The Poolie Bunker

My Dad always took me to Keith Graham's. As we walked there he'd always tell me the story of the time he'd had his hair cut there and it wasn't until he got home he realised he'd only had one of his sideburns shaved off!!

They were decent houses, Yuills wanted to buy them and refurbish them but for some reason the Council refused and demolished perfectly good solid houses.

Heard a story of a police Sargent telling a rookie, that expect The unexpected as they searched a house in Little India.
Didn't think she was expecting a horse upstairs

True. I had been through to Middlesbrough for an exam and was travelling back on the bus from Port Clarence early afternoon in the 70’s and someone started pointing at a house and there was a small horse with it’s head out of the window but as I recall it was like a landing window halfway up the stairs…totally surreal…. But that said there were a few reports of it at work as people passed that way every day and it lasted for a few months then the horse must have rode off into the sunset.
A long retired copper told me of one bloke who had used his stair case as fire wood then complained to the Council about having no stairs.

mentioning the catcote thats the first place i had a pint with my old man and his brother in law. was 16 at the time and he said you,d might as well start somewhere with a decent pint and not the slops served in halifax. didn,t know what being pissed was like till that day and i bloody enjoyed it.

Nice one - made me spit coffee all over me tablet screen when I read that.

I used to take the lads there, they said he was ‘head butcher’….funny but I didn’t …then I had to take them to Stuie’s in Gloucester Street..

My head of year in the fifth year at school in Peterlee - George Rogers, a Hartlepool bloke who is still alive as far as I know - told me a Bombay Grove/Horse story.

Their lass was a midwife and got sent to a house down there as the woman was close to giving birth. When she arrived, it was immediately clear that the sprog was about to be born, and she asked an older woman - who she presumed to be her mother - to quickly get some hot water and towels.

"Oh, sorry I can't do that" said the woman "The horse is getting his dinner".

The midwife asked what that had to do with getting some water and stormed off into to the kitchen - where the horse was indeed eating it's dinner.

From the kitchen sink...!!!

The horse was ‘stabled’ in the dining room, I heard it from a workmate. I really wouldn’t be surprised.

Budweiser Adverts

Penny arrow bars.

Bobbies on the beat!! Much better than Police who beat you up!!

Jubbly.

Pans People

Flaggelation- I never did get a fair crack of the whip

Local bobbies who lived in the community, not responders always chasing fires rather than having the local knowledge to prevent em in the first place.

Old phone were you used your forefinger to twist required numbers clockwise.
Meeting up by word of mouth.
To fellow Poolies going to an away game 7 days later. Lets meet up at Exeter at 12 nearest pub to the ground.

Shop At Binns plastered on the front of corporation buses. funny it never won my parents over to visit the place.

I remember being around 8yrs old when me n a pal jumping on some pavement stones waiting to be layed up at Clavering when one fell over an broke. I started laughing when all of a sudden a local bobbie got hold of my ear and literally marched me along the street to my house. My old bloke answered the door (both new each other ) then having been told what I did dad clipped me around the head then invited the bobbie in for a cup tea n biscuit. If I am correct I believe he was called P.C. Bantoft proper coppers back then who people had respect for

Yorkshire Lassie in York/Raby Road(?)

Chalkie White from the Daily Mirror (and I suppose Jim Davison's very different version) who wandered round British seaside resorts with a copy of The Mirror under his arm and if you were the first person who spotted and stopped him you won £50

Jackson's bread, and toasting it on a fork in front of a coal fire when we moved to Horden in 1977.

Me and my brother must have been about 10 and 9 watched the No 7 bus heading for town as it turned right down Rossmere Way jumped on the platform and leapt off again after turning across Catcote Rd…. into the welcoming arms of a Bobby on a bike. Uh Oh….. asked for our names and addresses gives us a right bollocking and rode off, phew, got home and Captain Bligh (me dad) was there to welcome us in with a smile then exploded …..I’ll always remember the old girl saying “don’t hit them on the head!”…and him telling her there was no brains to damage if you did them tricks.
Never did it again

So many great stories I love to read what people say about past. I particularly love watching old time photos from early 1800 onwards on utube..the wife thinks I am boring maybe I am but its something I enjoy. People had nothing a lot had no shoes but all looked happier than people today

I agree, nowt wrong with a bit of nostalgia.

I genuinely feel blessed to have been born in this country in 1965 - and believe that folk born between the mid 1950s and the early '70s got the best of the older ways - disciple for example - but also much more freedom as a child compared to today.

I am saddened at the world my children and grandchildren have inherited, where kids are driven everywhere, and schools look like prisons with massive fences and CCTV. My generation had a much more productive time as children, and were free to roam everywhere from around 7 years onwards.

