He used to work for a local builder first, a fella in Thornley, used to do a bit of building. Melvin Ramshaw you called him. He served his time working with him and then he got a job on the council. Why, he was there all the time, till he finished.'

So on your mother's side there were people who liked a drink?

'Oh aye! Aye, me uncle Tom--yer what!'

So back then it was a case of the church or the pub?

'There was a lot of them went to the pubs. Me uncle Paddy used to go to church.'

But your father?

'No, he wouldn't drink.'

Not even at New Year?

'No, never smoked, never gambled. That's all he thought about, the Church. He used to take us to Ferry Hill, maybe on an August Bank Holiday or something like that. We used to walk over the Hilly, to Deaf Hill Station and we used to get a train there, up to Ferry Hill Station and then we used to come back on the bus at night time and we used to get the bus from Ferry Hill Station down the bank to Coxhoe and then we used to change onto the G & B and get back to Thornley. But they used to go there regular and there was Godric and Austin, two cousins of mine and we used to run about. There was quarries and hills and everything up there and we used to go running about outside.'

These were my father’s cousins Godric and Austin Franey. Godric was also in the DLI (4457054) and a POW in World War Two, eventually in Stalag 4C. For more on this see the Army Numbers part of the site.

What were the wages at the pit?

'Bad. I know when I left Jack Walton and started working for different firms I was bringing in more money than our old fella. But, of course, he had a free house and everything, free coal.'

There weren't any council houses then?

'They were building them. They started in the Twenties, Thornlaw North. There was nothing up here then. There was only the North and a few down where Saab Balder's was. There was a few down on the outside of there. This was all open fields.'

'This' being Gore Hill Estate. And Hillsyde Crescent?

'Straight after the war. Then they built East Lea. Then they built Cooper's Close. And there was one or two little sites--there was one at Passfield Square, they built them.'

After the war?

'Aye, I worked on them in 1948.'

What about the VG shop (which still stands, opposite Cooper’s Close)?

'Bob Kirk built that. Oh, that was after the war when that was built.'

Were any of your uncles in the First World War?

'My uncle Bill was there and my uncle John was there. I don't know about my uncle Tom, he might have been there in the Army--aye he was. He was in as well.'

With what regiments?

NEXT: Three Uncles in the Tyneside Irish

The old postcard image above features the Hilly Owlie, Thornley as it was until it was filled in with pit waste in the late 1950s. The large building at centre is the Officials’ Club, which is still standing and still in business. Click on the image to enlarge it.. Below is a postcard view of Ferry Hill Station.