by John Wright
In order to protect the harbour, Blyth Battery was reactivated in the early months of the war and Dad, being thirty-four years of age, was looked on as an ‘old man’ by the young conscripts. His earlier military service and experience of army life was – on the whole – much respected. A series of these anti-aircraft batteries formed part of the north-eastern coastal defences and they were located in large, camouflaged concrete bunkers and emplacements with their guns pointing seaward. The huge, long-barrelled guns ran on steel rails, and could be rotated through an arc of 180 degrees.
Our new home was in another small terraced house on Cannon Street, a little closer to the Newport Bridge. It stood in a low-lying area that tended to flood whenever we had heavy rain, and behind it was a narrow, cobblestoned back lane from which sacks of coal were tipped through a wooden hatch in the wall at the end of our yard. There were no gardens in our part of town; the dreary street was our playground, and in it crowds of small, noisy, undernourished children shouted and clamoured every day. Fishmongers would come round trundling two wheeled handcarts shouting ‘Caller Herren!’ (meaning ‘fresh herring’) as gusts of wind blew gritty particles and filthy bits of paper around in the grey back alleys. The houses extended in row after grimy, monotonous row, all looking much the same with their chimneys belching out smoke for the greater part of the year. It was autumn but there were no rosy apples ripening anywhere near our treeless streets. Every week the window ledges and the round-edged front doorsteps that led directly on to the flagstones had to be scoured with a donkey stone. In our community, women were much respected if they scrubbed and polished until they were ready to drop.
Like all the other unbeautiful, unpretentious houses ours had no bathroom, even though the planners had called them ‘dwellings for artisans’. At the end of the high-walled yard was a brick coalhouse and water closet that we called the lavvy. The swan-necked gas brackets were fitted solely in the two downstairs rooms and these provided only a dim light. To light our way to bed Mam used candles or, if she could afford the fuel, a paraffin lamp with a glass shade that was inclined to flare and smoke and need constant adjustment. In the tiny kitchen a coal-fired range provided warmth and was used every day for baking and cooking. The large black kettle always seemed to be simmering and steaming on the hob.
The house, rented from a local solicitor, was situated some 400 yards to the east of the Newport Bridge – one of the many bridges built by the local firm of Dorman Long & Co. Ltd. It spanned the tidal River Tees, once noted for its fine salmon but now badly contaminated by the effluents that had poured into it from the many industries along its banks over the years. The river formed the boundary between North Yorkshire and County Durham, and the bridge was unique in having a 270-foot-long (82.30m) stretch of roadway that could be lifted vertically to a height of 120 feet (36.5m) above the river by means of a system of huge steel and concrete weights and counterweights. This allowed high-masted ships to pass below it as huge pink-eyed rats with naked tails ran along its wooden pilings. The local people were proud of this technical marvel that was the first of its type in the country. It was the largest and heaviest bascule bridge in the world, and it was raised and lowered on average 800 times a month – twenty-seven times a day. Hundreds of workers crossed it to reach the growing number of industrial sites on the northern bank, thus reducing the long journey round to the next bridge, three miles upstream at Stockton-on-Tees.
Middlesbrough, with its population of some 140,000 inhabitants, was bordered to the south by the Cleveland Hills. Many people escaped from the dirt, smoke and noise of their day-to-day lives by going out to the hills at weekends. Some joined local rambling or cycling clubs to visit the lovely countryside, while others caught the train out of town and hiked for miles in the fresh air.
The people of Teesside often had to endure extremely dense fogs, and when the rising smoke met the cold, damp air stream, thick smogs formed. These yellow smogs sometimes persisted for days. They were real pea-soupers that turned day into night and at times it was impossible to see to the other side of the road. Emissions of chemicals, such as ammonia, mixed with the damp air of the river valley were thought to be a contributory factor. A large metal foghorn mounted on the superstructure of the new bridge was sounded to warn approaching ships of its presence. I vaguely recollect lying awake listening to the eerie, fog-muffled blaring. It was so loud that it seemed to be right outside my bedroom window.
