LewisLad
Midfield
That's actually funny as probably the best thing about Washington is that you can walk anywhere
That doesn't make any sense to be fair
Durham House (Tall black Washington building)
- Thread starter Black_Cat
- Start date
pfoz88
Midfield
Born and bred Washington village. Spent a good few years as a contractor in the large print and mailing room in Durham House. This was the bit on the bottom that wasn’t the tower. Company I worked for had a service contract to cover equipment in there, that part of the building usually worked 24/7. There were 5 of us who covered that site and a few others round the north east but I was closest to Durham house so was often posted in there (we had a small office/storage/workshop on-site). Thing was there were large periods of time where nothing happened, so I’d stay at home and get the staff in there to call me as I could drive there in a couple of minutes if needed. My boss got wise to this and wasn’t happy so issued us with trackers to fit to our company cars (plugged into the 12v cigarette lighter socket). This just meant I had to drive to Durham house car park in the morning, unplug the tracker and then drive home, then drive back at the end of the day if not called and plug it back in. Happy days.
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DaveH
Striker
I think the design of it is great and as people look at building new towns and this talk of 15 minute cities, it is a good blueprint.
Split into "villages" each one with a perimeter road, then cul-de-sacs inwards from there. Each village with it's own little village centre with at minimum a local shop and a pub, plus a primary school. Secondary school to every 4 villages and then the town centre in the middle, easily reached from a dual carriageway. Plenty of green space too. As a kid, I never had to cross a busy road and didn't know what a traffic jam was. From 8 I was allowed to walk down to the local shop for sweets, because there were no dangers. I live in a quiet small town now, but my street leads onto an awkward fast junction so we could never really allow the kids to leave the street without us. Even going to the local field we would walk them over there and leave them, coming back later. I just never had that in my youth.
That is the plus side. The downside is, a lot of the housing was really crap quality or bad design. Gone now, but those white concrete panel houses in Blackfell were something you would imagine from East Berlin. Then local authorities moved in a lot of problem families so some of the crapper areas got really rough. In my teens when going to friends houses, I would know the quiet routes to cut through where nobody ever really went, and know where the arse holes hung out.
High Entropy
Midfield
Those that know, know
SMB give Washy a lot of stick but it was a great place to grow up for all the reasons you mention. I used to walk to primary school on my own from a young age and only cross one road that had a crossing in it. It was well designed other than those stupid districts, the amount of times lost drivers would ask us, where is District 7 and I wouldn't have a clue (still don't) but mention the village and it was easy, Washington highway, turn off at ...
I think the green spaces you mention were an important part, always playing footy, mass games of rounders with the entire village it seemed like, no main roads other than the ones that went to every village centre, which I also think was a great design idea, every village had it's own shop, pub, school, a utopia as a child, unless you lived in Blackfell where all the Sunderland/Gateshead wronguns got dumped !
Being 50/50 mags and mackems meant you had hellish banter and even some battles when the banter spilled over, these sunderlnad townies know nothing of that, surrounded safely within an echo chamber, not in the vanguard like we were, my best mate is a mag, a constant see-saw of back and forth banter.
Long live the defenders of Hwæsa clan
Hwæsingatūn. It is essentially composed of three main (albeit grammatically altered) elements:
- "Hwæsa" – most likely the name of a local Anglo-Saxon chieftain or farmer.
- "ing" – a Germanic component that has lost its original context in English: ing means roughly "[derived] of/from". In the name Hwæsingatūn, "ing" is conjugated to "inga" in accordance with the genitive plural declension of OE.
- "tūn" – root of the modern English "town", and is a cognate of German Zaun (fence), Dutch tuin (garden) and Icelandic tún (paddock). The word means "fenced off estate" or more accurately "estate with defined boundaries".
The combined elements (with all correct conjugations in place) therefore create the name Hwæsingatūn with a full and technical meaning of "the estate of the descendants of Hwæsa".
