Cpl Tom Tunney was demobbed at York on May 4th 1946.
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Were their spivs in Thornley?
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'Aye, you always found them, man. You know these rag and bone men. Fellas used to go around collecting rags, scrap. There was always two or three of them with the hoss and cart. They always had money.'
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So you got on the train at York?
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'Oh, I got in the bloody bar first! I got in with a petty officer in the Navy. I was standing at the bar and we started drinking together. Why, he was drinking rum and we had a few pints and then I says, "Well, I'm off!" ‘And I got the train and I got off at Durham and I came out of the station and there was two pubs down there, where you come out of the station, down the bank, before they put the cutting in, there was two pubs there. I went in one of them. I looked at my watch and thought well I've got so much time to wait for the bus, so I went in one of them and had a pint and I got the bus home.
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'And there was a dance on the Friday night at Wheatley Hill. So I got home, had something to eat, got washed shaved and everything and went up to the dance. I never bothered taking my uniform off, I says, "I'll leave it on. I'm not demobbed 'til 12 o'clock tonight! I left it on and that was it.'
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Did you have a job to go to?
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'Oh aye, well we had to report to the dole office. I went to the dole office on the Monday. Ted Carter, he was back of the bar. "Oh," he says, you've got your job back on the council, Tommy, because you were called up from there.
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“Anyway,” he says, "They're wanting any amount of bricklayers Easington Council.” So I says, "Aye." So I got in touch with them and I had to start at Wheatley Hill. There was a few bungalows up there, along Quetlaw Road, I started there. John Regan was there and Peter Wilson I think.'
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And the pay was better than in 1939?
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'Oh aye, that's what we had: half a crown an hour. About £5 and 10 shillings, top of the note.'
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Did you ever think of moving away from Thornley?
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'I had a wild idea of buying a van or something, a caravan after the war. Because you could get work anywhere. You could go off on these big sites. Hartlepool, places like that, you could go off one site, go over the road and get a better price, things like that and I thought a couple of us could get together with a caravan and a car. Just travel about, go down South, because they were making a fortune down there. But I never got round to it. I think the band had a lot to do with it. I'd come back and I wanted to be in the band and that was that.'
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THORNLEY ROLL OF HONOUR INDEX PAGE
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16 DLI HOME
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