The heavily polluted river between the two bridges was over 300 feet wide in places, and it formed a long, northward-sweeping bend that enclosed a roughly triangular piece of land known as ‘The Ironmaster’s District’. A network of railway lines and marshalling yards separated it from the grid-like pattern of our streets. Further downriver, beyond the Transporter Bridge, lay Smith’s Dockyard with its crowded berths and its tall crane jibs that leaned at all kinds of crazy angles. The Ironmaster’s District was packed with grimy iron and steel works; blast furnaces and coke ovens that reached up into the smoke-filled sky. Cooling towers belched clouds of white steam and noxious gases poured from smokestacks adding yet more filth to the already foul-smelling air. At night, as the furnaces were charged, a hellfire glow emanated and lit up the underside of the clouds, turning the whole sky a dirty orange. The ugliness of the scarred landscape was offensive to the eye but I assumed that this was the colour of the night sky everywhere.
The smoke-laden air left a permanent layer of smut over everything, settling on the washing that hung on the clothesline that was strung across our tiny back yard. There was the constant rattling and clanking of rail locomotives and heavy freight wagons being shunted; klaxons blared and screamed at shift-changing times and every day, prior to the sounding of the hooters, the streets were filled with crowds of grey, flat-capped men. These were the ones lucky enough to have a job to go to, and their segged and steel toe-capped working boots clattered on the stone setts echoing back from the grimy brick walls. Hissing steam poured from pipes and boilers; steam hammers clanged; drills whirred and the whole combined to produce a deafening and hellish cacophony. The hustle and bustle and the frantic activity never ceased and after a while people became inured to it. The endless din was part of the fabric of our lives.
On the northern bank of the river stood the huge British Oxygen Company, and close by lay the busy Furness & Company shipyard, with its massive dry docks and slipways. The activity had recently increased as it had received government orders for the construction of large numbers of naval vessels, and the increased employment was in marked contrast to the prolonged and catastrophic slump of the inter-war years. Now things were picking up, and on the south bank further downriver, Smith’s Dockyard found itself in the same boat. Both yards were soon to be involved in the construction of warships.
The biggest economic event on Teesside in the inter-war years had been the amalgamation of a number of large works that now formed the Imperial Chemical Industries Limited (ICI). This sprawling complex lay to the south of Billingham just across the river from us on the Durham side and was the largest chemical plant in the country. The new chemical giant had played a major part in the provision of a wide and diverse range of products for the British Empire. With its many oil refineries, distillation towers and flare stacks, it was now working flat out and its oils, lubricants and high-octane aviation fuels were to be of vital importance to the Allied war effort.
These activities were to make it a prime target for the German bombers. Nitrogen was needed to manufacture explosives; fertilisers were vital to a much-needed increase in wartime food production, and perspex (formerly called Resin X), the first transparent plastic in the world, was produced here. The bomber and fighter pilots would now have the protection of perspex cockpit canopies and ‘blisters’ whereas in the past they had endured the bitter cold with open cockpits. Nothing was wasted. Hundreds of thousands of tons of high-octane aviation fuel was being manufactured from coal and creosote, and the coke oven gas was used within the works and in the dom
estic grid.
The effluents, which had been pouring into the local waterways for years, had turned the mudflats along the margins of the Billingham Beck a sickly, bluish-grey colour. The polluted waters of the tidal beck then emptied into the River Tees turning it a dirty, greyish brown. The murky waters formed swirling eddies that we called ‘whirlpools’ before they swept the few short miles eastwards past Seal Sands to flow out into the vastness of the North Sea.
