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Original Text (Annotation: EPW053948 / 602051)
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Monkton Hospital which was men only in those far off days housed patients with what today we call Learning difficulties. As a young lad in the 50s we lived on a new estate just north of the Hospital & got to know some of the patients. Some patients played football on their own field so local kids joined in aswell. Some kept pigeons like us kids. A few patients worked for the local coalmen delivering one hundredweight (1cwt) sacks of coal to Hebburn & Jarrow residents. This was probably cheap labour in those days but it benifitted them by getting out and about. '