CHAPTER 1
I opened the curtains and looked out of the window. It was a beautiful sunny morning. A nice day I thought for Spot and me to spend down at the beach.
I was having my breakfast when Spot made his appearance.
'Good morning Spot, Have you had anything to eat yet?
'Not yet Ken, it was such a beautiful morning, I have been out in the garden ever since I got up.'
'Yes, it's a beautiful morning. Fancy going to the beach today; it will make a nice change after being stuck indoors all the winter.'
'Why not Ken?
'We will leave the car, and take a nice walk; it will blow the cobwebs away.'
'That will do me Ken, but don't put that dog lead on me, it chokes me and I can't get my breath.'
'It only chokes you because you always get too excited and want to run on ahead.'
'Yes but as you have just said, we have been stuck indoors all winter and I am just very glad to get out into the fresh air and sunshine for some exercise.'
'It's no use moaning Spot I will have to take it, and you will have to wear it, because the law states that all dogs must be on a lead.'
'I think it's a stupid law.'
'Spot it isn't the law that's stupid, it is some of the dog owners of certain dogs, like Rottweiler's, Alsatian's, or Pitbulls that are stupid. I'm not saying all dog owners but some of them. A lot of people are frightened when they see those types of dogs running about all over the place without a lead. Some are even required to wear a muzzle; they can be so dangerous. But as I said you can't blame the dogs, but some of the owners who are irresponsible and they get other dogs and owners a bad name.'
'I suppose your right Ken.'
'Tell you what Spot! If it is quiet and there is no one about I will take the lead off when we get there okay.'
'Alright Ken.'
We left the house, but before we went out of the gate I put Spots lead on him. Straight away he was trying to pull my arm out of its socket.
'Take it easy Spot I am going to have one arm longer than the other one.
'Sorry Ken.'
'I will take you the way me and my brothers and all my friends used to go when we were little. This road we are walking down now wasn't here when I was a little boy.'
'It wasn't Ken?
'No, this area around us here was all farmland. Over on the left-hand side here for instance was a field that was always used for the dairy cows.'
'That would be great Ken; I could have had some fun chasing them all over the place.'
'Oh no, you wouldn't have.'
'Why' not?
'Because in the first place you would have been on a lead, and secondly how would you liked to be chased all over the place as you put it.'
'Your right again Ken, but it would have been fun.'
'Not if the farmer saw you doing it.'
'Why?
'Because they used to shoot dogs that worried the animals back in them days, in fact a lot of farmers still do, they have to protect their livestock.'
'This road we are approaching now was just a little narrow farm track, it led you right to the farm, it was called Hemsleys Farm, it was a right of way for people, but you had to respect the farmer's property and the animals.'
We walked on a while. I stopped and pointing to a couple of houses I said to Spot.
'Right there Spot was where the old farm house once stood, there was always a few chickens scratching about and the ducks were over there in that corner.'
'Where those houses are now Ken?
'Yes, but those houses weren't there then. The milking sheds were over this way, sometimes on the way to the beach you met up with the farm hands who would be fetching the cows up this path to the sheds for milking.'
'Did you have to run out of the way?
'No you we stood at the side of the path and the cows would walk right passed you.'
'And they never attacked you?
'No, they just looked at us as they passed. If we came by just after the cows had been milked and there was no one about, we used to sneak into the shed where the fresh milk was kept in big churns.
We would take the lid off the churns and scoop out some of the warm milk to drink, before the lorry came to take them away to the dairy.
'What's a dairy Ken?
'That's where they would take all the milk too, from the farms. After being treated it was put in bottles for delivery to the houses round about.'
'In those days Spot the milk bottle tops were made of cardboard, we would fill our pockets with them and play Getty the further.'
'What was that Ken?
'It was a game we played, you put a milk top between two fingers and flicked them at a wall, When everybody had flicked their milk top, the one that was nearest to the wall won all the tops that had been flicked by all the other boys.
On this corner here was the pigsty, we loved to watch the new-born Piglets, and there were lots of them.
How the big sows, that's what the mother pigs were called, never used to crush the little piglets when they were fighting for one of her teats to feed, I don't know. And the noise of them all squealing was ear splitting at times.'
'Next to the pig sty Spot was where they kept Hemsley's Bull, you wouldn't have chased him around the field, he was huge, bigger in height than I am now and weighed about two tons or even more.
During the day, it would be tied up in the field to a big post by a copper or brass ring through its nose, and at night it would be taken indoors.
One day one of the farm hands, some say it was the farmer Mr Hemsley, went into the field to bring the bull indoors for the night and it somehow knocked him to the ground. And he was supposedly found dead in the field, we used to keep well clear of that field when the bull was in there.
