittens himself, and so Dinky had to be put to sleep, along with all her kittens inside her, as she had been so distressed.

She was distressed?

We were all highly distressed! I remember my whole family crying for Dinky and her kittens, even my dad!

God rest their little souls!