My mother, Joyce, was born on 26 January 1923, to James and Louisa Hadley of 26, Arlington Street, Stockton on Tees.

 

Joyce’s parents James Hadley and Louisa Bulmer had married on 17 August 1914 shortly after the outbreak of the First World War.

 

James, or Jim as he was usually known, had volunteered for active service as soon as war was declared, so a special licence was obtained and the young couple - he was twenty-two and one year older than his bride - were married at the Parish Church, with the witnesses being Walter Hadley, Jim’s father, and Alice Bulmer, Louisa’s mother (her father William Bulmer had died previously).

 

On the marriage certificate Jim and Louisa (or Lily as she was generally known) were stated as residing at 10, Smith Street, Stockton on Tees.

 

Joyce had an older sister Lily, and three years later during the General Strike of 1926 would acquire a younger brother, Jim. Her father must have been particularly pleased when Jim was born as he had always wanted a son.

 

Joyce’s father had served in the trenches of the First World War as a member of the Royal Field Artillery. After the war he became a labourer at one of the engineering works that dominated the local skyline and this was his occupation when Joyce was born in 1923. Later he would become a fitter.

 

The family home was at 26, Arlington Street, Stockton on Tees.

 

The house has long gone, although there are still houses in the street.

 

The house had a front room – or parlour – in which there was a piano. Joyce’s sister Lilly had lessons and Joyce herself later had lessons in Shaftesbury Street, although she says that she did not enjoy them and would have preferred to be outside playing with friends.

 

Friday night was bath night. The zinc bath was taken from the hook on the wall in the back courtyard and filled with water heated in the ‘copper’.

 

The water was heated in the kitchen – on the gas stove – and the bath took place in front of the coal fire.

 

The copper was also used for washing clothes on a Monday morning – using a ‘blue’ to get the whites whiter and starch to get the collars stiff - after which the water was swilled outside the front door and used to wash the step and pavement.

 

Joyce recalls that later in her childhood she would go to get a bath at a house in nearby Cotherstone street where the houses had a room with a fitted bath.

 

The family later moved across Yarm Road, beyond Queen Victoria High School, to 2 Walter Street. This house still exists.

 

The house was adjacent to a corner shop which operated as a bakery shop run by two sisters – the Thomas sisters.

 

To the other side lived Granny Wardle.

 

During Joyce’s childhood the country was gripped by the Depression and there were many less fortunate than the Hadley family. Only three years after Joyce was born came the General Strike of 1926 and there were many unemployed people in the local area.

 

Joyce’s father was well-respected by local people. He was an officer in the Druids Friendly Society, a scheme whereby people paid into the society to obtain assistance when times were hard.

 

The Druids Friendly Society was one of a number of such organisations that existed prior to the formation of the National Health Service. People paid into a scheme whereby they received free treatment at the doctors and if they were ill and unable to work they received sick pay. Most people valued the security that the scheme brought but Joyce does recall that some people were experts in ‘playing the system’, working long enough to then go on sick-leave and claim benefits.

 

Jim’s responsibilities included going to visit people and collect their subscriptions and pay out benefits. This meant walking considerable distances and was something that he did for many years (I recall him doing this when I was a youngster meaning that long after the NHS was established there were people who participated in the health insurance scheme provided by the Druids Friendly Society).

 

The involvement with the Friendly Society resulted in an incident in Joyce’s childhood that could have had more serious consequences – an attempted burglary.

 

When Joyce was about 12 years old someone attempted to break-in, presumably in the belief that there would be money on the premises – money collected by Jim on his rounds as an officer of the Druids Friendly Society. Joyce’s mother and father were out one evening with friends. The three children – Lily, Joyce and Jim – were on bed. Lily was disturbed, possibly by a falling clothes prop in the back yard. She called out down the stairs ‘Is that you Dad?’ The children then heard someone quickly departing the house – empty-handed.

 

The family doctor for the Hadley family when Joyce was young was Dr McNair. He was based in a large Georgian house in Church Road. Subsequently Dr Alistair Smith and Dr Hood took over the practice and relocated to Dovecot Street.

 

Joyce was never ill, other than minor ailments, but her sister Lily had to spend time in the Durham Road Fever Hospital when she contracted scarlet fever.

 

At the beginning of the Second World War Lily would be diagnosed with diabetes.

 

Joyce’s older sister Lilly moved into a house at 118 ‘New’ Arlington Street when she got married. Although the houses up to 116 and from 122 are still there, both 118 and 120 have been demolished!

 

Joyce attended Bowesfield Lane School from 1928 until 1937

 

Joyce recalls that ‘Mam was very good, Dad was very good, but Dad was very strict’. She also said that although the family did not have much money, ‘we were happy’.