When it was tied up in its stall we used to peep through the open door to see it close up.'
'Was it scary Ken?
'No, not with him being tied up by the ring through his nose, knowing it couldn't harm us, we were very brave.'
We walked further on; I pointed to the name of the road.
'See the name Spot, Hemsley Road; it is named after the farm.'
Looking down this road now, all you can see are houses, but back then when I was little it was all fields. On the right hand side were the Friesian cows, they were like you Spot, black and white, also the farm horses, used to share the field with them.
They were the farmer's main animal's back in those days, as horses did most of the work before tractors were introduced.'
On the left side here is where the farmer grew his corn, as far as your eye could see.
'At harvest time we would come in the early morning and wait for the farm hands to start cutting the corn, we would have with us a couple of Tommy Goftons Whippets.'
'What were those Ken?
'They were very fast dogs, a type of racing dog just like a greyhound but smaller.
When the thresher came along cutting the corn, the noise used to scare the Rabbits and Hares, and every now and then, one would break cover making a dash for it. We would let the Whippets off their leads and they would chase after them and catch them for us. We had friends scattered all about the field, because you had to get the rabbits off the dogs as quick as you could, or they would eat them, we would share whatever was caught between us and take them home for dinner.'
'I would have loved that Ken, chasing Rabbits and Hares'
'I think they would have been too fast for you Spot'
We reached the bottom of the road, and went through a little cut leading onto the Coast Road.
'Right where I am standing now Spot, there used to be a train line.
The train was called the Marsden Rattler; it used to run from the pit at Whitburn with coal, to the coal washer at Westoe where it was cleaned. Then it was taken down to the river at South Shields, Where it was loaded onto ships they called colliers, or coffin jobs as the seamen called them.'
'Why did they call them coffin jobs Ken?
'Because to get a job on them you had to wait until someone died then take their place.'
The colliers took the coal to the London power stations. The bigger ships, took it all over the world.
Up to twelve million tons used to leave this river every year.
There isn't a trace of any coal now. No trains or even one pit left.
Come to that there are not many ships left either.
If you did anything good my dad used to say, "You're the best lad in the four collieries" that's what they called pits, how things have changed Spot.
Quickly Spot over the road. That's another thing there were not all these cars then, this was a quiet road with a bus going each way every half hour.'
On this side of the road the farmer grew turnips and potatoes and more corn, it's all green belt now, and runs right up the coast.'
You know The Great North run.'
'Where thousands of people, run in the race Ken?
'Yes that's the race, well this is the finishing line right here.
In the potato picking season, we called it Tatty picking. All the women who lived round about, and my mam, would climb onto the cart that was pulled behind the tractor in the morning as it came down our street, it would transport them all to these fields to pick up the potatoes.
As the tractor or sometimes the horses ploughed up the potatoes the women would follow behind filling their aprons. They were made out of sacking; they would then tip them into sacks or large baskets, which were then loaded onto carts pulled by the big farm horses I told you about. They were called Clydesdales or Shire horses they were gentle giants I loved them.
When I left school I worked at the dairy. I used to take the horses with another lad, to the Blacksmiths to get them shoed in Cleadon Village on a Saturday,
I used to get twelve and halfpence extra on my wages for taking them; I would have taken them for nothing.
I loved watching the Blacksmith at work, and the smells in the Smithy, sometimes he would let us work the bellows on the forge to keep the fire glowing red hot.
The blacksmith used to put into the fire a long flat bar of iron, when it was glowing white hot he would hammer it out on the anvil, into the shape of the horses hoof, and make a set of four new shoes.'
'Back on the farm the horses would take the potatoes that had been loaded onto the carts, up to the big barn. Where they would be sorted out ready for the market, we would stuff our jumpers with the big potatoes and run home with them for my mam to make chips with when she got back home, they were lovely, we used to eat the turnips as well.'
'You didn't Ken?
'We did.'
'What did the farmer say?
'Nothing. I think he knew we ate them, but as the war had just finished he turned a blind eye, besides we didn't damage or destroy anything, it was just to fill our bellies.'
Where we are standing now was the cliff edge, It was about ten meters to the bottom, it's only about six meters deep now.
It has all been filled in and now that road takes you down to the beach.
Fresh spring water used to bubble out from the ground right here where I am standing, it was sweet and ice cold, just the thing for a refreshing drink in the summer.
We spent all our school holidays down here, we played all day on the beach digging up shrimps which we would boil in sea water in a tin, then roast the potatoes on a fire, there was nothing better Spot.'
'What about sweets and chocolate Ken?
'No Spot, you had to have coupons then to buy those things. The war as I told hadn't been long over, and lots of things were still rationed. Even if your mam had the coupons she didn't always have the money.
