Mary English
Mary belongs to: The Fishermen's Mission
Mary grew up around North Shields Fish Quay. Her father was a fisherman and she has many memories of both the Fishermen's Mission and North Shields Fish Quay. Mary still helps out at the Mission.
Mary was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 20 January 2006. The interview took place at North Shields Fishermen's Mission and lasted 1 hour, 6 minutes and 46 seconds.
The Fishermen's Mission
"It’s a place I’ve always come to, this building"
It’s a place I’ve always come to, this building. There’d be, there’d be, there’s times when you don’t get, but you still get to the quayside. My first recollections here is queuing on the stairs when I was three and half, four, for the kids’ Christmas party. So if they’ve got pictures, there must be some pictures of me that are definitely blackmailable. And I slid down the banisters. I used to slide down the banisters as a kid. They were the best banisters going- the only other place that had good banisters was actually the library but they had knobs in them every now and again that was awkward, that!
But this was, all the kids used to come, and you’d get loads and loads, I mean, this place was full of kids. As I say, there were always hundreds of kids around here. I think a lot of them- you’re probably talking eight or 10 kids in the family, you know, which was a lot. Some of them ,more- very, very few had less than about four kids. Most of them had a stack of kids. So we always used to come to the parties, and that’s how you knew who, who and who.
The parties were brilliant- you used to get cakes, which was unheard of, because you, apart from Sundays you didn’t get a lot of cakes. And even then it used to be plain cakes or a chocolate cake- what was it? Victorian sandwich, jam sandwich and that was it, fairy cakes or a chocolate cake. That was it.
And you used to get all sorts, and you used to get a little present- a book. Generally something to do with the Church and such, but it was lovely, you know. And we used to have a whale of a time and they would maybe have a little entertainer or something.
Mary has 12 memories in the memorynet:
Mary's memories with a The North East theme:
Growing up in North Shields- Playing on North Shields Fish Quay
- The Fishermen's Mission
- The smell of the guano works
Fishing boat- Mary with her father and uncle
- Pops
Mary's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Childhood | Community | The North East
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