EPW042142 ENGLAND (1933). White's Marine Engineering Works, Hebburn, 1933

Cuthbert St. My mother Marian Rodgers was 12 yrs old when this aerial photo was taken so she could easily be one of the children in the street looking up at an aeroplane and wondering why it was circling Hebburn.

This is the beginning of William St which stretched all the way to Dunston St. It crossed Bewick St, Albert St, Ellison St, Tyne St, Caledonian St, McIntyre St, Hedley St and the Dunston St.

This was reddish coloured waste from what was known as the Bauxite Factory. Bauxite is the ore that Aluminium comes from.

This waste land was all rough grass & weeds in the late 40s & into the 50s when I was a young boy living around the corner in Lyon St. We called this area 'Tennant's Field.

This block was Cuthbert St & my grandparents lived in the upstairs part where I've placed the Pin. On the ground floor in 1933 at No 2 & 4 was the 'Relief Office'. Men would queue up in the back yard & into the Lane on one day a week, hoping to get money to feed their families. That was the day my Gran stayed in all day rather than have to make her way down the stairs & through that queue of men. My mother was only 12 in 1933 & she told me she sometimes stood outside the Whites Marine factory gate across the road asking the men for any uneaten 'bait'. This shows how hard it was in those days.

This row of houses was Prince Consort Road. Note all the people at the top of their stairs, in their back yards, in the lane & street all looking up at the aircraft & wondering why it was flying around Hebburn in 1933. The photo I've attached shows a young girl on one of those staircases 27 yrs later. For more photos of the area try my website www.oldtyneside.co.uk

Tharsis Sulpher & Copperworks being demolished

Whites Marine Engineering Co

The old Fire Engine House & part of the Chemical Works

The old Reservoir

Whites offices on Prince Consort Rd