Ushaw Moor Co-Op

From Original Memories BLOG

brian mcloughlin-- Tue Nov 16 1:42:17 GB-Eire 2004

Tonight I would like to concentrate on the building where Mc Cormicks shop is now situated in Durham Road. This building was constructed in the years leading up to the First World War by the New Brancepth Cooperative Society. If we start from the first department of the store from the Broompark end then this was the Greengrocery department. There was a female employee worked in this department but I cannot remember her name. Next was the Butchery Department. The butcher was Norman Ridley and he lived in a flat behind the Butchers shop. The butchers shop was huge and in the war years when I was a child there was a lack of fresh meat. The shop was spotless and you could literally eat your food off the floor. (My Dad was serving his time as a bricklayer in 1915 on this site when as an eighteen year old boy he volunteered for the Army and enlisted with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.) The thing that fascinated me as a young child was the size of the walk in fridge in the butchers shop. There were no domestic fridges in those days; it was the first fridge I can remember.

Next to the Butchers traveling towards the Flass was a loading area which was used among other things to take goods up to the Hardware Department upstairs in the store by means of a pulley system. The main door to the store led into the Grocery and Hardware Departments. The stairs leading to the Hardware Department rose directly from the main door. It was a very limited magic world of shoes, bedding, lino, furniture, cloth, buttons, cottons, and high ceilings. The man in charge was Eddie Manford whose family originated from Pringle Place at New Brancepeth. If you turned to the right inside the main door you entered the magic world of the Grocery Department. Butter and cheese came in barrels in those days, the wooden barrels were stripped from their contents and the butter or cheese was cut into portions with thin steel wires. Everything was measured out and placed into strong paper bags and it was magic to watch sugar, flour, raisins, currants, biscuits, and other commodities expertly weighed and bagged very quickly. The men behind the counters were known personally, Kit Kitchen Billy Calvert amongst them and they were on first name terms with all customers. The bill was made out by the server but you took the bill to the office. The "office" was a small area enclosed by a wooden partition which looked out onto Durham Road. There was a small hatch where the transaction took place. The lady, again I cannot remember her name took the bill and asked for your check number. She then gave you a small paper check which registered the money you had spent The smell in the different departments were magic, numerous unwrapped commodities side by side, they blended to create individual smells for each Department. Last but not least was the Cobblers, this situated on the gable end of the store where the road led down to High View. The smell of leather and chemicals in the polishes was magic, plus the sound of the high speed lathes, or a knife cutting leather and the nails being hammered into the leather repairs. Danny Henderson from Mew Brancepeth worked there and I knew the cobbler as "Cody" who I think came from Esh Winning. Our check number was 27. An article on the "Dividend" is in the pipeline. I hope readers enjoy this and add their own memories to this excellent website. Please add to this article.

Posted on behalf of

Brian Mcloughlin

Autobiography of Frank Proctor

Brian McLoughlin 23rd June 2004

I read the “Autobiography of Frank Proctor” some time ago and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I would recommend this book to any of the older generation in Ushaw Moor.

Frank was a very strong character who went as a very young man with a number of friends to work on the farms in Canada. He suffered homesickness as one by one his friends returned to the Ushaw Moor area and he was left alone in a strange country thousands of miles away from his home.

He was a very strong Christian and it was his faith that carried him through these difficult times. He was, as a young man, very strongly influenced by Vicar John Welby who was the vicar at Saint Lukes CE Church on the Esh Winning road.

He married in Canada and shortly after joined the Regina Rifles and served with the Canadian Army in Europe throughout the entire Second World War. He managed to visit Ushaw Moor on leave a couple of times during the War.

This man was a tribute to his home village and the hard times he suffered as a young man. His faith in God had a major bearing on his life but this book is about Franks’ life and his family.

His early memories of Ushaw Moor are fascinating, his mother was stewardess at the “Bush” at the bottom of the village for a while.

Again I would recommend anyone of the older generation to read the book.

From OLD Ushaw Moor Memories BLOG

Orginally Posted by cloughy in 10:09:38

Waterhouses Station 1958

waterhoues_1958

Originally uploaded by Ushaw Dude

Early photo of Waterhouses Station which was actually situated in Esh Winning.