In the late summer and autumn of 1939 Mam saw squads of khaki-clad soldiers working on the nearby area of wasteland that the council called the Newport Recreation Ground. We called it ‘The Common’. The soldiers belonged to the Royal Scots Fusiliers and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (known as ‘Kosbies’) and they were in the process of raising huge barrage balloons. The Kosbies seemed small men who wore Glengarry bonnets with a pompon on top and they were nicknamed ‘the bantams’ by the local people. The balloons, which were about sixty feet long, looked to me like great, fat, floating pigs with huge ears. They were often called ‘Blimps’ after the well-known First World War windbag who went by the name of Colonel Blimp. They were attached to a winch by means of a long steel hawser and each was strategically placed with its nose facing into the wind. They were raised to a height of about 5,000 feet and the thick, mooring cables were strong enough to bring down low-flying aircraft. When it was windy we could hear them twanging and humming, and in high winds they had to be storm-bedded, which involved anchoring them down to concrete blocks. On one never-to-be-forgotten stormy night, one was struck by lightning. Just prior to the blaze, eerie bluish-white lightning had been seen arcing from one steel-wire cable to the next.
There were also odd contraptions called Thompson-Haslar units, which looked like large metal dustbins with funnels that emitted black, oily smoke. They were mounted on the backs of special, wheeled trailers pulled into position by army vehicles. The smoke units were being tested and would later be used, taking into account the prevailing wind direction, to screen the industrial sites. The Common covered a large part of the open area at the Newport Bridge end of Cannon Street and a long wooden fence, constructed from upright railway sleepers, hid the railway lines. Here, workmen had dug a network of nine-foot-deep, interconnecting slit trenches that were lined with wood, and the roof was supported by timber props. Along the sides were low wooden benches, or ‘forms’. Rows of wooden, double-storey bunk beds had been installed and the local people entered the new, underground airraid shelter by means of a concrete ramp, which led down to thick, metal, blast-proof doors. The tunnels were lit by rows of electric bulbs powered by a generator and the timber-framed roofs were covered with corrugated metal sheeting, which had a deep layer of soil on top. In an emergency an exit could be made by means of wooden ladders that were fixed to the sides of brick-lined shafts placed along the tunnels at intervals. These and the brick street shelters were to be used by hundreds of local people.
On the far side of The Common there were rundown allotments with the fences and sheds patched up with roof felt, bits of rotting wood and rusty corrugated metal sheeting. Close by stood a pigeon park, now in a state of disrepair, with the white paint of its wooden lofts flaking and peeling – all symptoms of the recent hard times.
Groups of poorly clad men regularly gathered on a corner of The Common, most wearing ‘art silk’ mufflers tied in a tight knot above collarless shirts. Many of them had the gaunt-faced look of the long-term unemployed, depleted by too many years of hardship. Depressed and broken in spirit they felt that they were of no use to their families or anyone else, and could be seen slouching around at the street corners or on that particular area of The Common day after day. Several had hacking coughs, spitting great gobs of phlegm on to the ground or sucking on an empty tobacco pipe and staring blankly at nothing. A few, fortunate enough to have a few halfpennies in their pockets, played pitch and toss in the constant hope of winning a few more coppers to spend on beer and tobacco. A couple of scruffy lads stood cavy (lookout) for them, giving warning should the other type of ‘copper’ appear.
Our house backed on to The Common and one day the rozzers (a local term for policemen) turned up in force. The hapless illegal gamblers scattered and one tried to make his escape by climbing over the wall into our backyard where Mam was hanging out the washing. She was heavily pregnant and the man’s sudden appearance startled her, making her cry out, at which Dad dashed out through the kitchen door. He was really angry and grabbed hold of the man saying, ‘Bugger off sharpish mate or I’ll punch your bloody lights out.’
As a young man, Dad had brought home numerous presents from his postings in the Far East, one of them being the large tortoise that we kept as a pet. A beautiful ivory model of the Taj Mahal at Agra that he had brought back from India stood on the sideboard and could be lit from the inside. One of my earliest memories is of bleeding profusely after pushing George down Booth Street on his three-wheeler trike. We had been to visit Gran, who now lived round the corner on King George Street, when I slipped, and as I landed on my left knee a sharp piece of gravel cut deeply into it. I still have a small pyramid-shaped scar to show for it. In another incident I was wearing semi-transparent, rubberised pants that were elasticated and fitted tightly round my chubby thighs and, desperately needing to go to the lavatory, I could hold on no longer. I passed water, which soon saturated the Terry towelling of my inner pants and, when it could absorb no more, the ‘pee’ could be seen slowly filling up the ‘see-through’ pants. I remember the lovely warm feeling of it before it seeped out and turned cold as it trickled down my legs.
