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George Spenceley recalls his childhood memories of Middlesbrough and how his large family coped with life in World War II and with the happy and sad events of family life.
Heating a four-bedroom house was a real problem. Apart from the cost coal was in very short supply. Sometimes Dad would take a push bike and go to collect sea coal that had been washed up on the beach, at other times he'd have to buy it.
The sea coal was black but very fine like sand and it had to be packed into small bags made of newspaper before it was put on to the hot coals of the fire. As it got hot it would congeal and burn. If it failed to do this then the bags would burst and their contents would spill through the grate into the ashes and be wasted.
Coke was an alternative to coal but most of the goodness had already been taken out of it to make household gas. On a Saturday morning the gas works at South Bank would sell coke to the general public.
We'd set off early intending to beat the queue but no-matter when we got there others would be already waiting. Imagine up to two or three hundred people all with some means to transport a hundredweight of coke back to their homes.
There would be wheelbarrows, bikes, bogeys, prams, pushchairs and handcarts, anything with wheels. The folk in the queue would be shuffling their feet and blowing on their hands, slapping their arms around their bodies trying to get the blood to circulate some warmth, particularly into their fingers, it was always bitterly cold.
At half past seven the gates would open and the crowds would rush in, this often caused squabbles about queue jumping. As we waited our turn we'd watch what was going on around us, the smoke seeping from the sides of the coke ovens created colours ranging from a dirty yellow through various shades of grey to black, the smell was like rotten eggs being sulphurous.
The coke was made from fine coal that was poured into the top of the ovens, there it was sealed to exclude as much air as possible and, after heating, would pass out by-products such as gas, tar and liquids for bensole etc.
At various intervals a large metal railway wagon would pass along the side of the battery of ovens, a long narrow door would open and the red hot coke from the sides of the oven would pour out breaking up as it hit the vehicles, sending out a blast of searing hot air towards where we stood.
The heat soon disappeared as the wagon was shunted under a very large sprinkler to cool the coke, this in turn sent clouds of steam and particles of grit flying across to the waiting crowd. That set of another round of complaints.
One of the most annoying times would be after waiting for two or three hours and reaching the front of the queue we'd find they'd run out and we'd have to wait for the next lot.
The coke coming from the ovens always steamed and at times it had to be douched with cold water before it could be sold it was so hot. What a relief it was when we'd got the coke on the barrow and we'd be heading for home, with a bit of luck this would give us heat for another
week.
Once home it was my job to break the large lumps into small manageable pieces for the fire.
George Spenceley, 2002
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