Ushaw Moor Infant School

Now that the Infant School has sadly gone and is about to be built on, i thought i’d share some memories of going to said school!

I would have gone around…’87-’90 ish time.

I have mostly fond memories, my teachers were (in order i think) Mrs Leader, Mrs Hulloch (sp?) for a time, Miss Jackson and Mrs Welding and Mrs Farrell (  i think she was a support teacher?). Did anyone else go around the same time or remember the teachers? Mrs Kernohan was also there but she took the other class to mine, so i rarely got her.

We always had to sing ‘we’re going home, sshhh shh (fingers on lips)” at the end of each day in Mrs Leaders class, it was embarrassing then, never mind now!

I remember Miss Jackson used to play the guitar, she used to get us to sing Puff the Magic Dragon near hometimes.

‘Numberland’ books, they were the thing to have! You got a higher number book the futher you progressed, i remember it was quite competitive, or at least to me it was, i never had the highest number in the class sadly.

Playing in the yard, the yard at the front overlooking the valley was much bigger, used to play hopscotch, hide and seek etc, not much more to entertain us then but it seemed to be enough! I remember there was a wooden/brick building to the side of the school in the side yard area, we were never allowed to go into it, it was always locked. Does anyone remember what it was? It must have previously been used for something but i don’t know what.

One day myself and Gary Collinson and 2 others (i can’t remember who) went outside of the school gates as bizarrely there were shells on the path down the road and we wanted to get them, i remember we were briskly sent down to Mrs Jarvis room, we all thought we were going to get ‘the cane’ although i think it had been stopped long before then! We just got a good telling off but it was scary at the time!!

I remember Mrs Jarvis room being really neat, dark wood, coal fire, nice and cosy, quite different to elsehwere in the school.

Another thing i remember…is the school had discos, and i’m sure older kids used to go…i.e i don’t remember them from the school but they were there at the discos. The big thing at the time was the strobe light and the new song that i remember playing was “i’ve got the power” (1990).

 

Mr Clough was the caretaker and he and his wife lived close by in Cooks Cottages, possibly even the adjoining house.

The school closed a few years later. I think by the time my sister went to school in 94, the ‘lego’ Junior School had become infants and juniors.

Who else went to the Infant School (or what i’d call the infant school, i know it wasn’t always just infants!)

As an aside, i noticed Gleeson homes had the site advertised as White House Court to start with…mustn’t have done their research! It would have been confused with Whitehouse Court where i now reside! Temperance Court is more like it, although why didn’t they just call is School Court?

Station Road

This morning i took the tot down Station Road, i wanted to see if i could work out which houses used to be businesses.

Working from the bottom up, you could clearly see which ones have been re-built where the shop frontage has been taken down. I might have missed some, but this is what i found:

What was Broughs shop, now appears to be two houses, quite big compared to the other ones in the street. The second house up is interestingly still called Brough House.

Then working upwards, 73 and 69 (broughs side), then 49, 45 (next to salvation hall),  43, 24 (almost fully rebricked, must have required extensive work), 23, 22, 16, the extension at the back of the Chop Suey house looks like it used to have a window and a door, i’m sure someone mentioned it was a business at some point, 10 is now the Hot Wok, 9 is Jalsa, 8 is Kevs Plaice (which by the way is closing soon, moving to Langley Moor, does this leave Ushaw Moor without a Fish and Chip shop?) 7 looks double fronted and looks like it was a business previously, slightly behind this, a property had been built onto the end of Highfield Terrace, but is closed now, has been for some time, was this connected with Lawsons the Butcher? (then what would have been the end of the terrace previously, looks like it would have been the fish shop that i’ve read about.

After that, most of the buildings leading up and round the corner are still businesses.

On the subject of businesses, what is now Fleurella used to be Bodinners, i remember going into this shop with my nana, must have been at least 20 years ago now, i think it was a grocers, i can just about remember the lady working there, always seemed jolly. Does anyone else remember Bodinners?

I also remember when McCormicks was open on the corner (now Tillys which is closed), i understand McCormicks took over the co-op at some stage and had McCormicks at the end (or Nisa as it became after that?) and also McCormicks (Freeze) on the corner, i even remember the blue and white signs, although to be fair they were probably still up until fairly recently.

Does can anyone put any businesses to the numbers on Station Road? I know they’ve all been mentioned before but it’d be great to get a picture of which house was which, i find it really interesting…maybe i’m wierd!

The lightning struck tree…

My nana lived in Flass Terrace until she died in 2001, does anyone remember her? Celia Balderstone was her name, her husband was Sandy but I think he may have died before moving here.

My nana always used to tell me the story of when the huge tree near the bottom of Whitehouse Lane got struck by lightning, caught fire and fell across the road, blocking it. I’m guessing this would have been sometime in the 60′s/70’s?

My mam now lives in the house the contains the quite blackened and rotting stump that the tree used to be! Just interested to see if anyone can remember this happening.

Thanks, Matt