Louise Osborne

Growing up in the last house on Askrigg Street, my family had a prime view of all the trains going by. I remember the excitement of seeing the Flying Scotsman whooshing by and when my Brother was born, our Dad made him a model railway that took up the whole of the dining room. Little Bro thought the trains horn blared "Norman" as it whizzed by and no one told him otherwise, so the train board become known as the "Norman board".

Us kids in the street had been told that it was "unlucky" to have your feet on the ground when a train went by, I remember our Mam coming out one day and a huge gang of us were lying on our backs on the pavement, with our feet in the air (like little Turtles) she was buckled up with laughter when we told her why.

On a Sunday Dad, would take us out for a couple of hours, to let our Mam get on with the Sunday dinner, we went to the usual haunts like the South Park, the Tees and sometimes for a walk up the railway line via the 5 arches.

This sounds totally irresponsible now but at the time, it seemed so normal and a lot of fun, Dad would put 2p pieces on the line to squash them for our collections and we would collect the orange "piano's" (orange plastic fittings that had come loose) to paint for our dolls houses.

When the trains come past us Dad, would sit us on the fence, to wave at the passengers and we felt like we were in the Railway Children film.

One day that stands out is the day I found a letter down the embankment and being so young I didn't read it but gave it to my Dad to read, he looked at it and quickly pocketed the letter and said "it's not for kids, it a love letter a lad has dropped", and us kids were saying read it to us but he refused.

We found out years later that the reason Dad, got us home quickly and then disappeared before lunch was that I had found a suicide letter, written by some poor chap who had put his neck on the line weeks before. Dad had gone to the police station to hand it in.

Our family had a car from the 1960's so when our Grandma and Granda took us on our yearly holiday to Whitby, us kids would whinge and whine to go on the train with our Grandparents. It was a rare treat to get a private carriage and watch the world go by. Grandma would always start a sing-song and usually the ticket inspector would join in while punching our tickets and come back for a buttie when the picnic was opened.

Years later about 30 family members were meeting up in Whitby for a holiday, I couldn't travel with them on the day but followed them the next day on the train, as we pulled into the station and announcement was made over the tannoy "ladies and gentlemen we are now pulling into Whitby station and it looks like there is a welcoming committee for one of our passengers", I remember thinking "oh we must have some VIP on the train"..........no it was my crazy family with flags and kazoo's, welcoming me with the help of the porters and other staff, I don't think I have blushed so hard ever since!

I'm a Darlo lass and our Mam and Dad told us very early on about the history of the railway and Darlingtons connection to it, I'm very proud of our rich heritage and have a lot of great memories of it.