Anyway we didn't know what money was when we were little. I wasn't until I was about twelve or thirteen that we bothered about money. English money, that is.'
'What other money was there Ken?
'Foreign money, there was plenty of that about, as everybody then, had someone in the family who was in the royal navy or merchant navy.'
Did you know South Shields lost nearly four thousand men from the Merchant navy during the war, more men than anywhere else'
As I was saying there were plenty of foreign coins about.'
'You couldn't spend them could you Ken?
'No, but you could put them in the electric meter.'
'You can't do that the police would lock you up.'
'Well they would have had to lock most of the people up, as it was a common thing, you didn't rob the electric.'
'You must have, if you used foreign money.'
'The meter Spot took pennies or shillings. If your mam had no change or no money you just used a foreign coin in an emergency to get the lights back on.
When the man came to empty the meter, you were entitled to a rebate depending on how much money you put in, he would then pay you back in foreign coins first, so everyone was happy.
If you only used foreign coins and nothing else, then you would get wrong, but nobody abused it.'
The place we are at now is called the nest; this is where they quarried all the stone from to build the piers.'
'Why did they call it the nest Ken, was it full of birds' nests?
'In a way yes, but I think it was the shape of it that gave it the name, mind you back then there were plenty of birds around, Pheasant, Skylarks, Quale, Blackbirds, Terns, Kittiwakes, Gannets, oh lots of them.'
Stand still a minute and listen Spot, all you hear now are the seagulls, they spoilt this site when they made this a landfill.'
'A landfill Ken what was that?
'It's better known as a rubbish dump or a tip.
We would watch the lorries and refuse trucks tipping all day long, day after day, we would go and look to see what we could find after they left, and we found lots of things, especially bottles.'
'Bottles, Ken?
'Yes bottles of all shapes and sizes, big ones, small ones, and lots of different coloured ones.
There were Blue, Purple, and Green, as well as clear ones. It was said the reason why they used different coloured bottles was because a lot of people couldn't read or write in those days, but they could tell what was in a bottle by its colour, like medicines and poisons.
The lads would line them up and throw stones at them to see who, was the best shot. Sometimes we used an air rifle. To think, if we had kept them instead of smashing them, they would be worth a lot of money now.'
'Who would buy old bottles Ken?
'Lots of people, especially the coloured ones, like the lovely green ones, there's lots of bottle collectors these days, in fact I bet all the stuff tipped here as rubbish then would now be worth a fortune if it had been kept until today.'
'Yes Ken I have heard it said, where there is muck there is money.'
'Let's go onto the beach Spot we will take our shoes off and have a paddle in the water.'
'You can take your shoes off Ken I don't have any ha, ha, ha, race you too the water.'
'Okay then.'
'Ready steady go.'
Spot was in the water jumping about by the time I got there.
I'm the winner.' Ken, I won
'So you should, you have four legs I only have two.'
We played for a while throwing a stick into the sea and Spot swimming after it,
'You're a good swimmer Spot.'
'I love the water its great fun, no wonder you spent all your spare time at the beach Ken.'
'Phew I have a headache with all this excitement Spot; I wish that spring water was still here,'
'Why?
'I would take one of these Aspirins that I have in my pocket and make my headache go away.'
'What's the matter with all that water?
'Can't drink sea water, It's salty, It would drive you mad drinking that.'
'After all that exercise Spot we need a rest before we make our way back home.'
I lay down on the sand looking up at the sky, it was a lovely blue, not a cloud to be seen anywhere. My eye followed a jet plane that was going overhead leaving a white vapour trail behind it.'
Some lucky people going on their holidays I thought to myself, probably Spain or the West Indies.
'The West Indies Spot, all those beautiful Islands, just think, me and you lying on them white sandy beaches under the palm trees,'
CHAPTER 2
Spot was barking.
'What's the matter Spot? Why all the noise?
'Look Ken I have found one of those green bottles you were telling me about. Is this like the bottles you found on the rubbish tip.'
He dropped it at my feet.
I stood up and picked it out of the sand,
'It's a funny shape, let's have a look, and it's also a bit dirty I'll wash it in the sea.'
At the water's edge I began to wash the bottle.
'It is a beautiful green bottle Spot, could be worth some money this one, wait a minute looks like there is something inside, let's see if I can get this top off.'
'Be careful Ken, you never know it could be harmful, or poisonous.
'Your right Spot I wasn't thinking I'm too excited. 'Suddenly there was a loud hissing noise, I dropped the bottle onto the sand and jumped back.
'Thank you my friend.'
'What's this? Where did you come from? What happened?'
'One question, at a time my good friend. My name is Captain Flack. Who am I addressing on this fine day?'
