General Chat

We grew up in Teesside during a time when everyone treated each other like Family. ?? We went outside to play??, we got dirty and we didn't eat fast food????....we ate sandwiches??, homecooked meals?? and got ice cream from the ice cream van??. We played Kerbie ?, Simon Says ????, British Bulldog ??,????????, chicken ??, Hide and Seek??, Tag???, French Cricket and raced against each other???? in the street. There was no bottled water??, we drank water from the hose?? if we had one and shared the same bottle of pop if we didn't. We watched cartoons on Saturday mornings??and rode our bikes ?? for hours ??. There was no such thing as a mobile phone or any other electronic device ??. We weren't AFRAID OF ANYTHING. If someone had a fight, that's what it was...a fist fight??. Kids didn't have guns?? or knives ?? when I grew up. The street lights ??were your curfew. School was mandatory????. We watched our mouths around our elders????????because we knew If you DISRESPECTED any grown up you're gonna get it with whatever's close????...and argued with your friends but was always best buddy's in morning

Same here Joy. I sometimes wish I was young again BUT....only if I could be young in those days again and definitely not young today.

Did all the things you did except for French Cricket - haven't heard of that.

Kath. x

Who would want to put up with the Mackems?

here is joy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXdRzQLpt_g

You’ve missed...
Playing in the woods & making camps.
Going for bike rides with jam sandwiches, a bottle of water & 2d for the phone box.
Riding for what seemed miles along country lanes to spend the day at an open air swimming pool.
Building dams in a stream (if you could find one) & blowing it up with Bangers.
Sledging, building soap boxes (& realising it didn’t have a brake)

Only if you lived near the countryside and could afford a bike Detective. ;-) :-D

Over the years, as all the social housing has been sold and the farm cottages, I have noticed that high fences have gone up everywhere.

Now, when a house is sold, the first thing that happens is that a high fence goes up around it.

This is a village. Villagers know each others business, we just do.

I have heard it said "You could do something, on your own, in a lead lined room and the next day, somebody would be saying ' Do you know what he did yesterday, on his own, in that lead lined room of his?' "

all those above. And skipping with a long rope across the road, 2 ball against the wall, marbles in the gutter, picking blackberries over the fields (if you lived near fields), hunting for newts and tadpoles, hopscotch (and nobody told you aff for a bit of chalk on the pavement because it would wash away in the rain. If it rained we'd meet and play in somebody's shed. picking bluebells and primroses.

Post WW2 war building expansion, Pat :-)
We moved out of an urban area to one which had seen the same after WW1. Land had been released then for small holdings. All the 1950’s new builds had rather large back gardens. Could it have been part of the planning consent? Ours still had straw stubble when we moved in.

Easy to put up with the makems, Rollo, got a corker of a makem who joined the family.

Although it can be spelt two ways, I prefer Makem - after the mak 'em and tak 'em (local slang for make them and take them) which is derived from Sunderland being renowned for its good engineers in a previous life.

It still is, as our lovely Makem is a laid-back, brilliant engineer, put thro' his degree by his employer, lucky guy. He is the see it, can make it type - we need more like him and I'm pretty sure you'd agree.

Through the Land Settlement Association, we have a village full of people from the North East, although they are second and third generation now, those who are left in the village.

My uncle married a makem whose father had been unemployed for years when they moved down here to take a smallholding. Fred's batty girlfriend was also the daughter of a makem salvage diver who tried to make a go of horticulture but went back to the salvage diving and made a better living.

Joy what memories you bring back we had a school field near were we lived the endless hours on there having sandwiches & yes bottles of tap water but we use to put liquorice stick in the water .don't know about French cricket never heard of that one .Barbara :-D :-D

Rollo Some of our dearest friends are Makems


Teessiders are Smoggys Rollo

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Fond memories Girls
Now all kids do is play inside with Xboxs or computers
I am sure their health will suffer in the future No fresh air

We where born in an era
if something was broke we fixed
it now we have a throw away life style :-( :-( :-(

Tell us out the French Cricket Joy.

Barbra - we used to put a stick of liquorice (the hard type) in a bottle of water too. I tried it again a couple of years ago and it tasted awful.

Kath. x

same where I grew up in Lancashire!

I was up that way a couple of weeks ago, staying with friends in Marton. Among other things, ( I was going to say inter alia, but didn't want to be accused of being pretentious) we had a very decent meal in the Lion, up on the moors. As for Makems, I had a friend in the army in the sixties, who lived in one of the Garths. His family were hard working but with not much money. On the occasions that I stayed with him, they couldn't do enough for me. I tracked him down a couple of years ago by a letter to the Sunderland Echo. He rang me within two days, and we met up at his sister's, who by co-incidence lives in.... Marton.

Ahh, Bob - The Lion on Blakey Ridge. One of our favourite pubs. We have lunch there every Christmas Eve, and as often as we can in between!

Kath. x

We moved into a new council house with a huge garden when I was 2 years and 12 days old, my brother was new born. My dad, a country boy from Buckinghamshire, was thrilled with a garden he could grow veg and fruit in and have chickens and rabbits, as well as a lawn for me to play on. He spent all his spare time getting the garden planted up. There were only 6 houses in the middle of the road which was a concrete slab crescent-shaped road off the 'main' road, the rest of the road was flats in blocks of four, one up, one down, the same design as many council flats of that era, late 1940s/early 50s, and just like the one my son has now.

Other families with children of similar ages moved in so there were several kids to play out with as we got older, tying a rope to the lamp post to play skipping games, rounders using the shape of the slabs as a pitch, french cricket, cricket and football as well as rollerskating and cycling etc. Few people had cars so we were rarely disturbed and it was a very safe place to play.

It was a good place and time to grow up and we were lucky to get such a big three bed house and big garden.

Happy days!

Lizx

Where I live everybody knows everybody
and are like a massive extended Family :-D :-D

It was like that in our road when I was young as we had all moved in at the same time.

Lizx