Cultureshock

You need Adobe Flash installed to watch this movie.
Get Adobe Flash

Video transcript

It’s amazing what can trigger a memory! There I was viewing the Changing Faces exhibition gallery at South Shields Museum when I came across William Wouldhave’s name. Suddenly I found myself being transported back to times gone by well over 50 years ago when communities were very close and spent quality time together enjoying simple pleasures.

It was summertime and some of the matriarchs in our street were organising an outing – not just any outing – it was the big annual outing – the trip to South Shields beach! We kids very excited, as it had been talked about for weeks and so much planning was involved in those days. The weather had to be very good, then there was the sarnies to organise and of course the transport to get us there. Nobody in our street opened a car or telephone, money was extremely tight and public transport was desperate for improvement. However these were minor inconveniences and after a few false starts the big day arrived – it was a scorcher! Even Mrs Brown had taken her cardy off!

The mams quickly went into action and made up the water bottles and jam sarnies and if we were really lucky they’d throw in a few egg and tomato ones too. We set off! The whole journey would take about 3 hours each, but who cared – this was a holiday. A very chatty and excited party of about 20 plus started the 30 minute walk to the station. There we would wait what seemed forever for the train to arrive and when it did we piled on board for the rickety ride to South Shields. All the while having great fun with our friends and neighbours.

After leaving South Shields station we would continue walking down Ocean Road until we reached the sands at the pier. It was always on the final stage of the outbound journey that Mrs Craig would tell us about William Wouldhave and the lifeboat heritage we would listen attentively as we neared the beach front then as soon as possible we’d quickly drop the bags, change into swim gear and run into the sea to play. What happy days they were! We laughed, chatted and bonded. These weren’t just neighbours in our streets – they were friends – real friends who would help us in times of need – we knew them and they knew us and we shared many happy times together unfortunately some sad times too!

It was this type of street organised outing that helped create the community spirit and I for one was very happy to have been part of it. Such happy memories.