You don’t own a house, you are there for a short time and someone else will get it
Caroline next to the Blue Plaque © Hazel Plater
You’ll no doubt hear from my lovely, not Geordie accent, Scottish accent. I moved down here over 40 years ago from Scotland, primarily to teach and to work and to start a career here, which my husband had been doing so we were both young and married and we were setting up here. So, I moved to North Shields. I’ve been in that house, 1886 the house is, which I just fell in love with, ‘cos it’s a very old-fashioned terraced house and it’s just my kinda house. And as soon as I saw it, I thought it was beyond my dreams of ever getting, but we managed to scrape together, it was way beyond our budget, but we managed it.
It’s on Linskill Terrace, and the house has a very interesting history to it. But it was a lovely old terrace. And we’ve been in that house 38 years and I just absolutely love it and I don’t want to leave it, but you don’t own a house, you are there for a short time and someone else will get it. But I like North Shields. The cool expensive place was Tynemouth, but Tynemouth was way out of our league because the housing prices, but because we were just south of the golf course that was the price if we absolutely stretched it, we could just about afford that house. It was very, very cheap considering for what it was and for what you’d have to pay for it now is unbelievable and I can’t believe I’ve got it. I still can’t believe I’ve got it; I still look at it and think how wonderful it is.
There was a young lad, his family used to live in the house and he worked as a lawyer’s clerk and he was sent out to the trenches and he was only 23 when he died in the war. So, I wrote a poem about him, ‘cos I imagined him, I could always sort of feel a presence about the house somehow. My daughter would always, “Oh, I think it’s haunted,” and we were always thinking about the bottom of the staircase there. I was just imagining him walking down the staircase and his hand running along the staircase and saying goodbye to his family and telling them he would be home, but he didn’t come home, you know. So it has that sadness to it when I think about it. I’ve got a blue plaque ‘cos it’s part of the blue plaques scheme and I was on telly talking about it in actual fact. My house is the first one on the blue plaque trail. But some houses of course have lost maybe one or two sons not just one person and when you see all these plaques, it’s very sad to think about that and the war.
The whole area is lovely really, it’s very friendly it’s like Scotland, the people of North Shields I would say are very canny. Not in the Scottish sense of canny, as in shrewd, but canny as in friendly and nice and they are just very welcoming and they don’t seem to mind my Scottish accent at all you know and we get on ok. And obviously I’m five minutes from the sea and the water and the beach which is beautiful. Absolutely love the Fish Quay, it’s really nice. We go there for fish and chips nearly every couple of weeks or a week and a half or something to the local who does a really good fish and chips, marvellous. So I love the Fish Quay, I love the coastline, I love the sea line and you’ve also got Northumberland Park with all its old trees and the café there. So it’s really nice to stroll around and we used to always do, when my husband could walk better, a lovely walk from our house down the Fish Quay right along the sea and round in a big circle at night time, on an evening and its beautiful.
It’s a lovely area, it’s a friendly area, it’s got good amenities, the people are canny. I managed to pick up a lot of good Geordie words to try and get myself into being a Geordie, but I think they tell I’m not really a Geordie. Wye aye hinnie – you know I can do all the phrases and the – geet lush. When I had first to teach, when I had my first job in Meadowell, they were absolutely broad, broad Geordie and they called me Captain Haggis as I recall, that was my nickname. The Geordie was so broad it really took me quite a while to get a grasp on it, ye divn’t na, nowt ye, ye, sort of thing, but I loved it ‘cos I like accents and that’s what I was teaching, language and accents and stuff like that so…
I hope it will just keep developing, ‘cos it’s done really well. The Quayside developing, there’s lots of new shops there, there’s nice places to eat in North Shields, they are making nice alterations in Bedford Street and all along the pedestrian areas, they’re doing more parks. I just hope they keep planning and doing that and putting money into it and saving like Northumberland Park. All the trees more green spaces, you know, things like that to attract people in.
I’m 74, I want to stay in my house for another 100 years, but you know….
I’ve so enjoyed living here and it’s been great and people didn’t really understand. Like all my family in Scotland, my husband’s Dutch, they thought we were moving to an industrial part of Newcastle and they didn’t realise what it would be like. When they actually came here and saw what North Shields was like and where I lived and what the house was like and what the sea was like and the coast line was like, they couldn’t actually believe how beautiful it was.
Caroline’s Poem:
Young Man Descending
I am pulled back to a moment in 1914 as Hugh descends the staircase
Making his way slowly down lengthening the minutes
Barely into his twenties his photo shows dark eyes
Off camera unable to meet my eye
Trying for a smile
I see him caught on the stair
Hesitant, holding the moment foot on the treads, slow footfall
His lawyer’s fingers on the smooth grain sliding down
His awkward hat firm
Buttons straight, body warm
Not wanting to say farewell
Oh Susannah, wie ist das Leben noch so schon
Oh Susannah, wie ist das Leben schon
Susannah, eldest sister, breathes heavily
Trying to keep you in her eyes, in her sight
Trying to remember each contour of your face
I miss you now, I miss you dear
I miss you now, when you are here
Oh Susannah, heart beating to the warm rhythm of the morning house
The house that gives up its youngest son
Fingers lingering on the stairs
I will be back mother, I will be back
His hands losing their grip on the stairs
Oh son, sharp intake of breath, you look smart
I cannot say the words I fear
My boy, my boy you are too dear
I will not let you go, holding him tight
Arms empty, fingers slack
Do not worry mother, I will be back
In the bedroom, neat, abandoned
His work clothes wait
Susannah runs her finger over the blankets still warm
Room full of absence
Wholly gone
Nearly at the hall, still holding the moment, the quiet beat of the moment
I do not think I should go
His feet moving forward unwilling, I am not going, stomach falling
Feet pushing forward, going on, moving towards the door
A crack in his chest, near his heart
I will be back mother, I will, I will
The door clipped shut, the ache for home
The day shivering
The moment gone
Farewells said
Susannah empty in the stillness
The field in France the end of November, the earth cold, winter biting in
Hugh’s heart beats to a different rhythm, the rhythm of the cold field
The sinking rhythm of the cold earth
The crack echoes again
I feel his fingers moving slowly on the staircase
Fingers gliding, sure
How beautiful is life Susannah
I told you I would come home
His fingers slipping over the banister
Floating by the bedroom door
I told you, I told you
I told you I would come home
Warm presence hovering
Breathing easy
In the homely air
Back, sighing, long
Back, back, where I belong
Caroline was interviewed as part of the North Shields Voices Project