The Penny Ha'penny Dodger

[Sandy]

Another of my Dad's stories is about a second ferry across the Tyne called 'The Penny Ha'penny Dodger'. He says this foot passenger ferry left about 400 yards down the river from the usual one on the south side and was directly across from the North Shields landing. It was small and very fast, being on a direct route, rather than winding around like the bigger ferry. Sounds good.

[Jerry]

Sandy, my mother remembers a ha'penny ferry (late '20s) in the place you mention. I don't know what happened to it, but I was never on it. I do recall the big ferry, with its wonderful smell of oil from the engine room.

There was a ferry at Whitehill Point Middle Dock, but it was bombed and sunk at its moorings on 30 September 1941, with the loss of the four crew members on board.

Jerry

[Sandy]

Yes Jerry....my Dad now corrects himself. It was the 'Ha'penny Dodger', he says.

I loved the big ferries. The larger of the two was The Northumbrian, I think?...? Can't remember the other's name but I think this has already been discussed somewhere else on these boards. As a child, I went on them several times a week. I can still smell those engine rooms! I can still feel the 'bump' when the ferry docked...... (on the boat AND the landing stage). I remember the ferry picking its way through the gaps between huge ships moored several deep from the side of the river, me gazing up at their high sides. In those days, you couldn't see the riverbanks. Just masses of ships and cranes. I have memories of coal fires in winter in the waiting rooms on the landing stages. I remember being run very fast by the hand to catch the ferry, only to see the gangplank being drawn up and you knew you had to now wait 15 mins for the next one. I used to marvel at the gangs of men who used to climb the gangplank before it hit the ground, just gauging it right and casually stepping off. Coooooo.......I'm rambling a bit now!!!

That's interesting about a Middle Dock ferry. Is the wreck still down there?

[Cisco]

I remember the ferries, when I was young the ferry (i think it was the Northumbria as you said Sandy) also ferried cars across as well as passengers, quite a few cars as well.

You could stand on the deck or go up top, or you could go in to the covered in section where it was warm but smokey and a bit dirty.
Also as you said Sandy they run every 15 minutes.

Cisco

[baldy.smith]

I remember going onto the Northumbria or her sister ferry the day after I passed my driving test. It was Christmas eve and I had to go to Blyth, it was snowing and a really horrible day. Vehicles in those days did not require an M.O.T and the van I was driving had bald tyres and the handbrake hardly worked at all, IT WAS A TOTAL NIGHTMARE. I had to reverse into a very tight spot on a wet and slippery deck, the deck hand who was directing me thought it very funny.

[Jerry]

My information is that in the '20s and earlier, the big ferries were named Durham, Henry Richardson (after the shipbuilder) etc. The Northumbrian was built in 1929. Before the Tyne Tunnel was built, the three ships on the run were Northumbrian; South Shields and Tynemouth.


Jerry

[captain beefheart]

did anyone use the jarrow ferry, it was very similar to the shields one but a little smaller, they turned it into a floating restaurant

[baldy.smith]

I believe it was the Jarrow ferry which featured in the film "GET CARTER".
I used it a few times as my grandparents lived on the North side close to where the ferry berthed but I don't remember too much about it.

[Jerry]

Get Carter isn't a film I'm fond of, but I forced myself to watch it through the other night to check on locations and was surprised at how little action takes place in Newcastle itself. Anyway the little ferry in the film apparently runs from Walker to Wallsend. It had Wallsend written on the side. When it docks, all the passengers and crew vanish allowing a gunfight to take place without anybody in the vicinity noticing or calling the police.

Jerry

[Cisco]

There's a web site dedicated to Get Carter, not sure of the web address but if you type in get carter tour you'll get there.

It shows all the locations used in the film as they were and how they are now, I think most of the film was shot on Tyneside.

