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You could only get the bus from Ryton through Scotswood as I remember. Across Scotswood bridge — the old one which was a suspension bridge and used to bounce. And the bridge was protected by barrage balloons. They were tethered balloons to stop them bombing the bridge, to stop them dive bombing on the bridge and to protect Vickers Armstrong’s armament factory which was to the right — it’s still there of course. And that was all factory, all the way down Scotswood Road right to Newcastle, to Elswick. That’s where I started work in 1955 but that’s by the by! But they were trying to stop the bombers diving low to get a good shot at the factory so we always marvelled at those when we went along on the bus. You had to get off the bus at Scotswood Bridge and walk across the bridge and get a tram car from the other side into Newcastle so you’d change buses there. And also the buses were powered by gas. You know it’s the big thing now to have liquid. Well the buses had a little trailer on the back and I always used to try and sit in the back of the bus and watch the trailer following the bus. But it towed a little trailer with a huge gas tank on and that gas tank powered the bus because fuel was at a premium so in those days it was the gas that the buses ran on.

TAPED WINDOWS

Everyone had brown tape criss-crossed over the windows - supposed to be if there was a bomb blast near you to stop the glass shattering in — to protect you.

GAS MASKS

And having to carry a gas mask. You used to go to Sunday school and you used to have your gas tin with your gas mask in and I used to hate that because the gas mask was rubber. It would be real rubber in those days and that horrible sickly smelling rubber. And the funny thing was about ten years ago I worked for a rubber company — St Albans Rubber — and I had to go down there to be trained at the factory there. But the rubber smell was intense and of course that memory came straight back. The smell is so pungent it makes you want to retch when you first go in the factory. When you’d worked there for years you couldn’t smell it but my wife could smell it on my clothes when I went home. But the rubber smell of the gas mask when you put it on was Agh! You just wanted to be sick!

I was about three or four year old. But you carried it in a green tin and you had to put the strap over your shoulder and it had to be always there if there was a raid. We used to practice at Sunday School putting them on quickly. You had to put the strap over your head and there were two great big round eyeholes to look through and this huge respirator thing which was a filter if there was gas because they always imagined the Germans would drop mustard gas and things like that because it was used in the first world war. But we had to take them with us wherever we went. We had to take this green tin. And I remember the hardest thing with having little fingers was to try to get the lid off the tin to get the gas mask out — it was like a big biscuit tin. Of course the trick was when you’d used the gas mask, or practised, was to get the whole thing back in the tin! It was one of these packing a parachute jobs!

ARMY HQ

The army had an HQ at the bottom of the village — old Ryton village they call it now. And you ran messages for your mam — I’d be fourish probably then. Mr and Mrs Bell they had a bread shop. They baked everything on the premises so you had to wait for the bread coming out. But next door was the army HQ which I suppose the local home guard and then the local people round about would be based from, get their orders from. The tank (a light tank) used to pull up at the door and the guy had his head popped out the front. And I used to go to the window and look and this guy was having his army beret on. And the tank used to pull up outside and they’d go in for their orders.

Further along on Fern Dene road there were huts there (which the rugby club used to use after the war) but then my Dad used to tell me that prisoners of war used to be billeted there and they used to work on the farms in the area. German and Italian prisoners of war. That’s where they slept at night and there was always guys around with rifles on their shoulder — they’d be the British guardsmen I suppose. After the war was finished the huts would be redundant - then the rugby club took them over as changing rooms.

VE DAY

I remember what they called VE day. Everyone had a huge Union Jack hanging out the bedroom window. They were the sash windows in those days so the trick was to lift the bottom window up, put the flag out and bring the window down so it trapped the stick. But I remember these huge flags hanging out of people’s window and a party in the street because everyone was so relieved that the tension and the war was over.

This guy was in the forces that lived up the street - called Hopper. They were a big family. She lived about five doors up from us. And he was coming home from the forces and he’d been in Italy or wherever during the war and he was coming home. And they had bunting hung on the telegraph poles at the end of the street from telegraph pole to telegraph pole — all these little red, white and blue three cornered flags hanging from them. And he got off the bus at the top of Ryton and they carried him down (friends and neighbours) on their shoulders from the bus back home again — clapping and cheering. Literally dozens of people out to welcome him back into the village and everyone cheering and shouting and they carried him up home, everybody crying and whatnot. This guy was coming home from the war, one of the survivors. I remember. That bunting they cut it down obviously. But they’d cut it down crudely. There was lengths hung on those telegraph poles till I was in my teens so you’re talking about in the mid 50’s there were still bits of that bunting hanging there — obviously weathered!

