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Stan Wallace remembers his parents
His parents were Elizabeth and Nicholas (known as Cissie and Nick).
Cissie was the oldest of ten and more or less responsible for the nine siblings. As a young girl she worked at Carr's Pawnshop and at Miss Barnard's Drapers Shop on Ravensworth Road.
Nicholas's mother a widow remarried when he was fourteen. His stepfather did not want him in the home so he moved into lodgings.
Before he married Cissie he worked at Dunston pit, then joined the army and was sent to France but was sent home to work in the pit (it was the only bit of luck he had!). At that time Nicholas worked at Dunston Colliery. On losing his job at Dunston he went to work at Backworth Colliery.
They moved into rooms behind a Butcher Shop next to the Plough Pub in Killingworth Village. Unfortunately he was soon again out of work. When she wanted to visit her mother she had to push her two small sons in a pram to the Teams where her mother lived. Eventually they got a rented house in Clavering Avenue, Dunston where Derwent Tower now stands, but still no work.
In addition to all the mundane house chores, his mother did washing for other people.
Some of you will know what the "Means Test" was in those days. It meant you were given "dole" if you were not working.
One local man who was on this tribunal had the gall to call my father 'work-shy'. Nothing could be further from the truth! He cobbled boots and shoes, cut all our hair. I was never in a barber's shop until after I was married.
He had an allotment garden where he had hens and ducks and grew all of his own vegetables. My brother and I sold these from door to door in Dunston, getting a penny here and a half-penny there. It all helped!
He made beautiful furniture which is still in use to this day sixty years on. There was a treadle lathe in the bedroom where he turned the legs for tables and chairs. I can still smell the everlasting glue pot always on the boil on the gas stove. When it was dark nights, my brother and I helped father to carry planks of oak wood from Newcastle, along the 'Rabbit Banks' to Dunston. This was necessary in case anyone informed the dreaded ' Means Test'
Except for six weeks work labouring making the bowling green at the new Dunston Park, he was on the dole for thirteen years.
After this period of idleness he got on the short list for a dustman's job for Whickham Council. He was a short man and being desperate for a job, any job, I remember him standing in front of the mantelpiece after stuffing newspaper into his shoes to gain extra height because the minimum height for a bin-man was 5'3" and he was just under.
Imagine a short list for a bin-man's job.
He didn't get the job but the next time that it came up he got it. Whether joining the Labour Party had anything to do with it I don't know.
Later in his life I got him a job as a crane driver at J.W. Ellis, Swalwell.
Father died aged 82 and mother died aged 85. I have fond memories.
Photograph supplied by Audrey Simpson nee Wallace.