Yes, as Snowy's tale recounts we got into mischief occasionally - but we knew where the line was drawn. We also developed skills that few modern kids would be allowed to. By the time I was ten I could light the coal fire before me mam and dad got up, cook breakfast, catch fish, fire an air rifle, fix any problem with my push-bike without asking me dad, read a map and how to use a compass, and many other things that precious few modern kids even get the chance to do.

I have been called a Luddite by people younger than me as I hate smartphones and don't bother with things like satnavs and smart watches. I am not a Luddite, I just know how to do shit without needing these trinkets of modern life. I can get within a few miles of most places in the UK just by knowing the motorways and A roads, and my trusty RAC UK road map is always in the boot of the car in the unlikely event I get lost.

Sure, some things are better - I own a computer (desktop, not laptop) and use it for stuff like web forums, and researching our family tree - but still know how to do things without it.

Take a phone off a bairn of today and they would be royally fucked without it. Disagree with me by all means, but I think you should not be allowed a smartphone until you are 18, and that giving a child one is abuse.

And don't get me started on them deciding what "gender" they are at 10 years old.

World's gone mad...

A few years ago the Libraries were selling new copies of Old ordinance survey maps at a very reasonable price, ended up buying the full set, an absolute mine of information from the 1860’s onward.

You sir are a mirror image of my thoughts….I was recently surprised that in a survey of young men under 30, 90% couldn’t replace a three pin plug, that’s a bit sad.
As for mobile phones, they’re a curse, you’re always on call …so apart from going out in the car and having a breakdown it can sunbathe all day on the window sill…I’m amazed at the number of young people again under 30 walk about clutching them like they’re waiting for the lottery win to call them …all that technology to chat pointlessly……love it too when there’s an accident/incident, no one helps, they just record it like gormless cows in a field.
As for roaming, at the age of 8 ……four of us on a Sunday would go to either Seaton, the Headland or Crimdon via the Brus tunnel.
Funny though how you had a sense of discipline ingrained in you, plus a conscience…you could define right from wrong and the consequences were beyond most kids apprehension nowadays.
I notice a lot of parents want to be friends with their kids, great when you’re older, but in the formative years you have to have to be like a shepherd, keep a distance, be there watching everything but step in when there’s a problem.
I fear for a lot of kids nowadays, they just seem ill equipped to cope sometimes.
As for getting ferried everywhere by car, we’re going to end up with asthmatic flat footed kids with no sense of direction eventually according to a great man.

Tin sheeting behind both goals.

I remember that but I don’t think it was £50 in the mid 70’s surely

Sadly it was a completely different but much better world back then. Anyone born 80s onwards simply couldn't understand why it was better but we can because we have lived in both times

The great Brian Clough the best England manager that never was. He was at Pools way before my time but would be interested in any stories the remaining few supporters may have from his short time here.

People rave on about the great Brian Clough and what he did at Forest and Derby but in my opinion finishing 8th in Div Four back in 1966/67 was a much greater achievement considering the players he moulded into a team who believed in themselves and put pride back into Pools through the dark days of bribes, bottom boys and all that stretching back to the Fred Westgarth days. And he took John McGovern to help him.

And Cloughie would have got no where with out Peter Taylor.

I met Brian at a motorway services after him n Peter fell out and I asked him about him n Peter and he said football is a team game n me and Peter were a proper team smiled walked away n wished Hartlepools united good fortune.

Who was that bloke in the late 60’s and early 70’s who walked around the edge of the ground with a blackboard on a pole with something or other chalked on, used to get get the odd pork pie thrown at the board, didn’t seem to be Cambridge Uni material.

I can't remember his name but on the board was the half time draw winning number. He did it at half time for about ninety years or so it seemed.

born in 1946 i think i have never had it so good. no poverty of the pre war generations. no wars to fight and even too young for national service. as kids we had a right to roam and being naughty was so mild back then it was hardly worth talking about. most lads had a knife but never thought of using them on our worst enemy or school bully. coppers were feared and not our friends like teachers and even parents were. we knew we were lads and nothing else if you had a cock and eventually balls even though the odd person fancied you more than your sister. everything invented in the technological age has been a boon to us but i,m afraid its been overused and we have become slaves of it. oh for just seeing a doctor when you got there early to be early in the queue instead of waiting longer in a queue on the phone.

Don't miss being able to light a tab on a bus or train, but one back on the plane yesterday would have been nice.

Nothing worse when smoking was allowed on planes and buses. I remember on one flight we were in the row in front of the smoking section the people behind were chain smokers.

I thought it funny how when the one man single deck buses came in, the seats behind the door were smoking seats…..now that’s dumb or thought the it was the idea of someone who’d never ever been on a bus.

The old bus tickets on corporation buses.

I can still remember the smell of them.

From a Hamlet or Panatella cigar ? it might have been me..

I've been waiting for you to put that up, Mr I.

A dog who gets bones to eat and no processed dog food.

Spinning tops

The strap…

Fruit Polos

Snickers being called Marathon & Starburst Opal Fruits