{"id":3042,"date":"2021-05-23T17:40:42","date_gmt":"2021-05-23T17:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/?page_id=3042"},"modified":"2021-05-23T17:40:43","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T17:40:43","slug":"geoff-eltringham","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/?page_id=3042","title":{"rendered":"Geoff Eltringham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Geoff-Eltringham181128_0046.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Geoff Eltringham interviewed by Ian Reynolds 28 November 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was born in Ryhope on 14<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;December 1938, or as we called it \u2018Ryhup\u2019, which is a pit village. It was separate from Sunderland when I was a kid but now is more or less merged into Sunderland. I was born in a house at 28 Thomas Street in Ryhope, which was actually owned by my grandfather. He was a miner but he owned four houses, possibly five. And we lived in one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember a fair bit of WW2. The key things I can remember, one being under the stairs for an air raid. Remember Ryhope was only three miles from Sunderland and Sunderland was the biggest shipbuilding port in the world for a very long time, including through those war years, by tonnage, they didn\u2019t build big ships but they built a lot of ships. A lot of shipyards on the Wear at that time. So, we got the occasional bomb. Almost certainly not aimed at Ryhope, more aimed at the shipyard unloading and what have you. So, one of my first memories is being under the stairs for an air raid. As the war got on and the air raid shelters were provided, we had a little shelter in our back yard, but we were invited across to Mr. and Mrs. Ling\u2019s air raid shelter, which was a proper corrugated iron Anderson shelter. So, I remember that, putting on my siren suit and going across there. Mr. Ling was an old character who still wore spats, I remember that, the only person I\u2019ve ever known wear spats.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other things, we all had gas masks. I\u2019m one of six children. My sister was born in \u201935, I was born in \u201938. Then I had three brothers who were born in 1942, \u201943 and \u201944, then they found out what was doing it. Then another brother in 1952. So, I had a sister and brothers right through the war years. The youngest had a gas mask that he was put into. We never had to use these gas masks, and when I went to school, I had to carry a gas mask in a canvas satchel, reinforced with cardboard. The younger ones had Mickey Mouse gas masks. I don\u2019t remember mine being a Mickey Mouse one, mine was an ordinary one. I remember going to school carrying it. I don\u2019t know whether I started school at 4 or 5 to be quite honest, but even if it was 5 it would be 1943 of course.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So those are my earliest memories, and one memory of walking over to my aunt Alice\u2019s with mum, and an aeroplane coming in screaming along down the road. I think it was one of ours but I\u2019m never sure about that. I know mam got us out of the way, me and my brother in his pram, against the wall of the chapel field. It would be folk memory for me to say whichever way round it was, I\u2019m not quite sure whether it was one of ours or not. Talking about one of ours, one of the things we learned to do, and I never quite got to the bottom of this, is to identify whether a bomber was one of ours or not. Our twin-engine planes went \u201cmmmmmmmmmmmm\u201d, a steady tone. For some reason, and the Germans are very good engineers so I don\u2019t know why, German engines weren\u2019t synchronised. So, they went \u201cMMMmmmMMMmmm\u201d as the two engines went in and out of sync. So, we learned that if that was the noise, it\u2019s not one of ours. Have you heard that before?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other thing I can remember was silver paper reels being dropped, now that must have been something to do with radar. That must have been late on during the war. I don\u2019t know what the significance was but sometimes we\u2019d find a roll of this silver foil. And of course, we looked for shrapnel, mother didn\u2019t approve of that but we did. Also, she wouldn\u2019t let us be evacuated to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;We knew there was a war on. I was 7 you know, by the end of the war. I remember the declaration at the end of the war. Mum said, \u201cListen to this!\u201d She said that it was a German saying that they had surrendered. Again, that might be my memory that it was a German. We had rationing, of course, rationing books and all that, but that went on long after the war. I think I once went potato picking, but again mother didn\u2019t approve of that, she said that was horse work. But I did work on the farm leading a horse sometimes for haymaking. I used to lead a horse backwards and forwards to operate this boom thing that would grab the hay and swing it around on the yard arm. Hay would drop onto the hay rick and guys would be there making the brick [stack]. So, I did that. The other thing we did was picking rosehips. Have you heard of that? We picked rosehips, and I think we got threepence a stone. This was to make rosehip syrup of course, about the malnutrition thing, to get us back in good nick. I don\u2019t know if that was during or after the war, I can\u2019t tell you that for sure, but that was certainly one of the things I did as a kid.