 

Joyce was due to go to Richard Hind School but her parents could not afford the uniform so she had to leave school and go out to work.

 

Joyce’s sister Lily was due to go to Queen Victoria High School. However she was deemed too weak to cope with life at the school, which had many staircases, and so never got the opportunity.

 

When she was 14, Joyce went to work in a printers on Dovecot Street. It was a small operation – although linked to Billingham Press,

 

Amongst her tasks she had to boil the rubber from old print-rollers until it was melted sufficiently to be re-applied to rollers and re-used.

 

Joyce subsequently gained employment with Maynards, a sweet shop, possibly recommended by her older sister, Lily who was already working there.

 

Maynards had seven shops in Stockton:

• One next to The Cinema (101 High Street)

• One next to the Globe Cinema (7 High Street?)

• One at start of Norton Road (7 Norton Road?)

• One near William IV pub on the High Street (70 High Street)

• One near Empire Cinema

• One on Yarm Lane

• One on Bishopton Lane

 

The shop in which Joyce worked was affectionately known by everyone as The Dainty Shop.

 

Joyce’s older sister Lily left Maynards to work for the local bus company.  She worked on the buses for many years as a conductress and during the war, with the shortage of men, became an inspector. Joyce was always impressed at how smart Lily looked in her white shirt, tie and uniform.

 

 Bus journeys were essential during the war – there were few private cars and even less petrol available – but also hazardous. The combination of blackouts and fog made driving dangerous and one of Lily’s duties was to walk in front of the bus carrying a torch!

 

At this period in time sweets were available on ration coupons. As a consequence the coupons were as valuable as money itself, and like the money the coupons were banked daily. This led to an unfortunate experience for one of the girls that Joyce worked alongside. She was opening the bank drawer in the wall of the bank when a gust of wind took hold of the coupons that she was banking and scattered them far and wide!

 

Joyce was given particular responsibility for the production and serving of ice cream.

 

In addition to working at Maynards Joyce also worked at The Cinema.

 

It must be appreciated that this was a decade before televisions became available and forty years before computers appeared in homes. Cinemas were a popular source of entertainment and there was plenty of competition between different establishments.

 

‘The Cinema’ was located on the High Street.

 

The entrance to the cinema was down an alleyway to the right of the front of the building.

 

The manager of The Cinema, ‘Cookie’, wore a glove permanently on one hand, covering an injury or disability.

 

Joyce was an usherette, showing people to their seats and serving ices and sweets from a tray. But customers could get more than ices and sweets – they could get a tray of tea.

 

On arrival at the cinema, a person would order a tea for the intermission. At the appointed time Joyce would deliver a tray bearing a small pot of tea, a cup and saucer and a small jug of milk and bowl of sugar. The charge was 3d. For 6d a late with a slice of cake was provided.

 

On a night Joyce joined other girls from the shops in the area – Crown Wallpapers, Meadow Dairy Company, Boots Chemists, Royal Exchange Hotel, Stewarts – on the roof of Stewarts at 106 High Street to ‘fire-watch’. This was the name given to the task of looking out for damage caused by incendiary bombs during air-raids. Whilst Stockton certainly did not suffer as much as the big cities from air raids there were still incidents.

 

In May 1941, for instance, a bomb fell in Northcote Street near St Peter’s Church. It fell on Ferries Ice cream Shop on St Peter’s Road / Dennison Street.

 

For a sixteen year old Joyce, however, there was the excitement of late nights sleeping and chatting with other girls on the roof tops (cold as it often was!).

 

The girls were provided with stirrup pumps to put out fires but Joyce admits that she would not have known what to do if it was needed!

 

 

The family – father and mother and Lily, Joyce and young Jimmy - moved to 2, Walter Street, Stockton on Tees. This was in the area behind Queen Victoria High School (now the Queen Victoria pub).

 

During the war they dug up the back garden and installed an air-raid shelter made of bricks and corrugated iron.

 

Joyce was now eighteen and despite the war keen to have some fun. She wanted to learn to dance.

 

However her father was not the sort of man to see his daughters partying.

 

Fortunately Joyce had an accomplice – her mother. Joyce would, with her mother’s blessing, attend dance classes at the ‘Ace of Hearts’ dance school, which was situated in Bridge road, opposite the Gazette offices.

 

One day, however, the fun of dance lessons came to abrupt end.

 

On this particular day it warmer than usual and Joyce had enthusiastically enjoyed a number of dances. She was hot so moved to stand by the open window and catch a cooling breeze. Unfortunately at that very moment her father passed by and saw her in the window. He said and did nothing but continued on his way. Joyce even hoped that she had not been seen. When she arrived home, she was left in no uncertainty that her father had indeed seen her, or what he thought about what he had seen!