My maternal grandmother, Florence Emma Bradford, a small, plumpish, fifty-year-old widow, lived a little closer to the bridge than us. Her fifteen-year-old daughter Irene (always known as Renee) was a slim, attractive, auburn-haired girl. A great bond of unspoken affection had developed between my parents and Mam’s winsome young sister. Dad used to call her his ‘Little Princess’, and he spoiled her rotten.
Gran’s eldest son, John, was twenty years old and was serving his apprenticeship as a plater at the Britannia Steelworks, a large, steel-plate rolling plant in the Ironmasters District. In February of the previous year he had joined the Territorial Army attending meetings in the Drill Hall every week and going on weekend training camps. The part-time soldiers were known colloquially as ‘the Terriers’ or, as some said, ‘Saturday Night Soldiers’. Uncle John had joined chiefly for the excitement, the sense of adventure and the glamour of the uniform, which seemed to attract the girls. The extra money was also very welcome. In late autumn 1939 he received a letter from the local office of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, stating that he was now liable for conscription into the regular army and was to report for a medical examination. Small but strong, he passed A1.
Soon afterwards his call-up papers – with a four-shilling postal order to cover his travelling costs – were delivered. In the meantime, Gran fed him well, as like most women of the time, she considered it her duty to wait on the men hand and foot. Uncle John was just one of the thousands being mobilised and in early February he made his farewells. Travelling with several other young men to the army barracks at Richmond, North Yorkshire, he swore the oath of allegiance; ‘took the King’s shilling’, was read the Riot Act and became number 4390218 with the rank of private. After being vaccinated he was issued with a uniform and kit, which included two enamelled tin plates; an enamel mug; a knife, fork and spoon, and was put into the 5th Infantry Battalion of the Green Howards.
The recruits were broken down by hard work and strict discipline before being built up again into an efficient fighting unit. They learned to work as a team, which was to stand them in good stead when they eventually went into battle, and as an unmarried private he was paid just fourteen shillings (70p) a week plus bed and board. Each week during the long basic training he managed to send part of his meagre pay to his mother. A few weeks later, following the outbreak of war, he was sent on embarkation leave. He sailed from Southam
pton as part of a naval convoy – with a fighter escort overhead – bound for the French port of Cherbourg. It was too dangerous to take the shorter, more direct route to Calais through the Straits of Dover, as the ship would have been within the range of German bombers. The 5th Battalion of the Green Howards then moved up to the Belgian border that had seen so much bloodshed during the First World War.
Gran’s other sons, Archie and Harry, were aged thirteen and eleven years old respectively. Her other daughter, twenty-six-year-old Hilda, and her son Jimmy, were living with Gran’s younger sister Ruby, having left Hilda’s Irish Catholic husband, John Nolan. His faith frowned on mixed marriages at that time and throughout her turbulent and unhappy marriage there had been prolonged and bitter conflict with much ugly name-calling. Gran, who was a forthright God-fearing woman, declared, ‘I’ve got no time for the Nolans with their hypocrisy, boozing and excessive religious humility, and John’s mother is a hard-bitten, intolerant, religious bigot. I’ll never forgive her for bawling after them in the street “I hope you die in your bed and rot in hell you Protestant bitch!” just after their marriage in the Register Office. She called Jimmy a bastard – because to her mind the marriage was not legal – saying, “If you are not married by a priest you are not married at all”.’
There was a fair amount of resentment of the Irish at that time as there had been more than a hundred IRA bombings on the British mainland. Aunt Hilda had fallen for John Nolan’s smooth talk and they had married in 1934 – the same year as Mam and Dad – and had rented a house just round the corner from Gran. When in drink, John Nolan was inclined to be violent and after he had been sent to prison for theft in 1936 they separated, leaving Hilda on her own to bring up their young son.