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was a strange child, I didn\u2019t have a good sweet tooth so early on I used to sell my sweet coupons to my sister, and use the money to go to the pictures, probably! You could go to the Grand, we had a little cinema in Ryhope, you could go to the Grand for 7 pence. No, you could go to the Grand for 4 pence, but that was at the plank end, you sat on planks right at the bottom, and if mother found us there\u2026 But then you were 7 pence after that and 10 pence right at the back. The thing that always amuses me and others when I tell them is the lad\u2019s toilet was outside, so at the interval 5 lads would go out to the toilet, 6 or 7 would come back in! That was the Grand. The Grand is still there, it\u2019s been through all sorts of uses since it was the cinema. It\u2019s scheduled to be taken down now and is going to Beamish, brick by brick I\u2019ve learned. That was our local fleapit. It\u2019s a building made of nice brick, nice polished, shiny brick. It\u2019s a big undertaking to take down brick by brick. So that\u2019s what they are doing and I will go and see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I arrived in Egglescliffe to live in either June or July of 1966. I\u2019d married Pauline in September of \u201965, left Richardson Westgarth\u2019s that I then worked at to join the Power Gas Corporation after our honeymoon. We looked around for housing and we decided we were going to live here, but these weren\u2019t built, we\u2019d just identified that Tom Grey (A E. Grey as it was then) was going to build these houses. We went and saw some similar ones that he\u2019d built over in Middlesbrough and decided we were going to buy this one. So, we lived with my parents until the June or July of the following year, so I moved here in \u201966.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As soon as the kids were old enough to be taken down, we went to Yarm Fair. I loved Yarm fair, still do. I mean people whinge on about it and the impact it has on the traffic and all that. Actually, the traffic moves better through Yarm when it\u2019s there, but never mind. I love Yarm Fair, it\u2019s been going on since Adam was alive. Nobody can claim that they didn\u2019t know it was there when they moved into Egglescliffe, unless they were half asleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everybody came back with a goldfish one time or another. I don\u2019t think the goldfish ever survived very long mind. Although I believe we did have one that lasted quite a while actually. My brother used to have a goldfish. My mother used to play hell because you couldn\u2019t see it when it went around the other side of the tank because he never changed the water. But that was probably why the goldfish lasted as long as it did.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I didn\u2019t get an allotment until I retired. I had fancied the idea of an allotment and I\u2019d put my name down. It must have been three or four years before I retired. And suddenly, magically, (or even suspiciously, because Bertie Bell was very influential in the allotment stakes), just as I retired, I got an allotment. There was a waiting list, I don\u2019t know if there still is actually, I think there is. And suddenly I came at the top of the queue just as I retired. So that was in 1996. When Cleveland went, as I always say, I went with it. I didn\u2019t approve of all of that nonsense. Breaking Teesside up was a tragedy in the first place and then splitting it up into Cleveland \u2013 anyway, that\u2019s political stuff. So, I didn\u2019t have an allotment while I was working and I honestly say to people, it\u2019s a big ask, running an allotment properly and doing a full-time job. Some people do it, but you know I had other interests as well, a wife and kids and other things, climbing and stuff. Other interests as it were, the Lions and all sorts of things. I think running an allotment and working full time is a big ask and not one I would go for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Bertie Bell was the main man as far as I was concerned, who assisted me in learning from square one, because I knew nothing. My brother-in-law also, from up in Seaham, he was a mad keen gardener and he introduced me to a lot of the stuff. And of course, I was next door to Jack Robinson. Remarkable old guy who would give you advice whether you wanted it or not. The beauty of it was I could always ask him, he was always there. You could easily ask Jack anything you wanted to know. It tickled me a little bit, everybody kind of assumed that Jack, being an old guy, would be organic. It was like a bloody chemists in there, he had all sorts of poisons and chemicals and god knows what, some of which were probably illegal. But he was a hell of a good gardener just the same. He was a character all right. He would be there you know, he\u2019d be in before you could say Jack Flynn or whatever the expression is. I was once making a cold frame with one of my brothers. Bill was about to put the screwdriver in and Jack popped up under his arm, like \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be doing that.\u201d He was a real character, a real interfering old bugger really, but he was good hearted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, he was an amazing character with that allotment of his. It was actually twice the size of a normal allotment, it was 1\/4<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;of an acre instead of 1\/8<sup>th<\/sup>. When he packed in, I think he actually died before he packed in, it was chopped into two acrossways whereas the others are all longways. So, he was cultivating a very much bigger lump of land than everybody else.