Issue 30 - August 2001
The cover
photograph is an aerial shot of North Skelton & Layland
Estate
taken by Stuart McMillan, 4th July 2001
Bill Templeman
My Life As A Miner at North Skelton
Pit
by Bill
Templeman
North Skelton AFC 1953-54
Back Row L to R: J Chamberlain, L Douglas, P Sellars, K Ovington,
J Harrison, J May, E Cottle
Front Row: J Ramage, T Simpson, N Sturman, D Wright, J Hauxwell
'Before and After North Skelton
AFC'
by Norman
Sturman
Louis Burwell
Tom & Bob Burwell
Brothers Who Found Each Other After 55 Years
In 1998, after almost 40 years as a player, Rodney Hill retired from Skelton Castle Cricket Club.
Pictured are Rodney and wife Sue, at a packed Presentation Evening in the Duke William, Skelton.
'A Farewell to Rodders' by Neil Harrison
'Memories from S.A.B.U. . . . . Skelton & Brotton Urbanites'
Ex North Skeltoners, Colin (left) and Alan Lancaster with copies of ‘The Key’
'Free Pass' found in a local photo album
It reads...
FREE PASS
This pass is good on all Railroads
provided that the bearer walks,
carries his own luggage, swims all
rivers, and stops for all Drinks and
Smokes at the
“TRAVELLERS’ REST,”
EAST LOFTUS
GEO. W.
WREN
PROPRIETOR
NOTICE - A man is
kept engaged
in the Yard to do all the Cursing,
Swearing and Bad Language that is
required in the Establishment. A
dog is kept to do all the Barking, our
Potman (or chucker out) has won 77
prizes and is an excellent shot with
a revolver. An Undertaker calls
every morning for orders.
Stanghow
Lane School - The Merchant of Venice ( c. 1945 )
Back Row L. to R: Iris Yarker, Jean Sunley, Fred Yaxley, Marie
Bolton, Norman Sherwood, Keith Walker
Middle Row: Cyril Wilcock, Les Ross, Doreen Danby, Dick Mossam,
Betty Bolton, Audrey Harrison
Front Row: Lena Winter, Bill Leybourne, Irene Addison, John
Harding, Nick Carter
On a bus trip - anyone know where . . . ?
L to R: Graham Housam, George Hodgson, Norman Housam, Pat Vasey
Stanghow
Lane School Class - early 1940’s
Back Row L to R: Keith Hanson, Audrey Palmer, -?- , Marion Ward,
Marie Bolton,
Betty Bolton, Terence Padgett, Leslie Thornton
Middle Row: Billie Robinson, Malcolm Robinson, Bobby
Laverick, -?- , John Featherstone,
Audrey Harrison, Audrey Pattinson, Audrey Nicholls, Shirley
Skipper, Miriam Hoggarth, Pat Lupton
Front Row: John Robinson, Bill Leybourne, Dick Mossom, Norman
Sherwood, Bobby Snaith
The
Headmaster and some pupils of Stanghow Lane School ( late
1950’s )
L to R: Mr Edmonson (Headmaster), M Davie, Robert Bramley, Robert
Whiteley, Stephanie Bonnard,
Josy Brown, Rose Sanderson, Ruth Garland, Kathleen Berwick, Tom
Hayes
Stanghow
Lane School’s Headmaster, Mr Edmonson’s 'leaving
presentation', July 1959
L to R: Joe Reed, Mrs Edmonson, Mr Edmonson & son ( seated ),
-?- , Marjorie Crossman, -?- ,
Robin Jackson, -?- , Brenda Dale, Rita Sturman, Sheila Garland
On a trip
to Blackpool
Mrs Atkinson, Mrs Polly Pinkney & Mrs Mary Brown
Cotson
Wilson Snr, of Richard Street
- sitting on a beer barrel at the back of North Skelton
Workingmens Club ( c. 1920’s )
Wilf
Bonas, for many years Headmaster of Stanghow Lane School,
receiving the OBE for services to education, 16th February 1965
Seen
here outside Buckingham Palace with his wife Irene on the right
of the picture
and friend, Margaret Pybus, on the left
Playing up
the ‘crick’ - c. 1960
L to R: Dennis Housam, Don Burluraux, Alan Easby, -?- , -?- ,
Keith Dobson
The
Intermediate XI - Brotton County Modern School ( 1962-63 )
Back Row L to R: Mr Hilton (Deputy Head), William Watson ,
Geoffrey Harris , Peter Rennison , Ron Butler,
Brian Hodgson, Ray Beckham, Martin Beckley, Derek Lewis
Front Row: Richard Lister , ‘Camper’ Wilkes?, Stuart
Lawton, Peter Congerton,
Malcolm Blenkey, John Richardson , Ian Beattie
Skelton
High Street from ‘the Hills’ ( year unknown )
- note the Ha’penny Bridge at Saltburn in the far distance
Presentation to Ernie Ward, retiring General Foreman of Skelton & Urban District Council - Summer 1952
Back Row L to R:
Harry Pearson, Tom Coulson, -?- , John Lane, Tom Havelock, Matt
Hicks,
( standing on wagon is Matt Murphy )
Middle Row: Willie Walker, Fred Welburn, Tom Stevenson, Sam
Gratton, Ken Forbes, -?-
Front Row: Ernie Ward receiving wallet of notes from Charlie
Tindale, Ernie Bannister
Park Pit - 28th January, 1904
Park Pit ruins - 2001
Childhood
Memories of Park Pit & It’s Miners
by Les Haywood
read story
The
History of the Cleveland Mines - Park Pit
by
Stuart McMillan
read story
Captain Jim Elliott
A Life
on the Ocean Waves
By
Captain Jim Elliott
