BUSINESS PEOPLE IN STATION ROAD IN THE 1930s
Happy New Year.
There is a lot of name dropping in this article and I hope it stimulates your memories of old family links and/or helpful trades people.
I never set out to monopolise Paul's 'memories' facility but unless more people, in the age group 40 to 100 or so, contribute to it, it is going to look a bit like monopoly [with a few notable writers being the exceptions].
Continuing with the above theme I have had a look at the Waterhouses Community Site and one of its projects is to compile a collection of memories by taking oral evidence. Perhaps someone, or some people, would be willing to do that on behalf of Ushaw Moor and then feed some of the contributions to Paul to consider placing them on his terrific Ushaw Moor site.
SOME OF THE BUSINESS PEOPLE IN STATION ROAD IN THE 1930s [ SOME OF THEM TRADED BEFORE AND AFTER THAT DECADE]
First of all let us remind ourselves of the situation that was developing at the start of the 30s.The collapse of the American Stock Exchange in 1929 did not help the cause of Ushaw Moor; in fact it sent economic shock waves and economic depression around many parts of the globe. Things were already grim without that and in 1928 Deptford, in the east end of London, chose to adopt Ushaw Moor and give assistance to the hundreds of village families that were considered in need.There were several schemes like that one, run by various towns, in order to help areas that were defined as being distressed.
It is safe to say that the trading conditions for most of the traders in Ushaw Moor was far from good!
Without further ado:
67 Station Road Charles Christie - Shopkeeper
23 Nancy Gleghorn -Confectioner [Soccer's mother?]
3 R Dixon - Hardware Dealer
The Empire Joseph Hateley
8 Thomas Gates - Hairdresser
15 Mark Lough - Bootmaker
7 J J and W Lowery - Confectioners
Station Hotel James McLaverty
5 William Hosea Metcalfe - Baker and Confectioner
10 Frederick Parkinson - General Butcher
9 Thomas Pattinson - Draper
45 Charles Peniston - Fruiter
71 Joseph Robson - Haulage Contractor
6 Misses Ross - Drapers
66 J E Sturdy - Hairdresser
4 George Surtees - Greengrocer
19 Barbara Thompson - Fried Fish Dealer
73 Fred Thompson - Hardware Dealer
24 Elsie Turnbull - Hairdresser
68 Thomas Tyerman - Confectioner
49 Harry Watson -Stationer
21 William Winn - Greengrocer
69 W Winter MPS - Chemist and Druggist
Best wishes - Wilf Bell
[1]The number of workers at Ushaw Moor Colliery in 1921 totalled about 870 but by 1930 the number was a bit less than 350. That is a strong indicator of the likely trading difficulties for shopkeepers in the village during the 1930s.I know that many miners left Ushaw Moor at that time to work at Thorne Colliery, near Doncaster - although some of them returned later, when economic conditions improved.
[2]I would like to pay tribute to Mr Jack Joyce.When I got to know him he was living at 16 Whitehouse Lane.Jack was a very keen local historian and he helped me a great deal both with the history of the village and my family history.He is not to be mistaken for the Jack Joyce who was financial secretary of the Durham Miners' Association and a forceful union secretary.
[3] How is it that however careful I try to be when proudly submitting an article to Paul I discover, after publication, a glaring grammatical error in my article?The latest is 'trading conditions was'.Ah well, let us have a chilled out 2007! (Comment this)