RATIONING

Another thing was the ration. The food was very scarce. An uncle, dad’s brother, was away in the forces — he was in the D-day landings — and he used to send us food parcels! This was often a joke on the radio you’d hear. But you were so desperate, you hadn’t things like eggs and things like that. They were all going to the war effort feeding troops. And you got this steel box used to come, it was like a big biscuit box. And you had to cut it open at the top with a tin opener. It was sealed, completely sealed. And you found things like dried egg, lemon crystals which was used to make a kind of fizzy drink for us, sugar, baking powder — things that my Mam was short of. Uncle obviously had no need for them but they used to be getting them posted back to this country - to their home. And that was a big occasion. And I can remember the tin had a certain smell and when you opened it it had a certain smell — from what I remember now, a bit like corduroy trousers when they’re wet!

You looked forward to things like that coming. They had butter in which was desperately scarce. You had to make your own butter in those days. You got milk in a container, usually a treacle tin, you shook it for your Mam so that it would go off and then you took the lid off and there was a certain amount of butter and Mam would put salt on to make it spreadable. And I remember the fruit shop at the top of the village would get say bananas, things that you’d never experienced in your life, and there would maybe be two bananas for a family of four. You took a ration book up with a coupon in and Mam would say ‘Go up to Brown’s straight away. Quick! There’s some bananas in’. And you went up and you had to join a queue — about 50-100 yards queue before you could get to the door to get two bananas. And when you carried them down home you got a little piece off each, you know. You didn’t get a whole banana it was just a slice off each. But things were desperately rationed. It got easier as the time passed after the war things relaxed more as things got back to normal.

There was a small holding at Ryton. There was a big hall at the bottom of Ryton Village called Ryton Hall, a huge place — it was the conservative club I believe, the headquarters — and a big lawn at the front. The small holding was off from there and Dad knew the guy that had the small holding and we used to go down and play in the fields in the summer and the prisoners of war were working on that smallholding bringing hay and stuff like that in. We were told not to speak to them and not to go near them. I think what I was told afterwards they were Italian prisoners of war working on this farm and they used to kick the cattle when they were bringing them in at night, if they wouldn’t hurry up, and I used to think that was terrible. A normal farmer would get a hold of one’s tail and that used to hurry them along a bit, but they used to kick them.

THE COLLIERY

Dad worked all shifts. He worked on the winding engine which is the thing used to take the cages up and down the colliery shaft so he was vital. There was only three of them worked there so if anyone was off sick he had to do double shifts. Later on when my sister was born I would go across to the colliery — Mam would be tied up with her and she used to go across to her mother’s with my sister in the pushchair and I used to go across and come home with Dad. She would get rid of me for a couple of hours. I used to cycle across the field from Ryton to the Stargate colliery and then wait at the colliery yard entrance. My father’s building was a tall building with wires going up to the mine shaft. He said ‘Never come in. Stand there till I tell you’. And his windows were always open because it was a steam engine there driving the thing, and the heat, and he used to be looking out, knew I was coming. And then he’d see me standing up at the end of the field track and go ‘Come on!’ and I used to have to climb up all these steps outside which I used to hate because it was so high — probably nothing but when you were small the steps seemed to be huge, when you were going up each step you had to put your hands on them. ‘Come in. Have a seat - I’m busy’. And then he’d be putting the cages up and down. And I’d take a book to colour in and then I’d come home with him at the end of the shift. I’ve got a fascination with steam engines. I think it was developed then because I spent a lot of time there — there’d be steam engines drove the winding gear which was a huge thing. It gave my mother a bit of leeway when she had my sister to bring up. That was just after the war.

Just things like that you remember. I was five when I started school in the war then and I think ‘How can I remember that?’ but it must have had a big impression on me. I think with being in with my mother, and Dad being at the colliery most of the time, she had a lot of strain on her - being on her own. I mean, I know neighbours were neighbours in those days and everybody shared things but it would be a big strain on her. And of course it was transferred to me — the tension was transferred. And it was a thing that I remember distinctly.

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