read story
From the Letterbox:
Dear Norma
Many thanks for thinking about me and sending the marvellous
magazine with a photograph of my school friends in it. I remember
going to Stanghow Lane very well indeed. I used to run all the
way to school every day from my home at 4 South Terrace, Skelton,
just to see how long it would take me. When I did run I used to
get earache quite badly and have done ever since if the
wind’s in the right direction! I particularly remember
Barbara Stewart and Helen Myers, who always wanted to be a
missionary. I adored Helen because she was totally unlike me,
very sure of herself even at such a young age, and so determined
to become a missionary. I often wondered over the years if she
did. Helen used to live at the bottom of what was then the new
estate at the rear of Whittaker’s (now Devany’s) paper
shop in Skelton High Street. Her parents were very, very kind.
I remember many teachers at the school, to which my twin brother,
Roderick, and I were transferred from Skelton Green County
Primary. We both sat the 11-plus at Stanghow Lane. I also
remember that we had a netball court marked out in the left-hand
sloping playground (left-hand, that is, if you’re facing
North Skelton). I always assumed netball was played on a slope
until I went to Cleveland Grammar School at Redcar! Mrs Broderick
taught us how to play and I loved it. We also had a lovely
teacher called Mr Ridley, who lived at Great Ayton, and I believe
Mr Neasham was the headmaster there, though it may have been Mrs
Lewis. We also had a lovely teacher from North Skelton who taught
us needlework. She had quite a frightening manner but I remember
her also being very kind to me. I wish I could remember her name.
She was a noted seamstress.
The nicest thing about growing up in the Skeltons was the
smallness of the community, at a time when motor cars were still
quite a novelty and the United bus to Loftus used to drop me off
at my parent’s door instead of leaving me at a bus stop to
walk home. I never wanted to move to Guisborough, where we went
in 1965 so that my father could be closer to his job at
Guisborough County Modern School (now Laurence Jackson). I seemed
to spend my childhood in Skelton roller-skating everywhere and
playing ‘among the hills’ above the village.
It is now three years since my darling father, Len MacKenzie,
died, and six since my beloved mother, Daphne, passed away. Both
their ashes are interred at Skelton cemetery with my
father’s parents, overlooking the sea. I have not been home
since my dad died except to clear out his house, but I will never
forget Skelton and my early youth there. It is so sad nowadays
that young children don’t have what we had then –
nature walks with classmates and annual day trips to Sandsend or
Flamingo Park with Miss Johnson and Miss Jordan at Skelton
Infants School. Perhaps they still do – I hope so.
After Cleveland Grammar School, I became a secretary and worked
inSwitzerland and then in newspapers before becoming a reporter.
I hold a 2.1 MA honours degree from the University of Edinburgh
and play the Celtic Harp and hammer dulcimer. I was also a Morris
dancer at one time and belonged to a folk group for six years
called Bryony, making three albums before moving to the Outer
Hebrides where I worked for Grampian Television on Gaelic News.
I now work as a production journalist on the Southern Daily Echo
in Southampton, basically involved in text, layout and design,
though text is more my speciality. We have been in Southampton
for three years but the south is nothing at all like the north
and it is just the work that keeps us here really. We live in the
New Forest which is very pretty but not a patch on Runswick Bay
on a nice summer’s day (sitting outside The Royal) or Whitby
or Lealholm or anywhere on the North York Moors, like Rosedale or
Westerdale. And the fish and chips down here are disgraceful!
They batter the fish still in its skin and Derek always takes his
back!
Anyway, Norma, thank you so much for sending me The Key. I hope a
few fellow pupils of Stanghow Lane who read this will remember me
– I send them all my very good wishes.
Ailsa MacKenzie, Dibden, Purlieu, Southampton
Dear Don
It’s over thirty years now since I left North Skelton to
join the RAF. I was demobbed after twelve years, then spent a
further thirteen working in Saudi Arabia, eventually coming back
for good to Lincolnshire, where I’d bought a home in a nice
little old stone village just south of Lincoln.
