Reports

South Tyneside Meeting - April 2002 "A Virtual Tour of Tyne Dock area" by Harry Fitzsimmons. A Report by Margaret Stafford

You will no doubt remember last night's talk was a virtual tour of Tyne Dock area and I mused that it might pose a challenge to "your reporter" - well, I wasn't wrong!!

I need to set the scene. Our speaker was Harry Fitzsimmons, a local man (I'm a foreigner from north Yorkshire), he talks fast and with a local accent. He is a technical person (I'm not) and he talks (very quickly) about areas of Shields long gone.

Harry also shows the slides very quickly (we were a little delayed because the slides had been dropped (and we were all looking for the lost slide of Sir James Redhead - which did appear part way through) so I think Harry felt he had to make up for lost time and showed the slides at a very fast pace.

I don't know if you've ever tried to take notes about something you are unfamiliar with, having to look up very quickly to see the picture being talked about and then write furiously - let's just say it was a challenge - but a very enjoyable one and the slides provoked lots of discussion and debate, especially from "the locals"

They were not shown in any particular order, propellers followed by shops and with a considerable mix of time frames. I hope to give you a flavour of the evening.

Any errors are mine - Harry was spot on. He describes himself as an industrial historian. His first slide was of the John Bowes, the first propeller - driven collier in the world, built in 1852. Its arrival made a huge impact on the wealth of Tyneside. It had previously taken collier brigs between 2-4 weeks to get to London with their load of coal.

Facing increasing competition from the railway, Charles Palmer saw an opportunity to fight back and from the John Bowes a whole fleet followed. Each collier could ship 650 tonnes of coal to London and return within a week. There would have been no Tyne Dock without Palmer.

We learnt things we expect to hear from Malcolm Grady, like the fact there used to be 19 or 20 public urinals in South Shields - there was even a slide of one of them!

There were also 4 staithes in Tyne Dock originally, reduced to 2 post war as the size of ships grew. There were 57 miles of railway in the Dock, 2 million cubic yards of earth were shifted (and no one could say where it went!) to form the 50 acre site, much of it dug by returning veterans from the Crimean war (in which Harry's great grandfather was the letter writer for 150 Irish soldiers who otherwise would have had no communication with home).

The dock was dug out largely by hand, railway tracks being laid, trucks then rolled along to be filled with more earth until the steam winches and chains could be brought in to aid the excavation.

Jarrow Chemicals brought more unpleasant memories, where the fumes could strip the bark from the trees and the men were reluctant to wear protective gear (shades of Bob Mattimore again). Too often the men at the alkali works didn't live beyond 40.

We saw a picture of the Alkali Hotel - a group of men standing next to the "chara" all with flat caps and wonderful moustaches - . Alkali being of course one of the ingredients in glass-making. There was no time to try and identify an ancestor - we were picking up pace now!

A group of slides gave us more information about everyday life, the pit lads of 1914 looked so small by today's standards, the railwaymen's trip in the 1930s, outside their chara - with caps like dinner plates

Then came a lovely shot of the Simonside engine works during World War 1 when the "girls" were drafted in - though there was still a man to drive!

We saw the Leam Lane bridge - the only surviving bridge over Tyne Dock. Tyne Dock also had its own gas generator to illuminate the decks. The arches were built on a gradient and the trucks travelled from the Durham coalfield under their own momentum. Horses had to pull them back, having been given a free ride down with the trucks but when the time came to make the return trip some of them were less than keen!! The Galloways were found to have the best temperament for the job.

There were several shots of the Tyne Dock arches, including a very poignant one in the throes of their demolition in 1973. For those of us who had never seen the Dock "in real life" it was amazing to see its scale - the 7 storey high warehouses in close proximity must have been a source of amazement when they were built when the average worker was living in a cramped miner's cottage.

Timber was imported from Scandinavia, first in sailing ships and then by steam but one enterprising Finn (Christiansen) bought up the sailing ships and as the depression hit and fuel costs rose was able to make a handsome profit by running the sailing ships.

We saw a shot of the timber which was seasoned in the Tyne in great quantities after being imported and which became as hard as stone. The ships lined up side by side waiting to get into Tyne Dock and you could literally walk the Tyne from deck to deck.

There were rows and rows of pit props from Scandinavia At one point one-third of all timber imported into the UK came in through Tyne Dock. There was a lovely shot of the nautical equivalent of gridlock - shiplock as the ships queued to get into Tyne Dock.

In World war 1 when paper was in short supply Esparto ( I had to check the spelling of this several times - I'd never heard of it) was brought in from Spain, a rushy grass which could cut the hands and which some recalled as having a pungent smell.

