‘Memory Lane’
allows people to take a tour of Sunderland’s Eastend and Hendon culture, history, and heritage. It is based on the lived memories of it’s residents aged 60 - 90+ years old, and captures critical points and events in people’s lives; retelling their stories for future generations.
In this short film we explore 10 different themes which connect people: entertainment, health, economy, transport, gender roles, religion, sport, community, living abode and working life. Here is what they had to share…
B’
Active ‘N’ B’ Fit, a not-for-profit community interest company based in Barley
Mow Park in Sunderland presents the Memory Lane project. Funded by The National
Lottery Heritage Fund.
Hendon
and the Eastend, the historical hub of what was later to become the biggest
town in Europe before in 1992 as part of her 40th anniversary on the
throne, Queen Elizabeth II bestowed city status on Sunderland.
But it
all began here in the Eastend and neighbouring borough of Hendon, an area
forged in the blood, sweat and toil of a proud and resilient, mostly working-class
population.
But
what makes this place so special, that it gave birth to the vibrant city we
know today? As part of the Memory Lane Project, we’ve spoken with those who
were born and bred in the area and asked them to recollect what life was like
growing up here, before, during and after WWII. This is their story…
Brian:The
main thing was to make sure that the family had a roof over their head, they
had food on the table, and they had heat. Iris: There
was just the radio, there was no television. The radio, and we just watched
that.
Robbie:I’m
the second youngest, so I had like, six above me. And my oldest sister was 18
and that. So, that was when we lost my mam. So, she more or less become a mam
kind of thing, if you understand what I mean, you know.
Fiona:Hendon,
you know, it is a marvellous community. People look out for each other, they
know each other. And a lot of people can go back over years and years of how it
used to be. And it’s nice to listen to them talk, some of the tenants here, about
you know, going down that memory lane.
Val: My
husband was one of 15 kids, so you can imagine how many relations I have. I’ve
got nieces and nephews I barely know, have barely met.
Many
households were full of large families during this time, living in close
quarters, some sharing one house, with one family upstairs and another down.
The area was redeveloped from the slums of the ’30s, and in the ’50s prefabs
were introduced post-war. As a cost-effective building process to housing
planning, and ‘The Garths’ were built. The skyline changed forever in the ’60s
and further development with the introduction of high rise living. With 11
storey blocks built in the area.
Moi: There
was six of us. It was all big families. There wasn’t much tele to watch, that’s
all they done, made babies.
Val:There
was three rooms on the upstairs of the house we lived in, and they had the
front room, her and her husband. They were in their ’80s, then. And we had the
back room.
Many
see this time with the perception of defined gender roles with the man of the
house, the breadwinner and the woman, a homemaker. But for some in Hendon and the
Eastend, this was not a financial option as both adults out of necessity had to
work to make ends meet.
Geoff:
A
lot of the women from the Eastend, the younger ones went into the rope
factories because there were a lot of rope factories made here with the hemp
and the sisal. And then, in sort of the ’60s and that, there was Jackson’s the
tailors had big factories in, just on the end of Hendon. And a lot of them
worked in there.
Wendy:Dad
was at work. We lived in a maisonette, in Norman Court. My Dad was at work, he
worked full time, and my mam had to see to all of us. Basically, trying to
catch up on the washing because you didn’t have automatic washers then.
Brian:My
mam worked in a few different fish shops and that. One, just over the road in
Tatham Street. Clarke’s, Clarke’s fish shop it was there.
Lily:You
know, but the man was the boss in them days. I had a lovely upbringing mind, I
couldn’t complain. But the man was, you know, the earner.
Hendon
was the birthplace of perhaps the area's most famous sporting son, Raich
Carter, who represented England as a footballer and was also a first-class
cricketer. To this day his image adorns the wall in the area and his name is
honoured at the sports centre. But for children in the past, there wasn’t the
safe play areas that young people have today. They made their own sport, and
the streets and abandoned warehouses is where they foraged and found their fun.
Moi:
We
used to get all the thick rope off the fishermen, and we used to wrap them
round the top of the lamp, and we used to swing all the way round.
Kevin:
You
just did what you wanted to do and when you went out you knew you had to be in
at a certain time. You had to be in at a certain time, otherwise you would be
getting wrong.
Geoff:
The
docks, you know, we went climbing on the docks, that was our big playground.
The docks and the railway, we’d get a little ride on the back of a train.
Ron:
There
was plenty entertainment, when you were young, you know. The houses were in a
big back lane were massive. That’s where the lads and lasses used to play. Sometimes
we used to be out till 10 o’clock, and we used to play ‘Catchy Kiss’.
