Memories of Childhood
by John Appleby

~ 7 ~

All in all, it was a quiet respectable place, enlivened only during August by train and busloads of people from outlying pit villages, some arriving in great open-topped char-a-bancs with solid rubber tyres. Everyone was bent on enjoying themselves, being happy and free-spending. A fairground would spring up on the flat land near the church point. The fishermen wold prepare their motor boats for trips around the bay, and their wives and daughters would set out kitchen tables on the pavement outside their cottages, and offer big orange crab shells filled with crabmeat, lobsters, and little cones of newspaper filled with boiled winkles. Aunty's little shop would be besieged of course, by a stream of sweet-toothed ladies buying Newbiggin mint rock buttery toffee and icecream for the children. The men slaked their thist in the pubs and the wives and children picnic'd on the sands or filled the fish and chip shops. The beach came alive. Mr. Bertorelli had his gaily-painted ice-cream cart on the sand,and was soon beleaguered by boys and girls, and his little black pony drooped it's head over the water bucket.

We boys, with sandshoes laced together and hung around our necks, clung to the side of the motor boats, thigh deep in oil-filmed sea, to watch the men and occasional woman, fortified by Vaux's strong ale, as they stepped aboard for the trip around the bay. Later, on their return, there would be no bravado, no laughter. White-faced, best suits ruined, they would totter, find their wives and chastisement. On occasions various brass bands would assemble on the moor, and one by one with banners waving, march the length of Front street with rousing marching tunes. Each band had to play a test piece outside a big pub in an open space where the United bus turned around (on one occasion bowling over the street lamp. The judjes were out of sight on a balcony above. Evening approaching, the last of the trains and buses leaving with their happy, well-fed, triumphant and or, inebriated passengers, the little village would fall silent and the tradesfolk would count their takings.

Sometimes visitors would arrive to spend a holiday in the village and on leaving the station, could be seen reconnoitring the streets looking for somewhere to stay. Locals who saw a way of making a few shillings could go to Mr. Cracket's stationery shop in Windsor Road and buy a stout printed card reading "Apartments", to display in their front windows. My mother did this, and for two summers we had people in for bed and breakfast. I cannot imagine where we all slept. Perhaps the girls stayed with friends.

© 2003 John Appleby, New Zealand

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