South Shields Sanddancers Forum

Postby parkingpatrol » Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:44 pm
Wow this realy takes me back . We used to ride the buppers on the old Marsden Rattler, and the cops caught us in the cow shed before they pulled it down. Sargent Welch lived across the road from the farm house and was not pleased when he caught us. I was about seven years old. Jock the cart horse was a great ride, and tatty picking one of our great adventures, eating naggies down in the caves. Boy those were good days, but there were no vandels then and child snachers had not been heard of. the station was down the path from the farm house, Blackberry Hills.

What are naggies?

I think he means Snaggies or turnips

Pilot wrote:I think he means Snaggies or turnips

We called them Snadgies.

Yes your right baldy, my spelling was a bit out

Thanks guys i remember snadgie picking, mum used to go mad for stealing them but always remember having them on our plates the next day.

sandysand wrote:Thanks guys i remember snadgie picking, mum used to go mad for stealing them but always remember having them on our plates the next day.

Remember going out for the day to play in the trees at old mans gardens past cleadon chimney and windmill. When we were hungry we used to get a snadgie from the field for our lunch and eat it by biting off the skin complete with soil and spitting it out before devouring the snadgie.The younger mothers today would have heart attacks if their children did half the things we did.

Jarrow Pete wrote: Remember going out for the day to play in the trees at old mans gardens past cleadon chimney and windmill. When we were hungry we used to get a snadgie from the field for our lunch and eat it by biting off the skin complete with soil and spitting it out before devouring the snadgie.The younger mothers today would have heart attacks if their children did half the things we did.

Snadgie picking was only one, daffodills from the west park for Mothers day was a fav.

anyone remember the lad from horsley hill juniors who got his foot trapped in the line and the rattler ran over it, it must have been around 1960 give or take a year

captain beefheart wrote:anyone remember the lad from horsley hill juniors who got his foot trapped in the line and the rattler ran over it, it must have been around 1960 give or take a year

Remember it well, it was one of the Luthers from the Hill.

I lived in a house near the coop and my grandad was the cobbler there we lived in charles street then we moved further up the road to Arthur street

Jarrow Pete wrote:

captain beefheart wrote:anyone remember the lad from horsley hill juniors who got his foot trapped in the line and the rattler ran over it, it must have been around 1960 give or take a year

Remember it well, it was one of the Luthers from the Hill.

Which reminds me of an incident from the 1970's, where one of the lads from Cleadon Park put his arm between the 'buffers'
(those bumper, stopper things that trains have at each end), to dampen the impact when a carriage is joined to another one.
Apparently, he thought they would just be a soft contact and no harm done.

Well, when he did eventually return to school, he had about a hundred stitches in his arm and lucky to be alive.

hi Busybea welcome to the boards

The begining c1907..



Near the end c1952..

Brilliant photo's Brian, really good to see them.

The pedestrian bridge over the line, are you able to say, where abouts that would be ?

malaymac wrote:Brilliant photo's Brian, really good to see them.

The pedestrian bridge over the line, are you able to say, where abouts that would be ?

Bridge was at top of Spohr terrace just before pit entrance . When I worked at Westoe after Whitburn closed used to cross bridge into Iolanthe Terrace and cross Mowbary Road past the stadium and catch no 12 bus home to Marsden from the bus stop at corner of Westcott Avenue and Horsley Hill Road.

Jarrow Pete wrote:

malaymac wrote:Brilliant photo's Brian, really good to see them.

The pedestrian bridge over the line, are you able to say, where abouts that would be ?

Bridge was at top of Spohr terrace just before pit entrance . When I worked at Westoe after Whitburn closed used to cross bridge into Iolanthe Terrace .

I'm sure that's the same bridge that as a 'young un' in the early sixties, we used to stand on when the trains went underneath.
All us little lads thought it was hilarious to disappear and then reappear from the clouds of steam as the train went by.

Westoe Lane 1968.........



Westoe Lane 2009........

i was brought up with the rattler running past the bottom of my back garden and i think every kid in the area road the back of the coal wagons it was a sort of right of passage thing. I can rremember the lad losing his leg and my grandmother who if I remember rightly was in her sixties , at the time , and as blind as a bat and deaf as a post , got knockrd over by the rattler and survived. The family story is that when she came to she thought she had had a stroke
the came tough in them days

What a great thread, with fascinating memories a photos.