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second thing I remembered was Jason, his dog. When I first came here, Jack would occasionally, he wasn\u2019t a big drinking man as far as I\u2019m concerned, go into the Pot &amp; Glass, and he had a lovely golden Labrador, which he called Jason. To a word, Jason would go under the seat, where he and probably Bertie Bell were sitting (and another guy whose name I can\u2019t remember) and lie under the seat, no trouble at all, until Jack decided to give it his drink. He would just bend down with his pint and give his dog a drink out of his pint glass, and then continue drinking the drink. Which I found quite amusing at the time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other thing about Jack was, he was an inventor. He was an inveterate maker of gadgets and things. I can only really remember one but there were many. The one that sticks in my mind was a saw bench which he made using an ordinary Black &amp; Decker drill with the blade attachment on and the drill fastened down on a vertical plane, and a table for the cuts to slot in, and the blade popped up through the slot, and adjusters at all four corners so the table could move up and down to alter the depth of cut. That was a bit Heath Robinson but it worked, and he loved to do his little inventions. I think he worked with tools at one time. When I first came here, I think he was a gardener for the school, I\u2019m not clear about that, when that was. It might not have been as early as when I first came here. But he had worked at some stage of his life at Head Wrightsons, I don\u2019t know if he was a fitter, but I think he worked on the tools.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His stuff was top notch, absolutely top notch. When the garden show was on, he didn\u2019t bother with it towards the end. I think he actually ran it as well at one stage, but he seemed not bothered, to let other people get in. Slowly that faded and I really don\u2019t know why. One of the things was it kind of slipped away with the date. The date it was held didn\u2019t really align with the best time to show all the produce. It had deteriorated to such an extent that on the last one I think I won about ten first prizes, but that was because no bugger else had entered, you know. Ridiculous. The only reason I can put for it fading out was the fact that somehow or other the date, and I don\u2019t know who fixed the date, seemed to get out of sync with the produce. You can always put stuff in but you want it to be putting stuff in that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I grow everything. Raspberries, strawberries. Let me think, going along the allotment now is the best way of doing it. I\u2019ve got a greenhouse with an apricot and a peach. I grew radishes and lettuce on the first plot, then there\u2019s raspberries, then there\u2019s loganberries, then there\u2019s strawberries, and then all the legumes, broad beans particularly I like. A lot of brassicas, cauliflower, calabrese and the likes of that. Potatoes, only really to use land. It\u2019s a big thing, an 1\/8<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;of an acre I\u2019ve got. I let Cathy Hatfield use a few beds when Pauline was ill. I\u2019ve just got them back from her. Other than that it\u2019s a full 1\/8<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;of an acre, and I\u2019ve got it split up into beds. I grow pretty much everything, every vegetable and quite a bit of fruit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The main characters were Tony Pallister who was on the right next to me. I\u2019ve been damn lucky, I had Jack on one side, Tony on the other, and I was already friendly with Bert Bell.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A very great character was Bertie. Fixed cars and did all sorts. He and I were good friends. He would give me advice, as I say, and everybody would give you advice. It\u2019s probably been part of the thing that\u2019s kept me alive, doing that. Because I\u2019m now 80, or I am in two weeks\u2019 time. I had a heart murmur when I was a kid and I wasn\u2019t going to survive. I had a valve replaced five years ago and I\u2019m still ticking. I think the allotment is a lot to do with that. That and the fact I\u2019ve done a lot of walking as well of course.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have done all the Munros. If I hadn\u2019t told you Ian, you\u2019d be the only person I\u2019ve ever met that I haven\u2019t told! I always say that. When I set off there was 276, then the revisionists got at it, saying, \u201cOh, well this one really is separate.\u201d It\u2019s not normally a re-measure of height with these changes, although it is in a couple of instances, it\u2019s mainly saying, \u201cAh, that\u2019s a separate massif.\u201d So even though there\u2019s two high points on what I would think was one mountain, they say that\u2019s two. When I started to do them there were 276, as defined by Munro. I don\u2019t know if you know, Munro is the guy after whom they are named, obviously, but he roamed the Highlands in the back end of the 19<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;century for the Scottish Mountaineering Club, of which he was a member. He surveyed and identified every mountain in Scotland above 3000ft. They are the Munros as far as I\u2019m concerned. He didn\u2019t climb them all, he didn\u2019t claim to either, but he surveyed them, and apparently roamed the Highlands in a kilt and the plaid, you know. He was a pretty well-respected guy in Scotland so he was put up in here, there and everywhere. So, there were 276. And then as I say the revisionists got it up to 284. There\u2019s a fairly remote one in what\u2019s called the Fisherfield area which was one of those 284, which was downgraded just before I had to do it. I was very pleased about that because I\u2019d done a lot of others that had been upgraded from when I set off.