By Diane Wailes
Carol Mary Belshaw is 93 years young and her memory is as sharp as a pin; a treasure trove of recollections of a life spent in North Shields. Carol says she’s never wanted to live anywhere else.
Born in 1930, Carol’s family moved to Balkwell Green in Chirton when she was a baby. She was one of the first intake into the newly opened St Joseph’s Primary School on Wallsend Road, then it was on to senior school at St. Cuthbert’s on Albion Road. She remembers that one of the lessons was ‘housewifery skills’ – being taught how to launder clothes, mop floors and polish the brass. The school didn’t have its own cookery room so the girls had to walk to Queen Victoria School on Coach Lane for cookery lessons, returning home with baskets full of pasties and steamed puddings.
Carol left school when she was 14 and started work as a hairdresser in Bell Brothers department store, above the furriers on Bedford Street. Her teenage years (not that the word ‘teenager’ was used back then) are full of happy memories of dances: Wednesdays at the Oxford Galleries in Newcastle; tea dances at the Empress Ballroom at the Spanish City; then on to the Plaza in Tynemouth on a Saturday night.
The Rex Cinema on Billy Mill Avenue was another popular hotspot. Carol remembers it as being quite plush, with beautiful marble steps leading up to the top floor screens, and usherettes in smart uniforms selling ice creams and pop.
Carol married her beloved husband, Matt, in 1952. Their wedding reception was held in the North Eastern Hotel on Nile Street; look carefully and you can still see the remains of the imposing-looking building.
In those early days, Matt worked as a coal teamer on the staithes, loading the coal from local pits onto boats. It was a tough job, knocking the pins out from under the coal wagons, which then emptied into the boats below. In the winter the coal froze hard into solid blocks. The lads had to stand on top of the load to loosen it – dangerous work as there was always a risk they might fall through the hole in the bottom of the wagon, down into the ship’s hold, if they didn’t move sharpish when the coal began to shift. The housewifery skills Carol had learned at school came in handy as they didn’t have a washing machine and she had to wash Matt’s coal-black trousers in the bath!
Carol’s children have been keen to capture these and many other wonderful memories. With their help, Carol has recorded them for posterity in a book called ‘Memoirs of a Northern Lass’. It’s a lovely record of the life of an ordinary – but also extraordinary – working woman, in a town that’s seen many changes over the years.
Copies of the book are available in North Shields library, and to buy from the Old Low Light Heritage Centre.
