The memoirs of Cissie Ewen

We shared a backyard with Mathersons who lived in the adjoining two-storey house and maybe the washhouse also. They also had several children. On the opposite side of the road was a very big midden where we put all our ashes and refuse. We had oil lamps or kerosene. We lived there until I was six. To the end of Front Street and between our house and the end of the street was the ‘Robin Hood’ a very nice-looking gable type building. At the side was a little archway leading into Simpson Street. Altogether there were only about seven streets in Chirton Village at that time; Chapel Street, Simpson Street, Heaton Terrace, and Billy Mill, which was on a bank, and continued into Silkey’s Lane at the crossroads. There was also Chirton Green and Chirton Avenue, and fields. Market gardens and farms surrounded us. We had a policeman, a district nurse who was also the midwife, and a lamplighter who used to come round each night to light the gas streetlights and in the mornings to put them out. There was the ‘Collingwood’ hotel as well as the ‘Robin Hood.’

By the time, I was a teenager there was also a Workingmen’s Club. We had a Co-op store, which consisted of grocery and general things. A butcher and baker, and there was a barber’s shop, which was also the paper shop and was situated in Front Street, as well as a general and off-licence shop in Simpson Street. There were one or two small house shops selling sweets, a few groceries and one of them was a bookies for horse racing bets. We had to go into North Shields, our nearest town, to visit the doctor or dentist. When I was a small child, Chirton had only the seven short streets of houses, but by the time I was a teenager, the authorities had bought up all of the land of the farmers and market gardeners as part of the slum clearance; so houses, schools and roads built.

Our family at that time would have consisted of Dad, Mam, Jimmy, Robbie, Alby, Eddy, Alex, Maggie, baby Joseph and me. Dad must have been a good provider. As well as working at the mines, he also had a fishing boat and used to go shooting rabbits, pheasants and pigeons, which all helped towards feeding us all. We were well fed, well clothed and we had a teenage girl called Annie Stephenson who used to either stay or came to help Mam with looking after the children; I think she lived with us. I do not remember what year Jimmy got married, or what year Robbie went to World War I. I don't really remember much about my two oldest brothers, seeing they were much older than me, and by the time I was old enough to remember, they were no longer at home. While living in Front Street, I think we must have been what one would call 'comfortably off'. Apart from Dad’s wages, there were the fish, rabbits, ducks etc., as well as having an allotment for growing vegetables, which was quite a long way from the house. He must have had a bicycle to go there. The allotment was pointed out to me on our way to the cemetery for Dad's funeral in 1918. Mam said his favourite flowers were pansies.