I was born at 6.18am on Saturday 30th October 1954, at number 83 Grainger Street Darlington. The weather was drizzly and my Dad had been preparing to go out to work when he had to call out the doctor. I was also informed that there was a total eclipse of the Sun that day the first in Britain since 1927. Whether or not that has had any influence on my character I could not say. Memories grow dim with age, nearly sixty years has passed since that day but I will share with you my childhood memories as best I can.
the terraced houses in Grainger street backed onto an alley I expect they still do. The alleys were cobbled in blue tiles which seemed to sparkle in the rain and frost. There was a coal shute in the backyard, which had an opening into the alley so that the coal man could put his load into it. There was also an entrance to the shute in our backyards so that we could retrieve it. The only toilet was outside at the top of the yard, a haven for spiders and other creepy crawlies, so at night and in bad weather we used chamber pots. I can't imagine anyone using them these days but back in the 1950's many families did. We also had no bath (until 1959 when my brother joined the army and his bedroom was turned into a bathroom). We had a portable tin bath which we used to pull up in front of the kitchen fire on bath nights - Saturday for mum, my sister and I.
In the 1950's most streets had at least one shop, we had three, Butterfield's fish and chips shop where you could get a large bag of chips and mushy peas for a tanner and a sausage or small fish for 9d. There were also two grocery shops on opposite corners of the street- Sutton's and Miss Gibson's. Miss Gibson better known to the locals as Naggie Annie was a distant cousin of my father's, a cantankerous old maid who occasionally gave us a glimpse of a heart of gold. Life had not been kind to Ann Gibson, her fiancee had died at Passchendaele and with his death her dreams. Ann had lived with her father until his death, inheriting the shop when he passed away. Entering Miss Gibson's shop was like walking back in time, there were still the old Edwardian cabinets and sweet jars, a real Aladdin's cave. She sold everything from boot blacking to old fashioned bullseyes (boiled sweets)which I remember my father had a penchant for. We also had a greengrocer and a rag and bone man who used to call every week, both had horse drawn carts and if we were good we were allowed to stroke the horses. I preferred animals to people back then and if truth be told still do. More about my menagerie of pets in another chapter. I looked up my old address on Google Maps and was disappointed to find the houses have not weathered well. Back in the day it was a respectable working class address but seems to be very down at heel now, and there are no longer any shops in the street. As they say time marches on.
