My Early Years
I was born at
25 Clockwell Street, Southwick, Sunderland, County Durham
on the 8th
June 1920. The
street was situated on the banks of the River Wear in
Sunderland – the greatest ship building river in the world.
My parents were Benjamin and Catherine Christison. My
sisters were Margaret, Florence and Olive. I also had a
brother John.
I was about 6 years old when both of my parents died within
approximately 3 – 4 months of each other. They died from
Consumption. My youngest sister, Olive, also died from the
same disease.
My sister Margaret moved to London after the death of our
parents. She married a Mr Sproats and they had one
daughter, Brenda. My sister Florence married a Mr John West
and they had one son, John. My brother John was in the
Royal Navy and he married Dorothy, and had two daughters,
Brenda and Jaqueline.
I have only a few memories of my life in Clockwell Street.
I remember that we lived upstairs and we had a picture of
my dad in his army uniform in the front room. I can also
remember my playmate – he was called Dougie Burns.
I was fostered by my mother’s brother and his wife - Aunt
Ella and Uncle Bob. They already had a family – 3 sons –
Bob, Andrew and Ninian – and 2 daughters – Ella and Jenny.
Jenny did not live at home as she was married. I was
readily accepted into the family unit and was treated
exactly the same as my “brothers and sisters”. No
favouritism was given, and I was very happy.
Life as I remember, and have been told about at times from
some of the elders of the family, was hard. Work at times
was very hard to come by and when jobs became vacant you
received a slip for that particular vacancy from the
employment office. On arrival at the place of employment
there would probably be 20 – 30 people for 6 or 7
vacancies. It was entirely up to the foreman who got the
job. If your face fitted you were in! In many cases around
the street people took in washing for the better off. The
return for their labours was very little, however at least
something was coming into their homes
Having settled in with my Aunt and Uncle I was treated as
one of the family – what they got, I got. As an orphan I
was entitled to certain council benefits. The allowance for
keeping me was awarded to my foster parents. I was allowed
school boots which as soon as we got them the soles were
filled with segs (blakeys) to help to make them last as
long as possible. When not at school it was either sand
shoes or bare feet. This was the life of nearly all
children. I do not remember a great deal of my early years
but what I do remember was that I had a good life compared
to other children. My earliest recollection is of playing
in the street and making our own pastimes. Games consisted
of swinging on the lamp posts, itchy-dabber, mountie-kitty
(leap frog), tag, and when it rained making your own little
boats to float down the gutter. Holiday periods were hard
in those days and we used to walk about 10 miles to get to
the sea side. All through the corn fields past the wind
mill, down to either Roker or Seaburn. There was plenty of
sandy shores to play on. One area was always favourite with
me – The Holy Rock. They were caves that were washed out by
the sea, and also an area called the cannonball rocks,
because the formation looked as if they were cannon balls
joined together. Other areas were at Seaburn by the
fishermen’s cottages. There was a big expanse of rocks
where all kinds of sea life could be found – crabs,
winkles, shrimps, muscles. Some of which we would collect
in little buckets. We would collect winkles to take home.
They could be cooked and eaten as in those days there was
little pollution. There were also very grassy banks leading
down to the sea where the men would collect edible snails
which they cooked and bottled in vinegar.
My early life at school was spent at West Southwick School
where discipline was strict and manners and regimentation
were the rule of the day. The day commenced with assembly
in the main hall for the days instructions and prayers. I
remember the headmaster was a Mr. Kellsall. The teachers
were Mr Benson (cat of nine-tails), Mr walker, Miss
Gainford, Mr Davidson (art and maths) and Mr Petrie. All
teachers took their own PT classes. Things that were
celebrated included Empire Day. I will always remember it
for the maypole dance, and a big painting on the school
facia – representing a part of the British Empire. I think
I can safely say I had a reasonable education at West
Southwick School. My sports education was mainly cricket,
football, and rugby. In cricket I represented West
Southwick School and Sunderland boys 11, and in Rugby I
represented Durham County. Unfortunately I only played
football for the school team.
My friends, as I remember, were Freddy Radcliff and Tommy
Cook. I must admit we were no angels and were often in
trouble. The headmaster did not spare the taws (strap), an
outstretched hand or both.
We had no stumps for cricket so we would chalk wickets on
the school wall. It was arranged that I could knock the
balls bowled to me onto the school roof, where we would go
and retrieve them after school. The worst incident that I
can recall was after school when we went to recover the
tennis balls from the roof. We found the cookery section of
the school was open! At first we only looked around. Then
we found a bag of rice and decided to make a rice pudding!
We got started and not really knowing anything about
cooking, it soon boiled over. With all our shouting, Mr
Davidson, one of the teachers who lived by the school,
heard us and saw us running away. We climbed over the wall
at the back of the school into the church graveyard. We
thought we had got away with it. When we went to school on
the following Monday we, the 3 of us, were told to report
to the head master where we found ourselves in deep
trouble! Mr Davidson had recognised us and our school caps.
