My Dad sold his shop in Grey Street, North Shields in 1981 and after a brief lay-up, he bought a shop in Readhead Drive, Walker from a bloke called Mr. Kaura. I don’t remember Mr. Kaura very well, but I did hear customers later mention that his wife had a leg amputated.
The Walker shop was quite different from the North Shields one. For a start, this was a lock-up shop, whereas my Dad had always lived above the shop in North Shields. The other major difference was the kind of area we had gone into. The East End of North Shields, while not being posh, was definitely a lot more respectable than deepest, darkest Walker at the time.
The shop itself was on the ground floor level of a four storey council block of flats. There was a hairdressers next door and the third shop changed use a couple of times while we were there. This was on the bend where Lancefield Avenue and Readhead Drive met.
Now Demolished
I remember that when we opened up, there was a large glass display cabinet which contained some really weird items for a corner shop to sell. Jewellery and varied fancy goods adorned this cabinet and sold from time to time too! Behind the counter we had this enormous wooden stand with lots of little pigeon holes in it, in which my Dad ‘filed’ all his hardware and assorted junk. We sold buttons, thread, sellotape, baby’s bottles, candles, playing cards, dominoes – you name it, all of this stuff lay side by side with Maxwell House, Heinz Beans, Ace Lager and Regal King Size.
I worked there at weekends and immediately noticed how much rougher and Geordie-r the people there were. They seemed to drink a lot, smoke a lot, eat a lot of 10p mix-ups and constantly need change for their gas/electric meters (50ps).
On the whole though we had little trouble there, which is amazing when I think about how crap the area looked and that kind of thing, but my Dad was again reasonably well accepted in the area. He didn’t make friends there though like he had in North Shields where he drank like a fish in the pubs (yes, he was a Muslim but he liked to drink and gamble – a lot). I think he missed that social aspect of life in Walker, but he was making pretty good money and by 1984-5, the shop was a little goldmine.
I can remember a lot of the characters from Walker more than I can the ones from North Shields and there were some absolute stars.There were people like young “thpring and onion cwithpth pleathe” (spring AND onion crisps) and Mr “Four Cans of COlt 45″, as well as a fat bloke who called my Dad “Mr. Czar” for some reason and a rag and bone man who had the filthiest hands I ever saw, horse-style false teeth and ate copious amounts of ice cream. Also I think Dennis Tueart’s Mam was a regular and an old bloke who claimed to be Eric Burdon’s Dad or was it Uncle? I was slightly dubious over his claims though. Oh and Ian Bogie used to come in on his way out for a night on the tiles and utter the classic “a packet of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum, mate.” Can you imagine young Newcastle players buying a packet of gum to get change for the bus now? Enough to make you lol.
In total we spent something like a dozen or so years in Walker, in the Readhead Drive shop and then in a shop on the corner of Welbeck Road and St. Anthony’s Road and I have vivid memories of both. The Welbeck Road clientele was noticeably more well-heeled and cultured, we sold more Nescafe there than Happy Shopper stuff which in itself shows you the class of the area.
I did meet some thoroughly nice people though and only today in fact I saw a woman with her daughter who is currently around 24 and has a daughter of her own now. I remember the girl before she started school and I only mention this because I heard her mention her Gran to her Mother in our shop (she doesn’t know I knew her as a toddler) “Gran would have loved that” and I thought that yes she would have, her Gran being a lovely old Cockney woman, right out of the old East End. Quite what she would have made of her Grand-daughter’s now pink hair I do not know, but she was a real character who I would talk to about the past and learn quite a lot from – her recollections of the Blitz were enlightening to me when I heard them.
I love watching the changes over the years as a shop worker. You get to watch a whole generation grow up as they walk past your shop window – you sell them penny chews, then ice pops, single tabs and before you know it, a cheeky bottle of Olde English as they stumble their way through teenage Britain. If you’re really lucky you get to bump into them years later and sell them a carpet for their newborn’s room.
See? you don’t get that at Tesco-bloody-Express now do you?
