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June Howard
March 2025

Living in a pit village (coal mining town) was great fun for kids, not necessarily for the parents, especially mum, with all that black coal dust.

​Monday was washing day - rain, hail or shine.  The copper would be filled with water from number 10 then brought to the boil with a coal fire underneath.  I would help mum with the washing, mainly the wringing through the hand wringer and hanging it out on the line across the street, just like every other mother in the street. 

The village was made up of four rows of terrace houses, Percy, Duke, Duchess Street and the fourth street Louise Street, which was half demolished. It was great fun playing in the half-demolished house, climbing up to the second storey and walking over the beams showing off our skills of balance (the floor boards had been removed).
 
In our street the upstairs consisted of two bedrooms, the main being the parents and the attic for the kids.  The attic sloped down so there was a wall built about 3ft high from the meeting point of the roof and the floor. Each attic wall had a small door and led into a corridor that went all the way down the whole street (29 houses)   This corridor became our secret passage way as kids.  We would open the door every Friday night once everyone had gone to bed and creep down to number 12 (we were number 2), as our friends lived there.  We would give a knock on their door, enter and spend a bit of time there before sneaking back up to our bedroom.  Their parents often worked at night.  We always thought we were smart and no one knew about our adventures, however, in later years mum said she and Mrs Sams from number 12 were aware and kept tabs on us. I might add we were only 9 years old.
 
Our bedroom had a window, just a small lift out 3 x 3ft.  We would open this window to talk to the kids across the street in the evenings, especially in summer when we had light until midnight or later in summer. We often played 'eye spy' with them from our windows, yelling to each other across the street until we were told to "shut up and go to sleep".
 
The other use of this window was in 1963, during one of the worst winters we had in Shiremoor (North East England).  It snowed often and on numerous occasions we were snowed in until the street was cleared.  This particular time my brother and I had to climb out of the window and down to the roof of the shed, to get to the road that the council were clearing, to go to the chemist.  Our baby sister had just been born and mum was unable to feed her, so off we went to get a bottle and formula.  We had the fire roaring that winter in mum’s bedroom and the living room. One benefit of dad working in the coal mine was free coal. Christmas dinner that year was in mum’s bedroom.


June Howard
​February 2025