North Shields, Wooden Dolly, Custom House Quay c.1910

Photo ref: N332306

I first came to North Shields after leaving the army in 1972. I stayed at the Railway Hotel run by a tyrant of a woman who threw you out at 8am and would not let you back till 5pm! Worked at Tor-days then General Foam and at nights bouncing for a guy called Sid MacCullock who owned the Jungle, the Sands in Whitley Bay, and Top Hat, Spenny Moor. Pay was great 20 quid a night and free booze if you needed it - ...see more

When I was a young girl I was shown newspaper cuttings of my father John F Fife modelling an asbestos fire suit he had designed and made in his factory work shop at Percy Main. My older brother aged 84, who lives in Australia, remembers being taken to the factory as a boy in the thirties, he thinks possibly 1938 or a little earlier. The Fife family had a boiler cleaning business ...see more

My sister and I used to visit our grandparents, Harry and Lily Bliss, who lived on Sandringham Drive, West Monkseaton. We would come down from Scotland in late June and stay for two weeks. Favourite memories include the Spanish City rides, Torres fish and chips, the Venetian ice cream, St Mary's Island, roller skating down the steep slope at Monkseaton station, the smell of creosote on the platform timbers at ...see more

The building which houses North Shields test cente in Cecil Street was erected in1848 as a chapel for people to worship. It remained this way until 1891 when it changed ownership and became a sauna and plunge baths although this was short lived and it closed soon after, just months later it reopened as the Alexandra Laundry, this was made easy as the boilers and pipework were all in place left by ...see more