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well there\u2019s one called the Inaccessible pinnacle\u2026 Well, a couple of things. First of all, most of the mountains in Scotland are easy-peasy. There are one or two exceptions where you got to have a bit of a head for heights, really. But the guidebooks say there is one mountain where you should really be roped up, and that\u2019s the so-called \u2018Inaccessible Pinnacle\u2019 on Skye. Skye mountains are generally a jump up from the mainland ones. They\u2019re more rugged, more rocky, they just are. I think there are 11 on Skye. But there\u2019s one of them called the Inaccessible Pinnacle, and it\u2019s actually like a big shark fin on the top of the mountain. It\u2019s the high point. And really you do need a rope on you to do that. I mean guys now scamper up it no bother if they want to, but the ordinary mortal would need a rope. There\u2019s a couple of others on Skye that I wanted a rope on, and I\u2019m a rock climber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It took me a hell of a long time. I first became interested when my second youngest brother moved to Scotland, to Ullapool. I used to visit, we visited them. Alan and I used to go and climb mountains round about. And then Pauline bought me this book, it was just a list of Munro\u2019s Tables, no routes, identifying all these Munros. So, I started to tick them off with Alan. Now that would be certainly 10 or 15 years or more before I retired. When I retired I think I\u2019d done 22. But they were all up there, the Ullapool area you see. It was when I retired that I decided that was what I was going to do. One of the things I was going to do was climb the rest. So, I\u2019ve climbed the rest between 1996 when I retired, and 4 years ago when I finished. I was pegging away at them. I wrote it all down in a little book. A5, 90-odd pages. Fortunately, when I started, I kept ticking them off in this guide that Pauline had bought for me. I would just tick it and put the date and who I was with. But that\u2019s sufficient when you come to recollecting, oh that was that day and so on. You can write a little screed around that. But once I started to seriously do them, I kept a written note anyway, who I was with and exactly of the day. I did about 90 on my own. I\u2019ve never actually counted, it\u2019s round about 90.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s some magnificent days really. At first, going on my own, I was a bit nervous, but I got to the point where I preferred it. I preferred being on my own. I was deciding everything for me, it was my body, my mind. And I didn\u2019t have to argue with anybody else or worry about getting anybody else lost. It can be hazardous. I\u2019ve had some bad dos myself. Some people run them and do all sorts. That\u2019s not what mountaineering is about to me. It\u2019s about peace and, I don\u2019t know, being at one with nature. It sounds a bit corny but when you\u2019re on your own you see all sorts of things. I\u2019ve seen stags fighting, I\u2019ve seen mountain hares, I\u2019ve seen ptarmigans. The only thing I haven\u2019t seen is a capercaillie, all the trips I\u2019ve been to Scotland hundreds of times I\u2019ve never seen one. I\u2019ve seen lots of mountain hares, stags, roe deer, red deer, reindeer. I even had reindeer follow me once, because there\u2019s reindeer in the Cairngorms. But yeah, I got to prefer to be on my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are at least two categories below the Munro height and lots of people want to bag them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a name for lower peaks as well,&nbsp;there\u2019s 3 or 4 now. The Corbetts, that\u2019s above 2000ft maybe? I said earlier on about the Munros being, as far as I\u2019m concerned, the ones identified by Munro. In my sarcastic moments I call the others McNeishes because of a feller called Cameron McNeish who wrote all the guidebooks. I haven\u2019t really taken much interest in the rest. I mean I\u2019ll have done a lot of them in doing what I was doing but I never ticked them off or had any ambition to do them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I feel proud of the fact that I helped getting the Conservation Area. I regret the fact that we don\u2019t have a bonfire on the village green as we used to. That was panned by some idiots causing problems and it possibly going to be injurious. Then Johnny and now Simon continue it on their land. I don\u2019t know whether it happened this year actually. But I felt that was something that shouldn\u2019t have happened. It was great to have a bonfire on the village green.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve had a very, very happy life here. I think Egglescliffe is ideally located. I chose to live here because I knew it had a decent school, Pauline was already pregnant by the time we moved down. Primary schools and secondary schools were adjacent. Yarm within walking distance, the river, the sea, the North Yorkshire moors, I mean where else is as good as that? I\u2019ve thought, should I go back home to the Sunderland area? Nah. I go, I visit it, and it\u2019s got its coast. I was born by the sea, so the sea draws me as well, but no, there\u2019s nothing, nowhere better than here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Geoff Eltringham interviewed by Ian Reynolds 28 November 2018 I was born in Ryhope on 14th&nbsp;December 1938, or as we called it \u2018Ryhup\u2019, which is a pit village. It was separate from Sunderland when I was a kid but now is more or less merged into Sunderland. I was born in a house at 28 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3042","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3043,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3042\/revisions\/3043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}