I’ve never been able to resist a visit up home once in a
while, even if just for a quick look around, and when expenses
allow. Although I’ve made my life down here, the Cleveland
area still calls me and I just like to see it once in a while,
even if only for a day trip. I’ve been back up several times
over the years, occasionally with my two sons when they were
younger, but mostly to attend my brother Keith’s girls’
weddings. I’ve been known to get up at the crack of dawn,
hop on the bike, and be in New Marske at my other brother
Derek’s home before breakfast. Then back down to
Lincolnshire in time to pick the lads up from school – just
a quick visit!
My most memorable ‘quick trip’ was on a cool, sunny
September morning in 1990. The build up to the Gulf War had
started and I was home on leave for a couple of weeks before
going back out there. I bought the bike (Honda VFR) on the
pretense of, ‘If I’m going to die out there, I’m
going to die happy’. Truthfully, I’m a lifelong biker
and was just looking for an excuse to ride again after several
years off them.
I came up to Cleveland my favourite way, through Hull and
Beverley, dog-legged at Wet Wang, then on to Malton and
Pickering. Pickering always makes me dither about whether to go
straight on at the roundabout towards Fylingdales and Whitby, or
turn left and go over Blakey. Blakey usually wins – I prefer
the scenery of that route. I think the last time I was with my
father it was when I was returning him home from a visit that way
and I recall him sitting in the car just looking around.
This particular morning I stopped at the top of the road coming
from Castleton, near Freebrough Hill, and looked out over towards
the coast. What a sight in the early morning sunlight! Just as I
was quietly becoming absorbed in the scene, a familiar sound
approached – of all things, an RAF Tornado came sweeping
over from Blakey, directly overhead, making me want to duck. I
watched as it turned, precisely and smoothly, out over the bay
before disappearing south. Just watching that Tornado filled me
with a certainty that by going back to the war zone I would be
alright, and obviously I didn’t die out there – very
few did, thank God. I’m also still riding my bike, and still
remembering that morning’s wonderful view.
Regards
Ray Beckham (ex Wharton Street, North Skelton)
Recollecting
My Fellow School Pals of
Guisborough Grammar School
By Colin Berwick
The photograph on
this page was e-mailed to ‘The Key’ by Reg Dunning,
formerly of Broadbent Street, Brotton, and now living in
Australia. It is part of a larger photograph, taken in October
1948, of the Staff and pupils of Guisborough Grammar School.
Reg is in the front row, third from the right. At the time, he
was in the first form and would have started at the Grammar
School in September of that year. According to his sister, Joyce,
a former pupil of mine still living in Brotton, Reg went to
Australia to work in computers, a relatively new industry in
those days. One of his brothers, Joe, also emigrated to
‘OZ’ and is now retired and living in Queensland.
Norma was curious about the apparent lack of a standard school
uniform. As I remember, the younger boys were required to wear a
jacket or blazer displaying the School badge. They also had to
wear a School cap which they were expected to take off if they
met a member of staff or the wife of a master outside school.
This was not often observed because the younger boys hardly knew
the masters, let alone their wives! In the upper school there was
no uniform requirement.
The back two rows are a mixture of 2nd and 3rd year boys and in
front of them are the 4th and 5th years. The 6th formers are
seated behind the front row. I recognise some of my 6th form
colleagues. At the far left is Ben Davies from Loftus, then Eddie
Burnside of Loftus who taught for many years at Warsett School,
Brotton. Next is Howard Vayro of Skelton Green, myself, Derek
Richards from Loftus and Peter Trowsdale from Lingdale. Behind
Howard Vayro is Colin Jefferson from Brotton. His mother worked
for many years in Brotton Library. Behind Peter Trowsdale is
Bernard (Ted) Weetman whose father had a shoe repair shop in
Errington Street, Brotton. On Ted’s left is Colin Lancaster,
formerly of Wharton Street, North Skelton, and now living in
Ilkley. From the expression on their faces it seems that Ted and
Colin were sharing a joke! Ted later turned out for North Skelton
at cricket and spent most of his teaching career in Redcar where
he still lives.
I have a copy of the full picture which includes David Bell and
Adrian Johnson formerly of Vaughan Street, North Skelton, who
would be in the 5th form at that time. There were about 200 boys
in all and about 10 staff, including Joe Morgan who went on to be
Headmaster at Laurence Jackson School, Guisborough. The
Headmaster was Mr R.J. Routh who retired initially to Egton and
finally Shropshire.
The examination taken at the end of the 5th year was the
Cambridge School Certificate which would normally require passes
in five or more subjects from Mathematics, English, Physics,
Chemistry, History, Geography, French, Latin and Art. The Higher
School Certificate taken at the end of the 2nd year, 6th form,
comprised a minimum of three subjects. These examinations were
the fore-runners of the GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’
levels.
A point of interest is that Mr R.W. Armstrong, who lived in
Vaughan Street, North Skelton and owned a wholesale fruit and
vegetable business, I believe, was a Governor of the School and
Chairman of the Governors in the early 1950’s.
Colin Berwick
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