Geoff:
We
had a huge amount of old industry, old factories, old buildings, housing, and
stuff like that still left in the Eastend, and we used to just go and climb
about and make gang huts and just be kids really. Get old prams and make Bogies.
Iris:
We
used to go out to play, we played ‘Itchy Coite’, you know, with ‘Itchies’ or
whatever there was to do. Chalking on the pavement and things.
Kevin:
We
would go out on a Saturday morning and be out all day, whatever you were doing.
We weren’t doing anything wrong or anything, and then you would go back and
take your time.
The
Eastend and Hendon has always been an area of deprivation, despite it being
where most of the Sunderland economy was made in the bygone years.
Val:
I
think my mam only earned £1 a week, you know. I mean she went every morning,
all morning to clean at Mrs Denton’s, and she got £1 on a Friday.
Iris:We
never went with bare feet like some did down the Eastend but we never did that.
Robbie:I
think I left school on the Friday, and I started work on the Monday.
Val:
My
dad, he said he was over the moon when he got a rise when he went to work in
the shipyards, and he had £5 something for his pay.
Fiona:The
shipyards, the coal mines, you know, my brother-in-law worked at one of the
coal mines in Seaham.
Robbie:Pits
and the shipyards and that closed down, there was less money going about.
Despite
having very little, the people of the area were generous with what they did
have, and were quick to share with others less fortunate.
Iris:People
of the Eastend were so kind, and let’s put it this way, you baked your own
bread, you made your own soup, and things like that. You’d say well there’s a flat
cake and when you bake yours can you give me one of your flat cakes; and that
is how it worked, you see. And if there was washing, you would say have you got
a bit washing to do? And they would do the washing.
Brian:
Good
community, people looked after each other. My mam came from the same as my
grandma. She lived upstairs, and the first thing you would do as a kid, is that
the kettle was put on and the front door was opened, and it was like that all
day, people coming and going.
Les:You
used to go down the trucks and get the coal for us to keep the fire going to
keep us all warm. Go down and get a bit scrap because in those days the men
would go down and get the scraps on the beach.
Lily:You
might not have a lot of money but everybody seemed friendlier.
Iris:There
was a shop on the corner, when we come out of the cars opening it was. There
was a big shop there. And of course, we didn’t have much money, and we used to
stand and look in the window and say, ‘oh, I could eat that sweet, I could eat
that sweet’. We couldn’t afford to buy them.
Geoff:Social
care was with your community. People looked after people, so you could live in
your own home, and you had your next-door neighbours that would pop in, drop a
meal in, make sure you were alright.
In the
past, the population of the Eastend and Hendon could rely on heavy industry to
maintain a local workforce before factories closed and commerce changed. Ending
the likes of shipbuilding and coal mining, the mainstay of the area’s economy.
Val:
My
mother cleaned, my dad worked in the mines and then he went into the shipyards
just before he had to give up altogether because of his ill health. But my mam
cleaned for a dentist's family in Tatham Street.
Robbie:
Work,
it’s got to be work in this area; there’s no work now. Shipyards, builders, I
went into building. I had an uncle who was in the pits. When they closed it was
just completely finished down here.
Brian:
My
dad went down into the mines. He went into the mines when he was a young man.
His stepfather, and he was in the mines, a young man until 1939, it’ll have
been about the second world war. And he left the mines, he met my mam and
joined the army.
Iris:
Well,
my mam worked at the ropery where they made ropes, you know, for the boats and
that, that’s where my mam worked. My dad was a cabinet maker.
Lily:
See
my father worked on the railway driving.
Geoff:
My
first job was working on the tugboats, and I was the seventh generation of tugboat
people from the Moon’s. We’d all worked, our family, my dad’s dad, you know,
all the way down had been either foy boatman, tug boatman; worked on trawlers,
fishermen; a lot of the relatives were all sea-based if you like.
Kevin:
It
was massively industrial because you had the shipyards. You had people working
in the shipyards and a lot of industries that were linked to shipyards like the
ropery, and places like that.
Moi:
My
mam used to work in a sandwich bar, but my dad wouldn’t let her work. Like,
clocking in and clocking out.
Wendy:
My
dad was a roofer; he had his own business eventually. He used to work for
firms; well, I wasn’t born then. But apparently, he used to work for firms when
he was younger and then it turned out that he ended up just making his own
business doing things.
