Below is Rosslyn and Diane’s written history of their recollection of living in Egglescliffe. You can follow what they say in their oral history simply by clicking above and sitting back to enjoy what they say.
Roslyn McCullow and Diane Newell interviewed by Arlene Ellis 30th January 2019
We were born in a nursing home just outside Stockton, but our parents lived in Egglescliffe. Our brother was born in 14 Church Road and that’s where we came back to, and we lived there till we married and left. There was an outside toilet for a few years, before we got a bathroom put in. It’s what we were used to. You know, we weren’t alone, nearly everybody in the village was probably in the same situation, very few had one inside. Our auntie owned four properties, four cottages. No. 14 and No. 16 as they are now and where the white house is next to No.16, that was originally two little cottages. Our mam and dad moved here when they got married, which would’ve been 1948. They lived in 16 Church Road. When they were expecting our brother, Robert, they moved next door to number 14. Our auntie lived in one of the small cottages with her mother, our grandmother. So that’s our connection to the village.
We were literally brought up here, all our childhood was here, school, church, we didn’t leave till we got married. I [Roslyn] moved out to Eaglescliffe and you [Diane] married John, a Londoner and moved south. Our brother, Robert, didn’t marry and he continued living at No.14 until 2016. Our mam was probably the last oldest person in the village, she died two years ago, so she was 92. She died a few weeks before her 93rd birthday. At the back of our house, where there’s now a bungalow called Beechcroft, that was a little field, our auntie owned all of that and she sold it onto Pattison’s and he built the bungalow. Before that we had about eight years before it was built on.
We had goats, we had chickens, we had a lamb called Larry and two goats, one called Lucy and one called Snowball, we had a pony. My dad used to tether them on the Green which you did then because it was free, it was common land so you could do that. Our dad was a fishmonger and our great grandfather was a master mariner from Whitby, so the family came from Whitby and they were all in the fish trade. Our grandparents were fishmongers before the war. Our dad was one of three, he had a brother and a sister, so when he came back after the war, he carried on the business with our auntie Edna, his sister, but our uncle went into cattle and farming, something totally different. So, our auntie used to help our dad out, she worked with him. We don’t know what age we were, we would be young when they were up here and then she packed it in, she didn’t want to do any more. They worked twice a week on Stockton market and they had a fish round, all around Eaglescliffe and the villages, Acklam and the Stockton area, quite a big round. Our mam worked at Wilsons in Stockton and then she gave that up and she worked in the pub, for quite a few years, till Edith Abbey died.
Our headmaster was Mr Jackson and Mrs Jackson, his wife, was our teacher, lovely people we had real respect for them as well. Obviously, there was no central heating so in the winter the milk was frozen on the top and it was all put round a big old-fashioned black range and you would warm the milk up. We had outside toilets that froze in the winter and Mr Jackson the Headmaster would put water down on the morning in the playground in the freezing weather and when we came out to play at playtime it was frozen so we would have a slide. Health and Safety didn’t come into it. For Christmas parties at the school, Mr Nelson the Vicar, would come dressed as Father Christmas, we all knew it was him. We would always have a nice party over at the school. The Garden Party, held in the Rectory grounds, was a big event. You always wanted to be on the maypole and because we were twins, they couldn’t split us up really, so we would sort of skip on first and hold the maypole. We remember doing the skip off, because we were twins, identical and dressed the same. Our mam always made us a new skirt for the fete. There was a bit of film on Facebook about it recently. It was a big occasion. It was lovely, everybody dressed up. You put your best things on, dressed up for the occasion, there was bunting all around the grounds of the rectory. It really was good. There is a picture of us at some sort of coronation event. We were about 3 years old and we were in a race on the village green, and I [Dianne] can remember starting to cry and running back to mam. We were really young, that might have been the coronation but we would be about 2 or 3 years old. What else was there? Sunday school, church on a Sunday, and at Easter a new outfit and an Easter Bonnet that was always nice. At the Pot and Glass we used to have a competition for the best decorated hard-boiled eggs. Our mam would always make a nice big Easter bonnet, Dad would decorate the eggs. The pub played a big part in the community. Everybody knew everybody else, you never locked your doors, you never had to. There was never any crime as such, it was very safe really.
We joined the Brownies and the Girl Guides. The Brownies was held in the Rectory, in the old part of the Rectory. There was this passageway, it was pitch black, leading to the room the Brownies used and we can always remember screaming because we were too frightened to go along this long stone passageway. It was a big old house for a family then and it was the part of the house that they didn’t use. It was cold and really creepy and we used to frighten ourselves to death, we would scream and run, I don’t know what we thought was going to be there, it was just a spooky place at night. Of course, when we were little the village was lit by gaslights. Our brother was telling us he remembers a guy coming round on a motorbike to light the gas lights around the village and he used to come round the following morning to turn them off.
Bonfire night, it used to be on the village green, massive, everybody would just take their rubbish out. We can remember somebody putting gas masks on the fire, and we were probably about 5 or 6, We remember these masks because you used to go down and see what was on the Bonfire. There was a pile of them from the war and someone had obviously had a clear out and threw them on the bonfire. Alan Smith would come at 6 o’clock and do the honours, light the fire. Our dad would have a little tin box with the fireworks in, like everybody did and it was so dark, the only light would come from the fire. People would let off those jumping jacks and they would just be going off all over the place. Catherine wheels on the tree trunks, just nail them onto the tree trunks and these things would fly all over the place, there was just no health and safety whatsoever, they would have a fit in this day and age.
We had a dog, a boxer dog called Duke. You didn’t have to have him on a lead, he just had the run of the village, so we would let him out and when he came back home he would just jump at the front door and it would just come open, it’s a wonder the lock wasn’t broken. He used to love Bonfire night. He used to get up at the window when the fireworks were going off and he could hear them and see them. When he was let out the next day and the bonfire was sort of just embers, he would go lie beside it, because he liked the heat. Because we had coal fires at home, you couldn’t get near the fire for him, he would be literally lying across the hearth in front of it. He was the only dog we knew that wasn’t scared of fireworks, he actually liked them.
The farm, the fields and the village green were our playground. We would come home from school and we would go down to the woods and the riverbank. In the spring and the summer, there was a pond down there and we would collect frog spawn, we would collect that all the time. We would play on the village green and there was a shrubbery on the edge of the farm and that was just our den, we played there all the time, we were never in. We went out and came back when we were hungry.
We remember going to the farm when we were kids, really young… it might have been a Sunday, because we had our Sunday best on, nice clothes, we were going out. We were told to go out and play till Mam and Dad got ready. We went down to the farm. We don’t know what it was, but we got covered in it, a white powder. David Smith would be able to tell you what it was. We were covered head to toe, we came home and Mam and Dad went crazy, we were about five.
The winters were long. We would make snowballs and make things. With corrugated sheeting we would make a roof for a shop and make pies out of snow, it was just ideal. Children don’t have that freedom now. We would go sledging down Stoney Bank, on the field where the pill box is. There were no trees on there then. It was completely clear, so that was where we would go sledging. So we would be out till about 6 o’clock, maybe a bit later, but there was always a gang of us and everybody knew where you were, your parents knew where you were so you just played until you got tired or until whatever time they said you had to be in.
There was a field behind the school and it was all grass covered humps where it had been ploughed. There used to be an old tithe barn there as well. Mr Bretherton, the coalman, used to keep his wagon there.
We were always getting up to mischief, you just do when you are kids. We were always called the terrible twins, being in places we weren’t supposed to be in. We were always caught in orchards and the allotments. We remember getting caught in the orchard down at Smiths, We were pinching the apples.
I [Roslyn] can remember falling in the river when I was little, oh yes, that was massive. We were about five and our mam and dad apparently came out looking for us, it would be a Sunday. Somebody was crossing Yarm bridge and saw us, there was a few of us, kids from the village and I’d slipped in down by the Blue Bell. There was a current and I was sort of hanging on. I think there were some boys swimming, I think they swam across and helped me out. Anyway, somebody said to our mam and dad, who were out looking for us, “they are down by the Blue Bell,”. They just marched us home, didn’t say a word and got us inside, smacked us and said “get to bed”. That was it. One smack, but you never ever forgot it. That’s the only time we remember getting a smack, but that’s because they were so frightened. But I’m not a good swimmer now, frightened of deep water.