We saw the coal trimmers who were responsible for levelling the pyramid of coal on the ships (so now we knew more what some of our ancestor's did!), a shot of Anthony Proud's shipyard dock gates with 3x80' wide locks opened in 4 3 1859 by the Earl of Carlisle. The Belvedere was the first ship to be filled there and the report was that "the bands played, flags were flown and the taverns were full of gaiety".

We saw a 1935 shot of the dock gates and the trams and then of the Victoria inn, nicknamed the Monkey because the landlord apparently had one as a pet. There were no spirit licences in the pubs in Tyne Dock so they were all "beer bars"

There was a shot of the sub office of the Shields Gazette in Hudson St. Another of the 8 pubs in Tyne Dock was the Shakespeare or "the Shakey" with Ma Ryan standing outside in 1937 in her wrap around pinny (even I could remember them!), then a picture of South Eldon St in 1906 showing the front rooms turned into shops just as in "when the boat comes in."

Turnbulls butcher shop at 16 Hudson St in 1890 was my favourite - you know the one where you would love to say "they were mine ". It caused hilarity and consternation. Last month's speaker (Bob Mattimore with his health and safety hat on ) would have been most concerned to see the meat displayed outside - some poor animal's carcass filled the doorway looking for all the world like a large pair of combinations and there was a very happy looking dog posing at the front of the shop right next to the tempting display!

In 1914 there were 127 butchers shops in South Shields, the vast majority being shipping butchers, selling the provisions to enable the ships to sail, vast quantities such as 30 tonnes of beef, 60 cwt of German sausage, 24 boxes of kippers and 800 dozen eggs (where did the shops get them?!).

There was a shot of the Crown cinema in 1958. No one admitted to doing their courting there but there were several murmurs of recognition.

Tyne Dock station in 1888 came next and a chance reference to Mason's the chemist at the top of Whitehead St (which I missed because of the scribbling) had to be shown again for me because one of the Mason family married my great grandmother's sister back in the Yorkshire Dales before the family migrated north. Such satisfaction though if I'm honest I still couldn't really see the shop but a mention was enough!

We saw the cenotaph in 1921 (near St Peter and St Paul's church where Catherine Cookson went) before it was moved to West Park. There was a shot later of West Park and the lake in 1902 and another one of St Mary's church in 1906 where many of us will have ancestors married or baptised, now gone.

There was a lovely action shot of someone doing the "trolley tango" - trying to jump from a moving trolley bus without losing their dignity, or their balance, in 1949.

Wright's biscuit factory at Rutland St brought back a number of memories of glass topped biscuit tins and the vans with the logo of the little boy - apparently called Mischief, referring to the habit of old ladies looking into prams and saying the baby looked full of mischief.

The Adelaide football club team of 1908-9 were next. They played in the Northern League and drew big crowds until they moved to Horsley Hill and were "seen off by the dogs" - not bitten as I was supposing but not able to compete with the dog racing! They later moved to Gateshead.

We saw Stodart St in 1942 - with the coal heaps and sacks in the back lane so you could identify the houses where miners lived.

A shot of Harton Colliery in 1900 served to remind us that in that area men worked in the railway the colliery or the docks.

An 1890 shot of a group of miners at Harton Colliery led Harry to recount that this was also the year the football pools started and the men had won and the press came to take their picture but then one of the group admitted he had forgotten to send in the copy coupon.

2 consecutive slides showed the first tram from Slake Terrace in 1906 and the last in 1938.

Then came the Dock Hotel, proprietor was John Kennedy - famed, so Harry said with a straight face, for watering his beer - the next shot being one of the hotel surrounded by flood water!

Porchester St in 1941 had a huge queue because people had heard there might be cigarettes - and the next shot was of the shop derelict from bomb damage.

The Eskimo slipper factory (what a name) brought back memories of leaving school on the Friday and starting work on the Monday.

The very first 16' all in one propeller was quite something. Built at Elswick by Charles Taylor in 1900 for the Japanese ships, he routed it past Palmers who had said it couldn't be done!!! The first ship to have the propeller fitted was the Iwitie (a useful quiz question!).

Launch day in 1938 showed James Redhead Jnr and the SS Armanistan and the previously missing slide of Sir James himself inspecting the work in the shipyards - counting the rivets someone said! Another member of the group recounted the story of Sir James standing in the cupola of his house in Westoe village with a telescope to make sure the men were working hard!

Finally the 1901 floods were shown in graphic detail at the bottom of Stanhope St and Temple Park Rd with the resultant devastation.

Harry summed it up by saying that Tyne Dock was its own area, not part of South Shields - an independent community. You could see how it provided Catherine Cookson with the ideas for her writing.

We certainly came away with a much greater understanding of how our ancestors lived, worked and played, memories were stirred or new images created - and I will remember that smile on the dog's face outside Turnbull's the butchers for a very long time!