From the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – Circa 1999-2000

Ex-Poolie Tom Guthrie writes about the Hartlepool of his childhood, we’ll use more of his memories later this week.

 “I still correspond regularly with my old childhood friends back there in Hartlepool, even though I have spent more than half a century away from it.

I can look back with clarity to things common-place there sixty odd years ago.

There was always poverty, and times were hard for most people, but there were some sterling characters around which always helped to make life worthwhile.

There was one, middle-aged fellow, unshaven, unkempt, always in tatters, some called him ‘Old Sammy’ others would call him ‘Buzzer’ because of the buzzing sound he always made as he moved around. This poor bloke would take orders for sea coal, ‘threepence a bag’ and would walk from this place, (I always knew it to be around Mozart Street and Green Street) over the Burn Bank at the top of Burn Road, or over the Steelworks Bridge, and onto the sands to rake up his coal and carry it back the same way.

I have seen Sammy stretched out on the pavement, in repose, exposing himself through his tattered pants, snoring away. He was so well known around that people passing would discreetly cover him up and go on then-way.

There was a well known and respected character in the twenties who rejoiced in the name of Daddy Wickens, he was Ministry of Education Truant Officer, and it was his job to wander around looking for errant school children, who were ‘Playing the Nick’. He was a real person, but I never met anyone who had seen him, he was always described like a Dickensian character dressed in dark clothes, with a mean face, long nose and chin, and would often take out a cane which was supposedly secreted somewhere on his thin person. We sang a song about him too, the exact words I forget, the tune I never will:

“Where have you been, down Hart Lane,

Here comes Daddy Wickens with his big, long cane”.

Jasper Hardy was a school teacher for a while in St. Joseph’s and later in St. Cuthbert’s, this man was a great musician, Piano Forte, and taught the piano outside of school hours. He was also a tyrant, he was quite rotund with scanty hair, a lily-white face and well shaved. Jasper would have been in them days the absolute personification of the ‘Blue Jowl’ type.

I well remember him walking threateningly towards a pupil who defecated with fear, and promptly ordered two of the bigger pupils in the class to “Take this filthy thing” to the lavatory.

Old Croky, Mr. Albert Grocott, of 8, Mozart Street, probably missed his vocation, he should have been a politician. Often after having a few drinks at one or two of his favourite pubs around Stranton Green, which could have been the ‘White House’, ‘The Bourne’, or maybe the ‘Seven Stars’. He would then retire to a spot on Stranton Green usually near to Bottomleys and would commence his oration. He would decry the reigning government as a crowd of bloody halfwits, then get to the nitty gritty of the stupid local politicians. I remember him slating Howard Gritten, who was in the Conservative electorate, and saying wonderful things about the Labour side, a Mr. Furnace, he would always end up with a fair gallery and wasn’t so stupid as he couldn’t answer questions put to him by his gallery.

After the last of his audience had left he would make his way to Mozart Street where he had another kind of gallery, no matter how late the hour, children would be waiting for him, and Albert would be armed with scores of coins, halfpennies and pennies, which he would hurl into the air, many of them landing on rooftops which were always retrieved later by the bravest of the children, including yours truly.

Mr. Grocott made his money at weekends, weather permitting, he would brew up scores of gallons of ginger beer, and with the aid of a hired hand cart would set up business at the top of Burn Bank and would do a fair trade with the children who went up there in droves to slide down the ‘dykes’ and swim. There were no ‘Greenies’ in them days, and we would even dive and swim from the sewerage outlet pipes, all well armed with Hartlepool ‘cast iron constitutions’.

The Crokies would always borrow our Northern Daily Mail and the kids in our family were always made welcome to the odd drink of ginger beer, from the dregs left in the stone jars on the old man’s return home on Sunday nights.

Old Crokies son, another character worth a mention, Albert Jr.  Albert was a clever man who, in between his sea trips, would build scale models of ships he had either known or sailed in. Albert would sail these at the Ward Jackson Park, on occasions, and at these times Albert was sure of a fair gathering of interested boys.

All these models were propelled by gramophone motors, their trim, and performance made them just a pleasure to watch. Another of Albert’s fortes was music, he played fair piano and the violin. Albert was a busker too, and would travel up the coast a bit to more affluent areas and would play his violin. These weren’t your run of the mill violins, (and they weren’t Stradivaris) they were fashioned and made by Albert from cigar boxes, and he played them well. He was telling my eldest brother Joe one day, he could make five times as much money busking in one week as he could make in three months at sea, but he said he also enjoyed his odd trips on the briny.

This was how Albert was able to pursue his hobbies. His other hobby was making up his own bicycles, he would buy superseded parts at a fraction of the original cost and make up the finest looking bikes. The last time I remember seeing Albert was at the early part of World War 2, and he was looking resplendent in his war job, being that of either the Assistant or Chief of the West Hartlepool Fire Brigade.

Another sea-going type in and around Mozart Street was Tommy Rowlands, Tommy was gay, in these days people accept our gay community as almost the ‘norm’. It wasn’t quite that way 60 years or more ago. Tommy was a gentleman, in every respect, always impeccably dressed, and would never do anyone a wrong turn.

His father was the proprietor of the Seven Stars public house, and rose more than somewhat above the ‘hoi polloi’. On weekends Mr. Rowlands Snr could be seen leading the fox hunt around Greaham or some other outlying places, in his red jacket which he had a licence to wear.

 Tommy knew my mother, firstly since she was a regular frequenter of the Seven Stars, and secondly was well known to Mr. Rowlands, having nursed him once when he was sick.

Tommy had been cut off from his father, and his family, and would come around to 1 Mozart Street to find out just what was happening in the Rowland family circle. Tommy wouldn’t come into our house if there was another female there, and would sit in front of the window to make sure there were no girls about to arrive. Our next door neighbour managed to get into the house one day, but not before Tommy had managed to hide under the stairs cupboard, where he almost suffocated, and was there for four hours.”

 Tom Guthrie

 104, Burlington St. Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia.