Doggie's Tales

Been playing around with http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm…. The old map (1888-1913) clearly shows the footpath to the Jubilee Bridge( which in my day was built of wood). The footpath passes through the area…

Village history, collected

Childhood memories of the places where children of Doggie had fun and adventure with their friends in the mid to late twentieth century.

Doggie is the nick name of a very special place in County Durham. Doggie is three villages. Their proper names are Thrislington, Cornforth and West Cornforth. People have lived in Doggie for eight hundred years.

**Eleanor Williams remembers …** in the early 1950s there was still rationing of food and clothes. The High Street was very busy and it was not unusual to stand in queues in a shop. We had a bakery selling freshly made…

From 1900 to 1950 most houses in West Cornforth had a living room and a scullery or back kitchen. Some had a front room that was used for best.

I can still see the cobbler’s shop which was on the High Street, just off the Market Place. Mr Hodgson was a skilled man who worked constantly repairing, soling and heeling shoes. I found the combined smells of leather,…

For a woman, were the 1950s and 1960s the best of times or the worst of times?

Julie's welcome to the archive

I grew up in the High Street in West Cornforth. Like all children home was the centre of my world. I had a good idea of where the village ended. As a child that was more significant to me than where the start of the vil…

Marriage has never been as commonplace as we have perhaps been led to believe. Couples have lived together as if they were married, without being married, throughout history. People have accepted this.

We had a little wash house in the backyard in Gray Street. If I remember when you came out the back door it was on the right, the coal hole was directly in front by the gate, with the toilet next door.

A collection of sayings

**My Mother said** …

Mam worked full time, also helped out with the family business and brought us up but she couldn’t have done all that without help. I was lucky to have been looked after from time to time by a number of caring, capable,…

Do you remember when your wages came in a pay packet on Friday?

January 2020

I remember taking pop bottles and Domestos bottles back to the shop and getting money back on them.