I Can See For Miles From Shipley Street to Molineux Court In the mid-1960s the Victorian houses of Byker were deemed slum properties and the clearances began. Lance in 1961, 115 Shipley Street, Byker Some Background History In 1919 my grandad Eden Thompson (1886-1957) was living at 117 Shipley Street Byker. My grandmother Jessie Thompson nee Hopper (1883-1947) was living at 115 with her first husband George Alfred Hopper and their three children Lavinia (b1906) Jessie (b1911) and George (b1913) - they had previously lived at 28 Wensleydale Terrace, Blyth. George was killed in action in WW1 on 7th April 1918. In 1919 neighbours Eden and Jessie married and lived at 115 Shipley Street, where dad was born in 1920 and his sister Eleanor Jane (Nellie) in 1922. Nellie sadly died from consumption (Tuberculosis) in 1938. Mam (Margaret Thompson nee Spark) and Dad continued living there from marriage in 1956 until 1966; the first few months with grandad before his death.
Granddad Eden on the left c1915	Grandmother Jessie and baby Jessie c1911		Dad 1929		Aunty Nellie 1931
Moving into Molineux Court 1966 As recounted in Paper Sticks: A Childhood in Byker, my brother Lance was born in 1957 and myself in 1960. We had a very happy childhood in Byker, but come 1965 our parents were informed that most of Byker was set for demolition, and that they had a choice of either waiting for a council house or moving into one of the three tower blocks nearing completion across Shields Road in Heaton, Molineux Court, Heaton Park Court and Grafton House. Lance remembers our visit to Molineux Court in Winter of 1965 to look at a show flat on the top floor, and looking out of the living room window at the lights of the city below, I just have a vivid memory of a smartly dressed concierge in a peeked cap welcoming us and other possible tenants at the South facing ground floor entrance. We moved into 45 Molineux Court on the 7th floor in spring of 1966. By happenstance in 1901 our Great Grandparents James and Margaret Whillis (mam’s grandmother) were living at 44 Molineux Street, from which the flats took their name, a fact mam may not have been aware of. In 1911 mam’s dad Frederick George Spark (b1887) was living only a stone’s throw away in 127 Malcolm Street with his parents and eight siblings (see map c1905). Heaton and Byker c1905. Star marks the location of Molineux Court Molineux Court has fourteen floors and each floor has six flats, the four corner flats are family double bedroom and the two middle flats are small single bedroom. Number 45 is a N/W facing corner flat with a fine view looking toward Newcastle city centre from the living room and kitchen. As you enter the flat there is a long corridor, first room on the right is the main bedroom, opposite is a storage cupboard with sliding door, next on the right is the second smaller bedroom with a window that looked out onto the verandah, which could be accessed via glass doors from the living room and main bedroom, opposite is the bathroom/toilet, last is the kitchen at the end of the corridor and the living room on the right. View of sunset over Newcastle from the living room c1982 In the 1960s high-rise living was the new thing, build up and not across, it got people out of crumbling, decaying, coal heated Victorian housing and into new fashionable flats. However it quickly became apparent in the particularly bad winter of 1966/67 how cheaply built these tower blocks were: basically flat pack concrete with an outer layer of brick. The living room had a two bar electric fire and under floor heating, very Roman, as electricity was being used to heat an entire floor, we could not afford to run it, so the only heating in the entire flat was a two bar electric fire. The windows were aluminium framed single glaze, useless at retaining any heat, the single flats would have been 'less cold' as they, at least, had three internal facing walls and one small wall facing outside. In hindsight and, looking back 60 years quite humorous, mam and dad, after one winter couldn't put up with sleeping in the freezing main bedroom and we were moved from the 'less cold' second bedroom into the main bedroom and vice versa. To give an idea of how cold and damp it got, the aluminium framed window would get thick ice forming around it on the inside, and a sweep of the hand across the wall would come away soaking wet. This period is superbly covered in Peter Flannery's acclaimed 1996 BBC drama series 'Our Friends in the North' and if you haven't seen it, I urge you to seek it out. Heaton Park Court from Verandah c1975 In 1969 dad decided to purchase a calor gas heater for use in the main bedroom to, at least, take the edge off the winter cold before turning in. A bottle would usually last a week. We could have had the gas bottles delivered, but dad decided to take the bag off mam’s shopping trolley and we set off for the calor gas supplier, if memory serves it was somewhere off Byker Bank, this we did once a week, taking the empty back and returning with a full bottle. Thinking about it now I can't remember ever doing this trip in daylight hours, as it was after all, winter. I've now discovered that residents weren't allowed to have calor gas bottles in the flats, for obvious reasons after Ronan Point in 1968, so there you are, after all these years I've now come clean, it was a covert operation or dad just wasn't aware. Everything was tried to help retain any heat in the flat during the winter months from putting polystyrene tiles on the ceiling and repapering the walls with an under layer of sheet polystyrene. Around 1973 Lance decided to make three big wooden frames with two layers of clear thick sheet polythene, to slot in the large living room window: ready-made triple glazing, they worked to a certain extent and we used them for a number of years. Neighbours (everybody needs good neighbours) When we moved in we all had new friends and neighbours to make. I can remember some of them, unfortunately usually only their first names. There was Sid who lived with his mam on the 14th floor, Scotsman Hughie Geddes and his son Alan who lived on the 5th floor; we knocked around with Alan a lot. There was a girl I think called Sharron who lived on the third floor, a lad called Nigel who lived in Grafton House; we all used to see each other in the playground along with the kids from Molineux Street and Grafton Street which were beginning to be demolished. On the ground floor there was a man who lived next to the lift to the odd numbered floors (there's a lift for the even numbered floors opposite) called, I think, Mr. Craig. On our floor there was an elderly brother and sister who lived opposite us called Polly and Bart and a regular visitor to them was a man I never recall hearing speak, and to my childhood eye had an odd appearance. As mam and dad got to know Polly and Bart (mam used to help them out with chores) they found out his name was Hymie and he was punch drunk from years as a semi professional boxer. On one occasion we heard something odd going on outside the flat. It was Bart, he couldn't find his front door key and couldn't raise Polly to let him in, he was searching everywhere in his suit and waistcoat to no avail, eventually Polly came to the door and took him inside. They eventually found his key; it had fallen down the inside of his long-johns. There was Rosemary and her elderly mother who lived in a corner flat. Rosemary eventually married and all three lived in the flat. Opposite them, and a few years after we moved in, an old family friend from Byker, mentioned in Paper Sticks: A Childhood in Byker, Polly Moll moved in, she and her husband Alec had known dad as a child. Next to Polly and Bart's there were two locked cupboards, they were the storage cupboards for the residents who lived in the single centre flats. We had been given access to one of them by the resident in flat 43 as it wasn't being used, to store Lance's and my bikes and the window frames Lance made, over the Spring and Summer months. In 1975 a new resident moved into flat 43 and we needed to ask if we could still store things in the cupboard. Like the previous occupant, he was terrific about it and didn't need the cupboard. His name was Thomas Callaghan (b1924-d2005) and though we didn't know at the time, he had moved in to begin writing the first book of what would become his five book autobiography A Lang Way to The Pawnshop (published 1978) about his childhood in Newcastle. Tom had been invalided out of the Navy during WW2, and spent his years on the road, tramping around the country, living in the 'Spike'. His next book Tramp's Chronicle was published in 1983 and covered this period. His next books were Those Were The Days, At Rest Amongst The Mighty Dead and Wanderlust (published 1997). One of his favourite authors was Jack London, and in the final chapter of Wanderlust 'My Jack London Pilgrimage' he begins:- 'When I returned home to Newcastle in 1975 I had no idea I would remain there and seek permanent accommodation' Now largely forgotten, though a lovely obituary was published in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Tom was a good neighbour: he kept himself to himself, but was always up for a chat, and never let on he was writing a book. 'Tramp's Chronicle' had been favourably reviewed by local playwright, journalist and publisher Peter Mortimer. The cover photo for Wanderlust taken in 1985 is exactly how I remember him, wearing his corduroy cap. Other memories Fragments Other memories of the early 1970s were renting our first colour television in 1972 from Radio Rentals. I remember dad switching it on that first evening and eagerly waiting for a programme to be broadcast in colour on one of the three TV channels. The first programme I remember seeing in colour was Hawaii 50. I remember dad buying our first refrigerator with an ice box where we could make our own ice lollies. Getting a shower installed, now common place, but then it was a luxury. Everyone old enough will remember the NUM miners’ strike and three day working week in 1972, and the electricity power cuts. Living on the 7th floor of Molineux Court you could look out over the city in darkness. Everyone stocked up on candles and shops quickly sold out, so Lance, ever the ideas man, decided to make some out of cooking fat and string! They worked to a certain extent, but mam complained it made the flat smell like a chippie. Dad, who worked as an overhead crane driver in the turbine hall at C.A.Parsons Heavy Engineering, bought a small GAZ camping stove to boil water. During those hours we had a battery radio to listen to for entertainment and playing cards. And then of course it all happened again in 1974. Visits from family in the 1970s and the arrival of Joey! We had many visits from the Thompson and Spark extended families over the years, some who lived in Cheshire and some who lived in Wales. In 1971 a relative from Cheshire, Aunty Leah (Robinson) visited with her daughter Margaret, Margaret’s husband Fred Timmins and Leah's adopted son Stephen. We have many photographs of Leah with Margaret taken in the 1950s and 60s in Byker. Lance has now discovered she was actually Dad’s second cousin twice removed, born to Mary and Joseph Thompson in 1918. Here are two photographs taken on that visit using dad’s Box Brownie of myself getting a piggy back from Stephen outside Molineux Court and with Lance and Stephen on a bench - where you can see the entrance to Grafton House. In the background of both photographs you can see the playground, which was little more than concrete slabs and monkey bars and the gable end of one of the last Victorian streets coming off Molineux Street, ready for demolition.
Me and Stephen c1971			Lance and Stephen c1971
In 1974 Lance bought, on hire purchase, a super 8 cine camera outfit, which consisted of a movie camera, projector, screen and a selection of short silent films. We could now film life inside 45 Molineux Court, including dad being dad, dancing in his inimitable style with mam. In 1975 our Welsh relatives visited from the mining village of Blaenavon. Mam’s elder sister Edna (film of her in the kitchen), her coal miner husband Ron Wathen, their daughter Gail, her husband Carl Preece and their first born Iowan (b1974). The first visit of Aunty Edna and Gail to the flats was in summer of 1969. I remember 16 year old Gail trying to telephone home from the public phone booth on the ground floor, and trying to get the operator to understand her broad Welsh accent, in particular Blaenavon pronounced Bly nAvon. We went for a day out to Whitley Bay. Edna, Mam, me, dad and Gail lying c1969, Whitley Bay In 1977 Gail and Carl visited with Iowan and his new baby brother Damian (b1976)
Baby Damian, Carl, Gail, Iowan, mam and dad		Damian with mam		Carl, Lance, dad and me
In the photo of mam with Damian, you can see the old telly, the stereo with eight track tape player and, particularly for the 1970s era, the framed print The Nymph by J.H.Lynch. These very kitsch prints were all the rage in the 70s and everyone seemed to have one Lynch print or another on the wall, he did many. In another photo you will also spot a budgerigar sitting on dad’s finger. In 1975, when I returned from school, there was a budgie in the living room, that wasn't there when I left that morning. Apparently, mam said, she saw him sitting out on the verandah and brought him indoors, 'can we keep him?' I asked 'that's up to your dad' came the reply. We enquired with neighbours if anyone had lost a budgie, figuring he