Where the Glen is now, the house that was originally there was Crisp’s house. We were talking to our brother about it and he said Mr Crisp who owned it was a herbalist and he said, “don’t you remember the garden was full of herbs”, it was all overgrown. Mr Crisp built two houses, the house on the corner of Worsall Road and Spittle Bank is the identical house. That one has been done up in the last few years, but was identical to the one that used to be next to the school where the Glen is now. It was a playground for us, it was derelict. Apparently, Mr Crisp’s sister lived in that house and she fell ill. She went to hospital, and when they brought her back, they realised that she couldn’t live there on her own. It was just left, derelict, and it was all overgrown. It was like a creepy old house, it really was. You know when you are little you scare yourself thinking about it. We used to go in, because it was always open and it was just like a time warp. It had just been left. We remember a piano, a little grand piano and all the sheet music on the top. A staircase that you couldn’t get up because it had rotted away. In the garden there was an overgrown pond.
Yarm Fair was another big thing. It may be an age thing, but you look back and you think it was better then, than it is now. There were a lot more gypsy caravans and a lot more gypsy Rose Lee’s and fortune tellers. Starting at the top end, going in over the bridge, there would be caravans, covered ones, all the way down and now there’s a handful. It’s not the same. The gypsies would come round selling pegs and we were always a bit scared because there was always a bit of “they might want to take me away, the gypsies, if you don’t behave yourself” type of thing. We remember that.
There were very few cars in the village. Our brother was counting up how many cars there would have been in the village when we were kids. We had a van, Bert Bell had a car, Jackie Carr had a van, Smiths had a Landrover, Colin Hyde had a car, Terrills had a car, Abbeys had two cars and Roland’s who lived where Richard and Astrid Merritt now live, had a car and that was about it. It was just unheard of, you could just play anywhere, in the street, round by the hall, we played round there a lot, there was no traffic at all coming into the village and nothing went out, tractors, that was probably about it.
We remember the lady who lived in the Hall, Mrs Thompson. She obviously owned the place and she was an invalid and she had an old bath chair and she was always dressed in black, I [Dianne] can remember her coming up Church Road and we were outside and she would always stop and talk. We were so frightened of her because she was very old, in a bath chair and dressed all in black. I just remember running into the house and saying “the witch is coming”. It was just one of those things that sticks in your mind.
Then there was Harriet. She was always very eccentric. We used to play on the village green, when we were little., But she didn’t like it and if you were playing and the goats were tied up she would say “get up your own end, go play up your own end”. We would torment her. Then there was Ces (Cecil) Diddums. He was a photographer, he was really good, he took some photographs of us when we were kids, on Stoney Bank, his wife worked in the church, she was a cleaner in the church, quite late on in life after Harriet left.
Where The White House and Kirklands are there used to be a little cottage and it was the home of Annie Swinburn, the mother of Eileen Riley, who lived next door to number 16 Church Road. There was no inside toilet, the toilet was outside and was called a midden. We used to, as kids, go across there, we don’t think she had electricity even. It was amazing, there were lots of shrubs and trees around it, it was like hidden and she was really old and we were really young,
Two sisters, the Doughtys, originally had the shop, they were Mrs Hardy’s aunties. I [Dianne] remember they had a stand outside and the milk urns would be put on there on the morning. Our mam would say “just go and get us a loaf of bread or just go and get us a pint of milk” or whatever and we would just go across to the shop, but after it closed, we would have to go into Yarm if she wanted anything.
All of our time in the village it was always the Abbeys in the pub. Our brother was telling us that they originally lived in Hill Rise, which was down on the Green. A guy called Les Pickering owned the Pot and Glass originally and he had a heart attack and they swopped, Abbeys took over the pub and he took over their house, sort of did an exchange. That was back in the 1950’s. Charlie and Edith took over the pub and Charlie’s mum lived with them. They were there until the 1970’s and I, [Dianne] when I was a student, worked there on a Sunday. Charlie died first and Edith carried on, on her own until she died. They were there a long time a good 20 odd years.
I [Roslyn] got a job in Yarm before I left school, a part-time job in the newsagents, in Newsfair. Then you[Dianne] went onto college, Hartlepool Art College, I [Roslyn] did a secretarial course at school , commerce that sort of thing, and I ended up in an office for about 15 years. Our brother worked with our Dad.
We both got married at St John’s, Mr Nelson was the rector. It was actually my [Dianne] anniversary last week, the 24th January. The day before my wedding the weather was beautiful then it snowed overnight, heavy, it was dreadful.