Our punishment consisted of having to go straight home from
school to bed. No going out to play, no sweets, no treats
and the threat of being sent away to school. I still
managed to get a few sweets. I made a crane out of Meccano
so I could wind down a length of string to the street
outside the window where my friends, Mick or Andy, would
tie on a sweet and I would wind it back up. There was never
any physical punishment – only privileges were taken away,
or being sent to bed.
I found I had a sharp eye for casting a stone, or a ball,
which came in handy when the fairs came to the town and
villages. Our local fairground was in St. Columbus’s Church
grounds. I was always in demand at the coconut stall (3
balls for a penny). I would soon knock of a couple of
coconuts, which we would share. I often took home a coconut
which we opened up, drank the milk and ate the flesh.
As we went through school lots of things happened. I recall
the days we spent at Seaburn camp. This was a school camp
where schools would have days out by the seaside. Some of
the School Summer Holidays were spent at the camp. Orphans
and privileged children would also go there for a
fortnight’s holiday. The camp consisted of wooden huts. You
were given a little locker for your own clothes and you had
your own bed which you had to keep clean for the morning
inspection. Classes were taken on the beach near to the
village. We were taught about all types of sea life. We
also had to draw the churches Lich gate (entrance). On one
occasion we were taken to the beach on a day when there was
a neap tide (lowest tide). We were shown the stumps of
trees which we were told were part of a petrified forest.
We did get quite a good education whilst at the Seaburn
camp which was run by the Sunderland educational authority.
My cricket interest was encouraged by my guardians friend,
Andy McDonaldson, who coached the schools team. On any
important game he would say “there is a three penny bit on
each stump, knock one off and it is yours”. In those days
there were no speed kings in bowling. It was mainly length
and spin bowling. I was a left arm spin “China man”. I
played for Sunderland boys cricket 11s and also played
rugby for Durham county schoolboys. Whilst I was at school
I had a part time job as a paperboy, for which I got the
princely sum of half a crown (two and sixpence). One
shilling of this went into my savings. As well as
delivering newspapers I also delivered weekly books and
football echos on a Saturday night. It was my job to
collect in some of the “weekly payers” money. One Saturday
night I had quite a bit of change on me and this led me to
meet my future wife. I called into a Chalk’s fruit shop
where Jess, the manager at the time, asked if anyone had
some change. I said yes. From then on every Saturday night
I would call in with change and over a period of time we
became really good friends. On joining the Royal Navy I had
Jess’s home address and I wrote to her but gradually the
letters stopped.
I had many friends, some of whom were Jackie Ecclestone,
Teddy Harrison, Joe Henderson, Harry Worthy, Ratcliffe,
Cook, Tommy Moire. Looking back at the past it is
surprising to think the distances we walked every weekend
and all the lonely areas we went into without fear. We went
bird nesting. Yes we took eggs, however, never more than
one egg from each nest, nor any egg from a nest if we
already had one. The birds I recall were Blackbird, Thrush,
Sparrow, Skylark, Owls, and Crow. To collect these eggs we
walked many miles into the country, along the river bank.
This was from the boat house (the Rowing Club), which had
some champion crews, up to Biddick Bridge. One could not go
down river as all the banks were in use for ship building
and ship repair. Also Clarks was the fitting out berth
where they checked that the ships were fit to go to sea.
The Southwick Bridge was also a play area but you had to
outwit the toll collector as you had to pay to cross from
Deptford to Southwick.
Uncle Bob worked at Eagers shipyard as a riveter. We used
to walk about two and a half miles with his dinner, a pot
pie, in a basin tied in a big handkerchief. That is how I
got to see the first rivets put into a ships plates. Beside
the river we had the Boldon Flats where we used to collect
frogs, frogs spawn (eggs) and spread them around the other
ponds. Another place we walked to was a mining area near to
Castletown. As its name indicates there was a castle there
called Hylton Castle near to what we referred to as the
“Dean by the Castle”. There was a small chapel in which we
played after climbing the outer wall of the castle. We
discovered that there was an arrow stuck in the wall, about
half way up, and little statues on the turrets which looked
like people in the dusk light. Also by the castle were
large sand pits where we would collect the eggs from a Sand
Piper, only one egg, for our collection. We wandered quite
a distance from our homes without any fear, but if we were
late home our outings were soon nipped in the bud – we were
made to come in early from school.
Coal was a necessary fuel and the train lines from the
Castletown pit ran just at the bottom of our street. There
were 2 bridges and a bank side before they off-loaded at
the depot. This meant they had to slow the trains right
down and we had long wooden poles with which we could reach
the loaded trucks. As the trucks slowed down we could push
off any lumps hanging over the edge and then collect them
once the train had moved off into the off loading areas,
and then take it home for the fire. If you worked down the
mine you were given a free load of coal. Uncle Bob would
shovel this into a miners’ coal-house just down the road
and payment, to Uncle Bob, was 4-6 buckets of the coal for
his efforts.