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Welcome to the Guestbook
Feel free to add messages relating to the site and the school. The only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).

It would be appreciated if you gave an email address, where you now live and said when you were at the school, but you don't have to.

Plase note that if you click on an email address below you will need to replace ~DOT~ with . and ~AT~ with @ in your email program. The Guestbook presents these this way to avoid email address harvesters collecting your email addresses from the page. I know it's a pain, but it's very much better than the alternative.

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There are 500 messages in the guestbook
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Viewing messages 51 to 60

Eric Moyse 1946 to 1952 (Boys) | eric~DOT~moyse35~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

Me again. Just catching up.
My earliest memory is of waking up one morning at wor cooncil hoose in Fir Grove, Cleadon Estate to see sheets of corrugated iron being delivered in order to have air-raid shelters built in the garden. We lived there until about 1949 when we moved to Norfolk Road on the then new Marsden Estate. We had an uninterrupted view of the Leas and the North Sea.
Last year I plucked up my courage and knocked on the door of Number 73 and explained that I had lived there as a son of the first tenants. I was let in and saw that marvellous view up to Newbiggin by the Sea and along towards Whitburn. The Marsden Rattler seems to have disappeared, however.
In full nostalgia mode, a few months ago I submitted an article to the "Shields Gazette", which appeared online with a title something like "A South Shields' man's vivid(not my word) memories of World War II". Fame at last!

Fri 18-Jul-2025 17:50 - Reading, Berkshire

Eric Moyse 1946 to 1952 (Boys) | eric~DOT~moyse35~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

All right, more incendiary confessions -- or is it telling on Freddy Auty? Some while ago I was on Cleadon Hills, near the waterworks, with a neighbour friend. He lit some gorse and the conflagaration was, to our young eyes, enough to set the hillside on fire. Fortunately, it did not, which is why I am alive to tell the tale. Sorry, Freddy, wherever you are.

Fri 18-Jul-2025 16:58 - Reading, Berkshire

Eric Moyse 1946 to 1952 (Boys) | eric~DOT~moyse35~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

Thanks Neale The invitation to the H of C came because our daughter, Susan had helped a parliamentary candidates' canvassing in the midlands. We had contributed to petrol (that may be gas to you) costs and this was a thank you.

Fri 18-Jul-2025 16:49 - Reading, Berkshire

Neale Backhouse | neale1447~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Glad to have you back Eric, not quite ninety but almost there. Also glad to hear that Doreen is doing well. I wonder how many of our contemporaries are still alive and kicking. Maybe you have knowledge of case histories that you might impart? Oh and please elaborate on "Houses of Parliament" story. What tales of glory or infamy brought that about? Or are all ninety year old couples celebrated in England?
Cheers, Neale.

Tue 15-Jul-2025 18:55 - Victoria BC

Eric Moyse 1946 to 1952 (Boys) | eric~DOT~moyse35~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

Catching up:
Real fans cannot bear even to look eg Sunderland's promotion match and England beating India today by, was it, 22 runs?I had to look these results up afterwards.
On the question of Ha'way and Howay, I hate to say this but I think Newcastle have it right and Sunderland have it wrong for surely it is a contraction of "Have way."
Going back to the 26th School Scouts, here was indeed a waiting list and preference was given to A formers. As I had been demoted to the B stream I had to wait but I was let in after a few months (I stayed in B forms until second year sixth despite having been in nothing but A streams since their inception).

Mon 14-Jul-2025 18:24 - Reading, Berkshire

Eric Moyse | eric~DOT~moyse35~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

Having not looked at this website for some months I was delighted to find that our two Canadians are still among those contributing. Congratulations to Neale and Alex and to all survivors fom our school year and before. Happily that includes my wife Doreen as well as myself.
I know that you are all avid readers of Hansard. You will no doubt therefore have seen that onthe 4th of June Doreen and I were congratulated from the floor of the House of Commons on 2025 being the year when both of us reach 90 years of age (in my case subject to another few months' survival).
I wil be shortly be catching up with the news from this website and may have some fascinating memories to share.
Anyway best of luck and thanks once again to Mike.

Sun 13-Jul-2025 20:21 - Reading, Berkshire

Mike

Apologies for not following up the Marsden photo - I don't check in that often!

Unfortunately the Guestbook is text only, so embedding a photo isn't possible.

I'll see if I can link it.

Tue 1-Jul-2025 18:11 - Rothbury

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Any more criminals out there?

Much later in life when my parents were living in one of the (council) pensioners houses right at the end of Lizard Lane Thomson's Quarry was my favourite venue for exercising our dogs on our occasional visits to SS.

Mon 30-Jun-2025 16:54 - ruskington lincolnshie

Alan Whittaker(1953-59) | alan~DOT~diwhittaker~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hi Neale,Alex and Bruce.I don't know about you Bruce but I had no idea we had an ex-arsonist on the Sutton Estate!Could it be that leaving the country to live abroad was more than work related?
I also used to take a box of matches into Thompson's Quarry! Years ago Norman Hannah who owned the Riding School on Lizard Lane used to graze horses overnight in the Quarry. We would climb over the fence and rattle a box of matches at the horses and they would approach us thinking we were offering corn. We would grab a mane and swing up onto the horses back and gallop it,bareback, around the Quarry!

Looking back it was quite a dangerous act,the follies of youth!

Mon 30-Jun-2025 11:06 - Langford Budville, Somerset

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hi Neale,
You should have never confessed to that crime, "playing with matches" indeed. The only thing you can do with matches is to strike them and apply them to something flammable. I think you and Liz had better go into hiding, because the South Shields Police Force operates a 'cold case' squad that is known world wide for its tenacity. Now they have a confession!!
However, given your advanced age, they may go easy on you for your advanced age.
Cheers from a sunny and very comfortable North York,
Alex

Sun 29-Jun-2025 21:47 - North York, Ontario, Canada

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