Did Ushaw Moor's Women Gossip Too Much in the 50s?

Well some of them no doubt gossiped but those that did were far too busy to do much of it! I won't go into the poss tub, kitchen skivvy, brasso account but many of us know how busy and admirable those ladies were: well most of them - those that were unclean and neglectful were scandalised and yes - gossiped about! 

Certainly several people could be seen in conversation outside their houses on a sunday in the South Street and Joyce Terrace area - as you come out of Ushaw Moor towards Esh Winning. Did I get that right - Joyce Terrace? Not many cars were passing during these conversations so it is probably a recollection from the early 50s - rather than the middle and late.  

I have some notes - not my work - that have been adapted from work done by 'Roberts' in 1973. I suppose 'Roberts' was a sociologist, or similiar, and this writer should be fully acknowledged; I will do that, if and when I am in a position to. Anyway here is a short piece adapted from his/her work:

From early morning to late at night little groups formed and faded, traded with goodwill, candour or cattishness the detailed gossip of a closed society. Over a period the health, honesty, conduct, history and connections of everyone in the neighbourhood would be examined. Each would be criticised, praised, censured openly or by hint and finally allocated by tacit consent a position on the social scale.

How do you feel about that? It rings true does it not?

Getting more up to date a Daily Mail article, dated 08/05/09, informs us that a survey revealed that, amongst other things:

--More than two thirds of women admit they pay full attention to conversations only when they are gossiping

--Only half of men said they listen intently to gossip

--Women are more likely to switch off when listening to their work colleagues, with the average women catching what the boss says only two thirds of the time.

-- Women only hear 70% of the conversations they have with their partner

What do you think? 

WB

A Pervasive Stink

Focusing on the 19th century we can see that it was men  causing the rotten and very obnoxious stink, not just the Thames; it was because of the way they enslaved women. Of course you cannot generalise; some relationships were no doubt loving and constructive, but the law and the Establishment disempowered women.

 During Victorian times women were  treated like a bit of bird dropping on men's shoes; it is true that the middle and higher classes of women were meant to be sensitive loving creatures but the trouble was their lives were not their own - they were there to look good and serve their husband's needs, to the exclusion of their own individuality.

 You might find this extract from the Derbyshire Times, published in 1861, quite interesting; certainly it says a lot about the culture then and the status of working class women and of course it relates to mining community life, a topic highly relevant to Ushaw Moor's past:

The paper's leader piece was entitled - A Word to colliers' wives:

We address ourselves to a class, some of whom, at least, we are quite sure we will reach, although we may not succeed in making ourselves heard by all the neighbourhood. There be they who cannot read, these we hope to communicate with through their gossiping friends who can. What we have to tell them is something in which they are deeply concerned, something which their future happiness is concerned, the happiness of their husbands, the safety of their homes.

The judge at the Chesterfield County Court - an excellent, wise judge - say the colliers of this district are getting into a very bad habit. They start on credit at the small shops, and when they have money to pay with the money is appropriated to other purposes. In many cases, his Honour says, colliers' wives run their husbands into debt whilst their husbands are hard at work.This we have reason to know, is too true, and the result is County Court summonses after sunnonses, distresses after distresses upon the household furniture, and often committals of the husband to to prison.

Now we would earnestly warn the women against this bad system. It is hard work for a man labouring from morning tonight, to find himself brought to misery and distress by the woman who should comfort, console, and cheer him in his toil. For their own sakes, too - we would put it in this selfish way - wives shoud be more careful, and rather store up for a rainy day than bring clouds of misery about the house by their own bad and unhly practices.

The leader prattles on further and concludes: The judge has not the power to do so yet - but laws are made very quickly in these days, and there is no knowing what may be done to punish the wicked ones if they persist in their evil doings.

What I object to in that piece is the presumption the women were totally to blame. I suspect the miners' wage levels were not very good and furthermore I suspect that some of the money never even got to the wives - rather it went from the men's pockets to  to the barman at the local ale house. It was not as if the women did not also work very hard; they fed men at all times of the day - especially if there were several family members working at the mine on different shifts.They also worked extremely hard to keep the house and the family clean. Washday - making bread - rearing many children and sadly burying and mourning dead children etc must have exhausted women.   

