Wartime memories of Wrekenton a mining village in Gateshead, County Durham from my late mother and my memories from the 1950’s

street with 2 rows of sandstone fronted houses, darkly stained due to pollution from coal fired chimneys over theages, she was an orphan with her 2 sisters Gladys and May, being brought up by their grandmother Hannah Watson. Mother’s grandfather was James Leslie Watson and he was a coalminer who worked down nearby Springwell Colliery.

Durham Mining Museum

In the war years, there were many shortages, people had to make do with what they had and economise, if you broke a cup, you had to make do with drinking out of a jam jar if there wasn’t a replacement, it was the same with the tea rations, often it was mixed with dried bramble leaves to stretch it out a bit. There were many tea substitutes. You had to make do with what you could lay your hands on.

Ginger Beer was a popular drink with mining families and they often made there own, there was many a house in the northeast that had a “Ginger Beer Plant” fermenting on the window sill.

The northeast had its fair share of the German bombers dropping there bombs at night like many other places in England.

The sound of the sirens to warn you the bombers are on the way, the frantic fear trying to gather your family together to find a safe place to shelter. The drone of the bombers, the whistle and explosions of the bombs and the fear if your house will take a direct hit must have been terrifying. If it wasn’t a bomb that hit your house, then it could be a small incendiary bomb to burn the house down.

One night, the German bombers flew over Wrekenton and Springwell and bombs were dropped, one hit the field that the Springwell Colliery Pit Ponies grazed in, the bomb killed them all. When the morning came, people came out of there houses to see what damage had been done and saw the dead pit ponies…the ponies didn’t go to waste, word soon got around, the field was busy with people and miners and there wives with there knives and cut up the ponies so there was fresh meat for many families.

Meat was a luxury, if there was meat in the house and you had a big family and if you were lucky to get your hands on some butchers bones then it all went into the pot with vegetables to make a big tasty stew for the family, mining families were poor, but very tough and adaptable, there was no hot running water in them days where we lived, if you wanted hot water for a bath, out came the kettle and pots and pans to boil the water to fill a tin bath in front of the stove or Cast Iron Range as it was called and we all took it in turns sharing the same water before it got cold.