Steve: Initial page entry

2024-02-02T09:13:32Z

Initial page entry

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For a list of all [[Noble Street]] Houses and a history of [[Noble Street]] overall please refer to the [[Noble Street]] page.

''* Information Supplied by [[Clive Dalton]] January 2024.''

'''No 3. Littles'''

Tommy Little worked at Hareshaw pit as a stone mason it says on a census, and either got a ride there in the pit wagon each day from the village, or walked across the fell in all weathers. We kids used to love to watch him get a bath in front of the fire when he came home and wife Tugela (Ella) pour clean water over his head out of the set pot to flow down over his body before they both carried the bath out to the drain on the back lane to empty it. They always had plenty hot water with Tommy getting free pitman’s coal dumped in the street at intervals which he then had to shovel into the house back kitchen.

Ella must have had a son Billy Harrison (shown on a census) who we younger kids played with, especially discussing enemy planes, as Billy got a magazine called ‘the Spotter’ from which he taught us to recognise plane profiles for when we heard an aircraft engine noise at night passing over head. One night the whole street was out to see about 100 dark shadows making a vibrating groaning engine sound of German aircraft slowly making their way to bomb Glasgow and the Clyde shipyards. We made sure there were no gaps in our window blackouts which we had to put up every night.

Ella was always taking us kids for walks to bring back firewood from Hareshaw Linn where they were cutting down trees, or gathering sheep’s wool to fill cushions or mushrooms from farmers’ fields. She was like the Pied Piper. She had a stroke and the neighbours nursed her in her upstairs bedroom. She didn’t go to hospital.

Ella had a Harrison brother who lived in Haydon Bridge and visited her once a year with a bag full of cash to put into Martin’s bank in Bellingham, as he didn’t want anybody in his local branch to know how much he had. They were the only folk in the street with a cat, called Tarzan, who we kids used to spoil as he spent most of his life on his own arm chair and loved attention.

Tommy was always our ‘first foot’ at New Year and by the time he got to us, he was so well oiled that we had to be at the ready to grab him for when he planted the lump of coal on the fire with Robbie Burns’ blessing – ‘Lang may your lumb reak’! The chances were high that he’d fall in!

3 Noble Street - Revision history

Steve: Initial page entry