couldn't have flown very far, no one had, or possibly he had been thrown out. So dad bought a cage, we named him Joey, not very original I admit, and a part of the family he became. The Thompson Home Brewery In the 70s home brewing from kits was the new thing and Lance decided to buy a lager kit with two mash tubs and all the other equipment needed to begin home brewing. I, a little later, thought I'd try my hand at wine making, and bought a wine making kit, the demijohns, the airlock 'bubblers', six wine bottles etc, and the Thompson home brewery was well under way. I can't remember if mam complained the flat 'smelled like a brewery' she may have done. But dad was definitely pleased with the results! I always thought Lance's home brew tasted like the old Norseman lager, and the wine was palatable. One time we decided to have a go at making Cider, not from a kit - big mistake! We asked mam, ever the sport, if she would go and buy the apples, she came back with her shopping trolley bag completely full with cooking apples, apparently one shop’s full supply, what they must have thought! We mashed all of the apples extracting the juice, added the yeast and let it get to work; the resulting liquid was a definite shade of green. Anyway it was bottled and left in the cupboard, where some of the bottle tops burst off. We did eventually sample it, one talks about rough cider, this was definitely rough! I think the rest was poured down the toilet; the resulting flush nearly overflowed the toilet with froth. We used to get kits, bottle labels etc from a shop on Shakespeare Street called Gemini, now long gone. Other memories Fragments and Photos, film Everyone now has loads of stuff, back in the 70s mam had the usual china ornaments, the milkmaid etc. In the photo attached you can see, on top of the old Baird television showing Star Trek, a nodding dog and an ornament that was all the rage in the 70s, a Champagne Spray, basically coloured plastic balls on wires. You can also see behind the odd ghostly image of mam, the glass door onto the verandah. In another photo there is the view from the verandah looking toward Exhibition Park, when the Summer Exhibition was on, with a fly-past of a Lancaster and Spitfire. Also a film clip I shot from the verandah of a train coming into Heaton Station.
Hard to see: Star Trek on TV (Baird model 682) c1970		Lancaster and Spitfire
Molineux Court and Grafton House had a shared underground garage. You drove down a concrete ramp to the dozen or so garages, a cold damp place I remember. When Lance bought his first car, an old Hillman Imp, a rust bucket being held together with a thick layer of bitumen, ages seemed to be spent working on it propped up down in the garage, although it did get Lance and I to the Lake District on one occasion. I Can See For Miles and Miles and Miles Oh Yeah! Lance was always going to be a scientist. From the age of 5 when he was given a book called Timothy's Space Book, he was hooked on space and science, and later electronics, some of which rubbed off on me as we grew up. The names Borman, Lovell and Anders, the Apollo 8 astronauts who orbited the moon in 1968 are as fixed in my mind, as is Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins who landed on the moon in 1969 with Apollo 11. When we moved into Molineux Court in 1966, all the residents were given access to the roof to hang out washing on the lines fixed up there. You just had to ask the caretaker, who lived on the ground floor, for the key, I'm not sure if anyone ever did this. Around 1970 Lance thought it would an excellent vantage point for star gazing, high above the city lights below, so he asked the then caretaker, another Brian, if he would let us borrow the key, which he did, that would never happen now; I'm sure no one is allowed on the roof these days. I think the first thing we wanted to look out for was the Perseid Meteor Shower, the remnants of the comet Swift -Tuttle. On a clear night the view was superb. I think Brian eventually gave us a spare key. Different times! One of the first experiments Lance wanted to carry out was to determine the height of Molineux Court by the velocity of an object dropped from the roof. So, he went up onto the roof with a fist sized pebble, and myself and, I think Alan Geddes, were at the bottom. Lance would lob the pebble, as soon as we waved that there was no one coming out of the entrance, and time it's decent till it hit the flagstones and wave up to Lance. Kids being kids, we never thought it will