Setting the scene

If I were to tell you that I spent my adolescence in a place called St. Cuthbert's Village, County Durham, your imagination may well conjure up images of an idyllic rural spot, perhaps centered around it's namesake medieval church. Maybe a pond where I fed the ducks on Sunday morning or village green where children played on summer afternoons. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth of the 1970's concrete council housing disaster that it was.

You won't be familiar with "The Village" unless you are from Gateshead or nearby and old enough to remember it, or you may have caught a glimpse of it as Micheal Caine dragged a girl from one of it's dwellings and bundled her into the boot of a car in the 1970 film Get Carter.

I can remember the village being built. As a child I lived in the Bensham area of Gateshead. The village lay more or less between here, Windmill Hills to be specific and the southern bank of the River Tyne. A local authority slum clearance programme meant the demolition of the homes that had once stood there. Slabs of precast concrete were hastily cobbled together and so the village was born. It was officially opened in 1970 by the then Prime Minister Mr Harold Wilson.

We had not seen the like of the village before. It's construction seemed strange, and it was. Covered walkways were the equivalent of streets, their doors leading to the several variations of St. Cuthbert's homes. The "Walks" were all named after Northumberland towns and villages and lay in a logical alphabetical order across the hills, Bamburgh and Belshill walk being the closest to the Bensham Road end followed by Craster, Chillingham, Dunstanburgh, Farne etc. all the way through to Seahouses and finally Warenford on the other side of Askew Road.

Myself and my family lived in Goswick Walk which was downhill from Bamburgh Walk (the one in Get Carter) and a short, perhaps less than five minute walk from what I suppose was intended to be the centre of the village. There was a launderette, a meeting room, a small Spar supermarket, a fish and chip shop, a pub called the Mitre and a newsagents shop which also contained the post office.

The fish and chip shop was run by a Spanish guy called Manny. He would always give an extra scoop of chips in exchange for newspapers which were at that time used to wrap the food in. It was common to see, before opening time at seven o'clock a queue of kids clutching bundles of old "Gateshead Posts" and "Evening Chronicles" outside the shop.
Duggie's counter in the newsagent had the usual display of chocolate bars and sweets and on the wall opposite was a shelf holding boxes of jelly snakes, licorice sticks, penny chews and the like. On the floor below the shelf large glass bottles of fizzy pop were lined up in neat rows. Limeade, cherryade, ginger beer and my rarely found these days favorite, saspirilla. Delicious, and perfect for washing down Manny's free chips.

We didn't move to the village until 1974 by which time it had the reputation of not being a desirable place to live, of being rough. My Aunty Mary lived in Goswick Walk at the time and assured my mother that this block was OK as there were only sixteen maisonettes. Apparently these smaller units did not have all of the problems of the much larger Bamburgh and Belshill walks.
What were the problems? Well, pretty much what you might expect. Some crime, vandalism and what we would now call anti social behaviour but relatively not that bad compared to today's standards, at least in my experience and as my memory serves me. Nevertheless problems there were and I can remember not really wanting to go there despite the prospect of finally having the luxury of my own room, but a twelve year old has no choice and no say in the matter, so off we went leaving behind number thirty-one James Street and making number four Goswick Walk our home.

Within the walkways the properties all had slightly different layouts depending on where it was in the block. Each maisonette consisted of three levels and there were also one bed roomed dwellings which were known as bachelor flats, these were on two levels. Everyone's front door in the walkway was at ground level relative to the entrance of the walk. On entering number four where we lived the first flight of six stairs led down to the bedroom level landing where (obviously) the three bedrooms were located. A further six stairs took us down to a landing where the toilet was, a fire door led to the rest of this level where the bathroom was. A final set of six stairs faced a long under stairs cupboard, to the left was an opening which led to the living room and to the left of this a doorway the kitchen. In the kitchen was the back door which led to the garden. I always thought that from the front it was like an upside down house but from the back door in the kitchen it was normal.

Not all of the maisonettes followed the same pattern as ours. Some had living areas first with bedrooms and gardens at the bottom (this seemed weirder to me than were we lived, I'm glad we didn't have this type). Some had stairs that went up from the front door, some had roof gardens. I never had the opportunity to go and see one of those roof gardens and so can only imagine what must have been an absolutely fantastic view across the Tyne and the city of Newcastle. I hope the tenants who had these roof gardens appreciated and took advantage of them. I know I would have done. I had quite a good view across the river from my bedroom window. I loved to look out at the Tyne Bridge, and at night at the lights of the city before snuggling down into bed to be lulled to sleep by the gentle humming of the waterworks across the road from us.

Whether stairs went up or down and wherever the rooms were situated, they were in the same position in relation to the rest of the block, that is to say, all living rooms and kitchens were all stacked on top of each other, the same being true of the bedrooms. To my knowledge all the bathrooms and toilets lay under the walkways (except for the properties where stairs went up as this could not have been the case). On those landings there were no windows, therefore no source of natural light. The toilet and bathroom had vents which even at best were inadequate, especially in a steamy bathroom. Most village residents complained of mould forming where the wall met the ceiling.

The large square windows in the rooms that had windows, opened a few inches but the removal of a metal stay made it possible to swing the window round, almost inside out making it easier to clean both sides. Vents ran down the side of the windows with little catch fastened wooden doors. The idea was that in summer if more ventilation was required than the stay restricted open window allowed these vents could be opened in order to achieve this. Most people blocked up these vents with newspaper or sealed them shut with tape. They were fairly useless as extra summer ventilators, yet they made the rooms draughty in winter.

The heating system was possibly the most ridiculous idea ever implemented in a housing estate of any type anywhere in the world. My own personal suspicions are that when whoever was responsible for the heating were looking at the plans upside down and so the village ended up with ceiling heating. I know, crazy isn't it?. Ceiling heating. Under floor heating would have made sense, we all know that heat rises, hence my upside down theory. It would have been laughable were it not so expensive to run. Expensive and of more benefit to the upstairs neighbour than the bill payer. The majority of people left the heating system unused and relied upon electric fires to keep warm in winter. The living rooms were actually quite difficult to keep warm as they were open plan with no doors from the kitchens or stairway areas. This was later remedied by the council who fitted doors and installed economy seven storage heaters.

The council made attempts to improve the appearance outside by planting flowerbeds around the village. A lot of the time the flowers were trampled on or pulled up by vandals. In the summer of 1976 my Aunty Elsie who lived in Cambridgshire was visiting and staying with Aunty Mary. Chatting over coffee with my mother she mentioned some roses newly planted nearby.

"They won't last long round here".I think it was Aunty Mary who said it.

Later that day mam and Aunty Elsie went out for a walk. They returned about half an hour later, mam with a triumphant look on her face.

"The vandals won't get these" she stated proudly presenting two plastic carrier bags containing four freshly dug up rose bushes.

Once replanted in our garden these beautiful blooms were always known in our family as "Elsie's roses"

I seem to have painted rather a grim picture of the place in which I spent six years of my life but nevertheless still have some happy memories of that period. Although "The Village" was quite rightly demolished in 1993 I think it does deserve to be remembered if only as a lesson to town planners on "How Not To".