“You know what, life isn’t that bad, I’ll find something else.”
I was born here in 1952; lived just up by the Coast Road near Formica with my parents, Jenny and Jim and my brother and sister, Ken and Joan; lived in a council house looking over the Coast Road. I’m a North Shields boy, born and bred. My first school was Collingwood Junior School so I could walk to school in the morning with my friends and then Linskill was my Secondary School.
I did move away for bit, for work, early work was all around the town. I worked for a local electrical retailer called F W Johnsons, that became Rumbelows. I was part of the team that opened the Rumbelows store when The Beacon Centre opened in North Shields all those years ago, that was an exciting time. I did move away for a little while but eventually came back to North Shields cos my family were here. When I first moved back we actually moved to Holywell because it was easy to move in there. But we always wanted an older property and North Shields is full of fantastic properties, so we moved into Windsor Gardens and we’re still there.
When I got the job at F W Johnson, effectively I was going to be a TV engineer and colour TV was just coming out then, 1966/67, I was 16 years old. Before you did that you had to pay your dues, you had to work in the stores department. On my very first day I was met at the door by the Store Manager, Jimmy. He was immaculate, had a brown dust coat on, white shirt, tie, beautifully pressed trousers and shiny brogue shoes. He said to me, “Right, come with me,” and he led me off through this warren of rooms until I ended up in what must have been someone’s front room at one point and it was full of light bulbs, everywhere you looked, there were light bulbs in boxes, on the floor, some on shelves and Jimmy looked at me and said, “Right, sort this lot out son, and don’t come out ‘til you’re finished.” And he left and shut the door. Cut a long story short, I literally started at the left-hand side of the room and worked my way round the shelves, increasing the bulbs in size and fittings, logically worked out so that you could see them. When I finished, I tidied up, put all of the cardboard I’d ripped up in a pile in the middle of the floor, swept the floor. After a while I could hear the footsteps come up the corridor. Jimmy swept into the room and he said nothing to me at all, he walked around and looked at what I’d done, looked at me again and walked out and shut the door. After a few minutes, more footsteps arrived and four people came into the room, there was Jimmy, there was the Security guy Phil, there was the driver and the young lad I was taking over from. They looked around and looked at the room and then Jimmy looked at me and said to the others “I think this one can work,” and I can’t tell you the feeling it gave me as a young kid the first day at work that I appeared to have done something that pleased them. It was like Grace Brothers, but with tellies.
My favourite place in Shields has got to be the Fish Quay. My family have a long association with the Fish Quay. My grandfather, Jimmy Levitt, and my grandmother Lily Levitt, owned a café on the Fish Quay. It was roughly opposite where the Irvin Building is now and it was grandly called The Savoy. I have a picture of my grandmother standing outside and they still have the horse hitching rail outside so people could tie their horses up. My mum worked there and my grandfather also had a fish filleting business on the Quay which, when the war broke out, the whole place was requisitioned by the Navy, this is what I was told and we lost the business.
West Quay and Tyne Brand 1960s – photo by Ernest Storey
My Uncle Jim worked on the Fish Quay for a company called Rutherfords, he lived up on the Bank Top. My Uncle Bill worked at Tyne Brand. My brother Ken worked at Tyne Brand and for a short while, thankfully, I actually worked down on the Quay as a trainee marine engineer. It was quite possibly the worst nine months of my entire life. So, we have a very strong connection to the Fish Quay and I love going down there.
Years later, I was working for a company in Leeds, and I was made redundant. When I got home the first thing I did was, I got my bike out and I cycled down to the Fish Quay. I bought some fish and chips and I sat on the break water on the Fish Quay sands and I just thought, “You know what, life isn’t that bad, I’ll find something else.” But it was the first place that I went back to. I still enjoy a walk down on the Fish Quay and, of course, it’s changed hugely since then.
Formica factory in North Shields
We lived on Chollerford Avenue quite close to Formica and my mum, my dad and my sister all found jobs within walking distance of the house. I used to go and meet me dad after work when I was at school. The guy who was on the door would just say, “Come in son,” and I would stand inside and wait and you could hear the noises and the smell of the oil in the factory. And when the bell went all the machinery fell silent and the men came out and I’d get pat on the head and they’d say, “You alright son?” I remember the overalls he wore and the smell of the oil. So that’s just a massive social change apart from anything else, but also obviously those industries have gone. The Fish Quay has changed absolutely beyond all recognition, still a busy port, still a lot of people employed in the fishing industry, but Tyne Brand’s gone. It was much busier then than now and I think it’s typical of a lot of small towns, it’s gone through periods of decline and personally I think it’s coming back up again.
I think the nature of the town has changed, there are new people coming in, there’s new buildings going up. I guess it would be nice to see some more shops in the town, I think everybody agrees that would be a good thing but, you know, it’s where do you start? Do you build transport hub to get people there or do you put the shops there, it’s a chicken and egg situation….
I’d like to see the regeneration of the town continue at pace. There is so much that’s good about the place. If you look at what they’ve done with Northumberland Square, if you look at the buildings around it, the buildings are fantastic and the job they’ve done is really good. And Howard Street has been transformed, that Cultural Quarter down at the bottom end has massively changed. I would like to see some more independent kind of shops if it was possible, local people.
I opened the Rumbelows Store in the Beacon Centre and it was really busy then, and to see all of the closed down shops is really sad, so it would be nice to get that revitalised, More jobs for people. The north east has a great grounding in tech, there’s so many businesses around it would be nice to see some of them locate to North Shields. I’d like to see more opportunity for kids. We do work with kids as The Heritologists and you always get a great reaction from kids particularly when you tell them something they didn’t know about their town. I’d love to see them do something with the Smiths Docks area, without losing the history of it, ‘cos the history is so brilliant. I’ve learned more about North Shields in the last 5 years than I did in the previous 68, honestly, and it still keeps delivering.
I worked for the same company for a lot of years, but I did a lot of different things and I’ve been very lucky and I’ve met a lot of great people who have given me opportunities when often I had no qualifications to do what they asked me to do. I’ve been incredibly lucky because something has always presented itself, something will come along. I just have no idea what it is but, hopefully, it will be good fun and exciting.
Keith was interviewed in 2025 as part of the North Shields Voices Project.