Cisco

[captain beefheart]

we have had this discussion before on the web site, the get carter ferry is the old hebburn ferry from hebburn to wallsend, they also had a one from hebburn to walker, this was predominately for the shipyard workers, the film was shot at the wallsend jetty, i was working in swan hunters at the hebburn hawthorn leslies shipyard at the time and watched the filming when it took place, the scene in the bookies was shot up the road from the main gate of the shipyard.
anyone who used the ferries would remember the journies, when we had to go to the walker yard the ferry jetty was next to the bone yard, it was a charnel house, there was piles of bones with bits of flesh hanging off them alongside were we got off, the smell in summer was unbelievable and the new lads would ofter be sick when we got off the boat.
also hebburn ferries used to run trips up and down the tyne as far as ryton near the old dusnston power station and to the piers.
also the jarrow ferry retired to be a restaurant at bill quay.

[baldy.smith]

That sounds right Capt. I used to board the ferry with my uncle who lived in Hebburn and my grand parents lived a matter of yards from the Swan Hunter shipyard entrance. They lived on Neptune Road at the time, I lived with them for a while during the war as we were bombed out in Shields.
Time plays terrible tricks with the memory but some of the posts on here put us back on the right track with our recollections. Age takes it's toll

[Jerry]

Thanks Cisco. I enjoyed the Get Carter tour very much. The locations are all over the place, from Blyth to Hamsterley Forest. Audiences in the southern part of the country, I can tell you, thought all this grot was actually in Newcastle itsef - a place to be avoided. Of course nothing of Newcastle's majestic city centre is shown or anything beyond the seedy and squalid - which enables Michael Caine to call the place a 's**t-hole'. That's what I had against the film.

Jerry

[brian c]

I can remember the Jarrow ferry----it was called the "A B Gowan".

I.ve got a picture of it somewhere and if I can find it I'll post it, if I can.

[urfa]

I worked at White's dairy on the corner Egerton Rd, and Stanhope Rd.I was an offsider to the truck driver that delivered the school milk to depots in North Shields and Whitley Bay and we crossed the river using the Jarrow ferry, on the way back we passed the ferry landing and continued on to Haggies rope factory I think at Wallsend to go to a transport cafe there, it was an old army hut placed on a bombed site, one day the truck took a hard lean as we were turning into the site and we lost alot of empty milk bottles in crates, they were stacked eight high we put the broken glass into a bomb crater and covered it up and then never went back there again LOL.

[Cisco]

Hello urfa, I remember Whites dairy, what year are you talking about.
I had a friend who started work there straight from school be about 1961 Stuart White (no relation) was his name, worked there till he got his apprenticeship with the gas board.
From what I remember the money was pretty decent, better than apprentice wages.

Cisco

[urfa]

Hi Cisco, I was at whites dairy from 1948 to 1950, whites dairy was actually owned my a group of dairy farmers, the manager in my time was a guy called Myer, the foreman was a guy called oldfield, he had a frame to build up one leg shorter than the other, there were another two brothers who were forman but I forget there names, there were a about twenty milk roundsman in my day most of them used a horse and dray there were a few electric cars too. My milk round once ther took me off the truck was from Chichester road, Imeary street, to Dean road and all the little streets in between, later on they split the milk routes up and divided them into bigger milk rounds employing less people, My first expierance of productivity. Cheers, Urfa

[captain beefheart]

i used to help out the whites dairy guy that did marsden area, he had a pick up type vehicle and we used to stand on the back step and hold on when he was going to the next stop, we used to go to the dairy at the end of the shift and get the orange juice and some cheesy crisps as well as the 2/6 (old money) for helping out.

[captain beefheart]

i used to help out the whites dairy guy that did marsden area, he had a pick up type vehicle and we used to stand on the back step and hold on when he was going to the next stop, we used to go to the dairy at the end of the shift and get the orange juice and some cheesy crisps as well as the 2/6 (old money) for helping out.

[Cisco]

I did not know a lot about the place Urfa, I worked round that area a few times in the early sixties and we used to call in there and get milk off the lads who worked there.
Funny Marsden being mentioned the lad I mentioned lived at Marsden.

Cisco