Despite
there being little money and many households on a tight budget, food could be
fresh, as produce was sourced more locally than today. People were also more
active both in their manual work life and at home.
Kevin:
It
was all home-cooked stuff, everything.
Robbie:
Panacalty,
panac? You must have heard everybody talking about panac. I mean people still
do it now. You know, I mean, that was a big one. Soup, because as I say we had
a lot of people who, relations who had pigeons. You had a lot of allotments
around the pigeon lofts.
Fiona:
People
worked hard. People worked and grafted hard. Their life expectancy wasn’t as
long as people are living now. I think people are living a lot better and
healthier lives.
Lily:
2
brothers and a sister, but unfortunately, he died at 60. He was a heavy smoker
and my father and other brother died at 52, and they had heart attacks.
In Hendon
and the Eastend, they also had more religious institutions in the past.
Synagogues and churches, some of which have now gone as a place of worship.
Religion played a bigger role in the lives of those in the area.
Brian:
You
had protestant, you had catholic, you had atheist, the whole lot.
Lily:
We
had to go down to the gospel hall. You know, it was only a little chapel. It
was the only time you had your best coat on.
Val:
We
had to go to Sunday school on a Sunday afternoon. We had to go to church on a
Sunday morning, and we had religion in school then.
Geoff:
We
used to have a catholic priest then, Father Stack and he used to wander the
community and go in anybody’s house, and he could go in anybody’s house. He
would just knock on and walk in, and they were terrified of him.
Fiona:
I
had a very strict upbringing where we were taken to church and our Sunday
school teacher lived opposite to us. So, she used to knock on the door and
escort us.
Robbie:
We
had like, we had Sunday schools which a lot of the bairns liked because you got
on a lot of little trips out off the Sunday school, you know, with collections
and stuff, like.
Val: It
was a big thing to have your first Holy Communion because you got a new dress
and new shoes, you know. Dressed up to the nines.
The
roads and streets of Hendon and the Eastend were a safer place with less
traffic. Cars were not yet so commonplace and trams, buses and bikes were the
usual form of transport, which meant for many venturing outside their local
area was rare.
Robbie:
Trams,
that used to be at the top of this street, outside the gate. That used to be
where a tram turned round. You know, it used to come up Villette Road, turn
round, go right along to the end, and then you had to get off and get on
another one.
Val:
Cambridge
Terrace was that side of the road, and Tatham Street was that side, and the
tram ran down. I could get on the tram at the bottom of Tatham Street, and it
would take me to the terminus, it was the Southwick Green.
Geoff:
The
railway was the main part for the coal, and it was obviously, mainly exported
from Sunderland down to the South Coast. But the roads did get busier as
certain cargoes came on.
Brian:There
were very few vehicles, mainly bus services, well, what you had then. Your
delivery people. Go to the shops and things like that.
Despite
having a strong labour workforce and later unions. For most, politics was a
thing for other people, but even without the interest, it touched and shaped
the local community.
Kevin: It’s
the acceptance of who you are, and none of the discrimination type of things
that go on or as many. I think because Hendon has always been probably socially
deprived, people have always been welcome to come in because nothing was
expected of anybody.
Brian: A
mixed marriage, black and white wasn’t good, but George and his wife, George
Cole and his wife Betty, they were accepted by the street. And he turned into a
great man.
Iris: My
dad was part German, and obviously, years ago they used to jump boats and
things like that and of course that’s probably how he got here. The Jews, he
always worked for the Jews. It was always Jews who had the businesses in
Sunderland at the time. Fiona:
They
talk about the shipyards, the coal mines, and it was a shame that things got
closed down because it left a lot of people, you know, devastated.
Moi:
They
need a medal down there, because if anybody mentions the Eastend that’s the
best place ever to be born, there. Because you felt safe, class, and all the
old women used to love it because they felt safe.
Wendy:
It
always has been a deprived area, Hendon, but it’s been a nice place to grow up.
I’ve loved living in Hendon all my life, it’s somewhere that I really like.
People are nice and friendly; they always were and they always are.
Ron:
The
community and all from the edges around that live there are all a lot of happy
social people, you know. It’s a good community, everybody was friends with
everybody.
Iris:
The
people was everything about the Eastend, it’s just one of those places you
would just love to live.
Fiona:
I
think I am proud to say that this is my heritage now and I have made a mark
here. You know, my children love it, my husband, and so do I. I wouldn’t move
anywhere else to be quite honest.
Brian: Hendon
holds a big place in my heart.
So, what is it that makes Hendon and the Eastend so special, it's special people.