bounce or might shatter on impact and put someone’s eye out, or break windows. Now! Lance remembers it being a Super Ball, perhaps we tried two objects, as I remember the mark on the flagstone the pebble made and looking for where it shot off to. However, as it was it went without a hitch, and Lance's calculations were spot on 150 ft. Different times! Lance's first job was with Haden Young helping install the electrics in Freeman Hospital which opened in 1977. He then became a television engineer with William Feallie’s on the West Road. Mam spread the word around the flats, and he was always being asked to fix someone’s telly. He was always building something electronic including a stereo amplifier. We would regularly go on a Saturday to Aitken Brothers on High Bridge Newcastle to pick up components etc. Lance eventually began working in the School of Chemistry (Bedson Building) at Newcastle University as a technician, and also a freelance electronics design engineer. He did voluntary work for the charity REMAP, one project was a device that allows a deaf person to moderate their speaking volume dependent upon the ambient noise around them - for which he won a prize presented to him by Prof. Heinz Wolff. He installed a panic button in the decompression chamber at the RVI, for people suffering from the bends. And he helped build a small experiment with Dr David E.H. Jones (who was a visiting Professor of Chemistry and also wrote for New Scientist under the name Daedalus, and was the inventor of the bicycle wheel ‘perpetual motion machine’), which went up in a Space Shuttle. Lance is now retired and is an electronics design consultant with the Sea Mammal Research Unit in St Andrews University, where he finished his career. Mam and Dad didn't live to see what Lance would go on to achieve, but they would have been very proud.
An Ending with a bang! I will end by going back to 1969 and the most spectacular sight we witnessed from Molineux Court. It was a Friday evening, dad was at the club, Lance and I were watching telly and mam was looking in the mirror, which reflected the large living room window and the city. All of a sudden she pointed at the mirror and shouted 'Look! There's a plane crashing'. Lance and I rushed to the window to see a flaming meteorite coming through the atmosphere about 30 degrees above the horizon going East to West following the line of the Tyne, it appeared to come down in Newcastle West, but it had gone over the horizon and, as was reported, broke into two pieces, the larger piece came to earth in Bovedy in Northern Ireland, from which the event takes its name. Eileen Brown was in her garden in Bangor N.Ireland recording bird song and captured the sonic booms as it passed over. Occurring 35-seconds into this sound recording, the sonic boom of the Bovedy Meteorite Its trajectory was seen as far south as Wales. Of course now, with everyone having a camera on their phone and cameras of one sort or another literally everywhere, these spectacular occurrences (are they becoming more frequent?) are captured on camera. But back then it was a case of being in the right place at the right time and Looking Up!
For Mam and Dad with Love, Always Remembered I hope you have enjoyed reading I Can See For Miles. Were you there? Did you live in one of the three tower blocks? Please get in touch. brian@balmerino.net I first wrote a much shorter version of this piece for the book It's My Life! 1960s Newcastle published by Tyne Bridge Publishing in 2009, I confess I nicked the title from the book, also a short piece about the Winters of discontent for the book All Right Now! 1970s Newcastle, and, as then, looking back nearly 60 years I have tried to keep my and Lance's memories as accurate as possible, particularly with undated photographs, any dates will either be spot on or 1 year either side. Of course there are many more family memories which are too personal to include, some of great sadness, some Lance and I still laugh about. I am indebted to Lance for the years of work he has put in researching and compiling our family tree, which now goes back to 1760 with Edward Thompson and John Spark. Click here to go to Paper Sticks, my time in 1960’s Byker. All photographs and film are from the family archive of Brian and Lance Thompson. I donated some of our Super 8 films to North East Film Archive, and hope someday to see them again. https://balmerino.ddns.net/brianthompson/index.htm Click <here> to go to Lance’s NASA Kennedy Space Centre page. ^Back to the Top^