I used to go to Wilkinson's a lot and have coffee there with a lot of friends.
I was the only one born in the Frater Maternity Home and I don’t know why, because all the rest were born at home. Two sisters and two brothers, but Dennis came after me, I was the fourth one. They were living with me grandparents who had a shop in Wellington Street and they had 3 attic rooms. For some reason I think they were thrown out and they got one room. There was all of us in the one room except me oldest sister and she stayed with me grandparents.
That was Church Way, just round the corner. Opposite to that was the soup kitchen where the tramps used to come and get soup. The soup was cheap you know and me mother used to get it, it was pea soup, it was lovely. Me mother used to let the tramps sit on the doorstep, she wouldn’t let them in, but she felt sorry for them you know. Then further down the street, past Wellington Street, there was the wash houses where the women used to go. I vaguely remember going to see me mother possing away you know and all the steam and everything.
1925, 15th November which is coming up shortly, I’ll be 100. Dennis is still alive, my brother, I was 8 when he was born, so he’ll be 92.
Jubilee School, that’s the first school I went to and then I went up to Ralph Gardner School.
I was 8 when Dennis was born and all the slums were pulled down and we all went to the Ridges which is now the Meadowell.
I worked in Dampney’s wallpaper shop, very exclusive wallpaper shop. It was the only job I could get, you had to take anything. I wanted to work in Paige’s, that’s where I wanted to work, in the dress shop because that would be upmarket. But I had a Geordie accent, and I don’t think they liked that.
Baptist Church Howard Street where church dances were held – photo by Ron Hillaby
Favourite place, well just the dance halls as I got older you know. The first dances that we went to was church dances and the vicar watched out for you. You had to go to Sunday school, the one in Howard Street near the Salvation Army.
I don’t get to North Shields much now, but I used to go to Wilkinsons a lot and have coffee there with a lot of friends. I didn’t have coffee when I was young, we always had tea and the mothers couldn’t afford milk, so they used to get a tin of condensed milk. It lasted all week, unless we pinched some. We used to get the spoon out behind her back, get a spoonful of condensed milk.
Muriel was interviewed in 2025 as part of the North Shields Voices project.