I also object to the tone of  the article's language and the demeaning way women are sneered at and catergorized as gossips.

 Let's have a chat about women as gossips. Were they always just gossiping? Or were they sometimes doing something else like exchanging information about shop prices and the best way to wash this and that and bake this and that. Women were not angels - being human they could not possibly be, or behave like, angels but the leader writer was expressing the prevailing view that women were just there for men - to look after them like slaves and to make financial ends meet. 

I have already hinted that it was rather different for the middle class and upper class women; they were meant to be decorative and amusing. They spend much of their time visiting relatives,  entertaining relatives, [not that they did the cooking  - the servants did that, and being ten a penny, they were paid badly for long hours of work] sewing, painting etc.

There were several women that chose to take on this obnoxious inequality and Caroline Norton was one of them. She was an intelligent and well connected woman in an unhappy marriage. She choose to fight for justice against her obnoxious husband George Norton; in doing she sought changes to the law regarding women's marital rights; a cause that gained significant legal gains for wives and mothers. At the time - legally - a married couple amounted to one person - the man; he had ownership of his wife's income, property and their children! He could not dispose of her real estate without permission but otherwise she appeared powerless. Caroline Norton won some rights for women and this was followed up by others after her day. Going back a little further back Mary Wollstoncraft did much to spell out the position of women and what they needed to do to bring more fairness to the relationship between men and women. For anyone interested do consider googling these brilliant ladies! 

 WB

Replying To Mr Gillon's Guest Book Entry

Denis Gillon - 2010-02-27 15:24:59

"My father John Edward Gillon was born 1910 and lived in Michell Sreet. His mother was Alice Lumley.
Does anyone know anything about them?"

As an infant John Edward Gillon lived in Mitchell Street but it was in South Moor not Ushaw Moor. The family did spend sometime in Ushaw Moor before moving to South Moor.The remarkable and chuckling co-incidence is that  decades later I lived a few doors away from what was his home in the very same Mitchell Street.

Unfortunately I am not able to help further.

WB

Taking things for granted.

When you are young you take things for granted and you think things will never change. The Deerness Valley is still the same shape, the same length and the same height as when I was a lad but the pits, the pit heaps, and the colliery villages have almost disappeared and nature, with mans assistance, has moved back into the valley.

Seen on a clear sunny day from the crossroads above Whitehouse Court the valley is very beautiful. It is a far cry from the valley that was when I was conscripted into the Army in March 1960. The mineral railway line still ran up the valley to Waterhouses Colliery. The collieries in the Valley at that time were Ushaw Moor, Esh Winning, Waterhouses, and on the rim of the valley was Pit House Colliery and the West Brandon drift. New Brancepth Colliery had closed in the early 1950s, and East Hedley Hope Closed sometime in the 50s also. On top of these collieries were a number of open cast coal sites. The valley was really given over to the production of coal. It was said that more coal was produced in the bar at Ushaw Moor Big Club on a Sunday dinner time than was ever produced at the Colliery.

The work of a miner was hard, dirty and unrelenting. When I left school I wanted to go down the pit but my mother said "NO" and that was that. Whilst in the Army in Kenya in 1961 I read in the Durhan County Advertiser of the death of a boyhood friend who was killed at Pithouse Coliiery and I realised then why my mother was against me going down the pit.

Back to the Deerness Valley.; Collieries were dirty, ugly blots on the landscape, with steam, smoke and dust flying about. Couple this with a plant producing coke as at New Brancepeth Colliery and the pollution was very high. You took these collieries for granted and as a child or young man I never saw them as ugly. There were just part of the landscape and part of your life. I thought that when the pits closed and families were moving to Yorkshire and the Midlands for work in the pits down there that the Valley would stagnate.

The opposite has been proved with villages expanding with modern housing, schools and amenities and the scenery today is beautiful. I find it so but I think most people who live in the valley take the beauty for granted. After living on Tyneside since 1965 I still miss the closesness of a village like Ushaw Moor.

Brian Mc