CONTRIBUTORS:
Irvine Boon, Exmouth, Devon
Stanley Walton, British Columbia, Canada

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If you would like to comment on any of the articles we have published in the magazine or would like to add your own thoughts and reminiscences of any of the subjects please send them to me with a note to say that you are happy for your letter to appear on this page.Please contact us at Alan. We look forward to hearing from you.

Newfloridian - Site Administrator
(Alan D. Craxford) November 19th 2011.
Last update: May 1st 2012 2012

Continued in column 2...

RE: ME AND MY BROTHERS. Chapter 3: Education! Education!! Education!!!

I read with interest Donald McDonald Simpson's article about the Simpsons living at Dock House, Northumberland Dock. North Shields. My father was the Dock Master & Traffic Manager, Tyne Improvement Commissioners until October 1938. I was born in the Dock House on 3rd March 1925, where we lived until 1932. At that time the Dock Masters House occupied the West portion of the building. At the East end were the traffic offices, that were converted into two flats, one for the Deputy Dock Master Capt. Wm. Green and Mr. W.J.Dobie, principal clerk.

I can remember most of the Deputy and Assistant Dock Masters who were at the Dock when I lived there. Their names were Captains C.W.Blaylock (who later became Harbour Master), C.H.Nicholson, (later the Ferries Superintendent), Bertie Crosthwaite (who was promoted to Deputy Harbour Master), Powell and Sistersen (who became Dock Master at Tyne Dock), Keldie (later the Traffic Manager at Albert Edward Dock), Stephenson, Cresswell, Hatfield, and Batty.

After we moved to Tynemouth our portion of the house was converted into four flats for the Assistant Dock Masters – the houses at end of the building were also occupied by the Deputy Dock Masters, behind the Main building there were two court yards each housing about 16 families of the Dock Gatemen most them also had allotment gardens, nearby, Hayhole Farm was occupied by the General Foreman and the farm house by the Fireman.

My wife's grandfather, James Simpson, b.1839 Inverness, lived at Westoe in 1871 and moved to Tynemouth 1881. His home was 47, Stephenson St. North Shields and he worked as a tinsmith. He had three children: Isabella was born 1857 in South Shields; John born 1868 Newcastle and Moore b.1873 North Shields.

My parents lived at Princeway, Tynemouth. I went to King Edwards and Linskill Schools and Skerry’s in Newcastle prior to going to sea (indentured apprentice 1940). We married in 1947 and lived on Wallington Avenue, Marden. Daughter Susan went to the school behind the house. We came to Canada in 1956.

- Stanley Walton,.jnr,
British Columbia, Canada
- November 21st 2009

Continued in column 3...

RE: ME AND MY BROTHERS. Chapter 3: Education! Education!! Education!!!

It's a small world, I was also born in Dock house in 1933, in the house occupied by my grandfather, Captain William Green. He was born in Lerwick in the Shetland Isles in1875 and died in 1953. He retired after the war and went to live in Albany Gardens, Whitley Bay. He went to sea at 9 years old, on whalers and then tea clippers and steam ships, He was a Master Mariner of sail and steam.

My parents were living in London in 1933 and mother came home(Dock house) where I was born in the east side of Dock House on the ground floor. My mother Mary Irvine Green was the only daughter of Captain William and Lizzie Green.

My parents came back to the NE in 1952 and lived in Derwent Road on the Marden Estate. They downsized when the family left home to live in a bungalow in Westlands just behind the Broadway Pub. I was an Electrical Engineer with NEEB and came down to Devon in 1965. I'm now retired and live in Exmouth.

I have two sisters Sheila and Elizabeth, I've copied this to Sheila and Sharon, her daughter, she has plotted the family tree.

- Irvine Boon
Exmouth, Devon,
- May 1st 2012

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