DaveH
Striker
Even Blackfell was not as bad as people make out. That is where I grew up and it was fine. I lived in the top end (the poshys!), had a couple of fields, these big piles of boulders we would play on and the climbing trees. Each cul-de-sac ended in a turning square, which was not full of cars in those days, so we essentially had a play ground. Because it was a new town, a lot of the people who moved in were young couples, so there must have been at least a dozen kids in my street all within a few years of each other. Building snowmen and igloos together in the winter, all sorts of playground games in the summer, it was class. It feels like a time gone by (though it was the 80s).Those that know, know
SMB give Washy a lot of stick but it was a great place to grow up for all the reasons you mention. I used to walk to primary school on my own from a young age and only cross one road that had a crossing in it. It was well designed other than those stupid districts, the amount of times lost drivers would ask us, where is District 7 and I wouldn't have a clue (still don't) but mention the village and it was easy, Washington highway, turn off at ...
I think the green spaces you mention were an important part, always playing footy, mass games of rounders with the entire village it seemed like, no main roads other than the ones that went to every village centre, which I also think was a great design idea, every village had it's own shop, pub, school, a utopia as a child, unless you lived in Blackfell where all the Sunderland/Gateshead wronguns got dumped !
Being 50/50 mags and mackems meant you had hellish banter and even some battles when the banter spilled over, these sunderlnad townies know nothing of that, surrounded safely within an echo chamber, not in the vanguard like we were, my best mate is a mag, a constant see-saw of back and forth banter.
Long live the defenders of Hwæsa clan
Hwæsingatūn. It is essentially composed of three main (albeit grammatically altered) elements:
- "Hwæsa" – most likely the name of a local Anglo-Saxon chieftain or farmer.
- "ing" – a Germanic component that has lost its original context in English: ing means roughly "[derived] of/from". In the name Hwæsingatūn, "ing" is conjugated to "inga" in accordance with the genitive plural declension of OE.
- "tūn" – root of the modern English "town", and is a cognate of German Zaun (fence), Dutch tuin (garden) and Icelandic tún (paddock). The word means "fenced off estate" or more accurately "estate with defined boundaries".
The combined elements (with all correct conjugations in place) therefore create the name Hwæsingatūn with a full and technical meaning of "the estate of the descendants of Hwæsa".
Down the bottom end it was rougher, but generally as a kid I missed most of that. I'd go down there and play plenty. I had mates from there and they had the play parks. One of the worse families did try to nick my bike ones so I told this fearful looking woman who was passing and she give the older lads a clip. That was it really.
High Entropy
Midfield
I went to Oxclose comp in the 80's, all the kids with knuckle dots, borstal dots and other crude face tattoos lived in Blackfell, terrifying as an 11yr old, seeing kids at school with tattoos, I never lived in Blackfell but some of my school mates did and it had a reputation and stories, probably not as bad if your face was known to live there but once you cross that foot bridge over the A1231 as a stranger, it was like entering Mordor with Orcs everywhere !
gazc24
Striker
Yeah many a time at the end it would be a rush up til 6pm then a 2 or 3 hour break until 9 or 10 then go home at 12
Nightmare isn't it? I seen they're now planning to stop you from getting out of Tesco towards the Tyne Bridge aswell so the only way you can go is out via Askew Road, so an even bigger detour if heading in from North of the river.
It's like they want to kill the place completely.
zwartekat
Striker
Is it black? I remember when my kids were little they used to call it the 'chocolate building'. Always thought it was Brown.
The whole of Washington was like a playground for kids in the 80's.I lived in Barmston, and it was great. Each square of houses had monkey bars you could swing on and climb up, not very safe though, solid metal bars built into concrete paving slabs.i saw some canny bad accidents. Loads of green bits of grass to play footie on,or garages to play footy or cricket against.We even played little tournaments against other streets(I was a Horsley hornet,we played the poshies, doccas stockley rd team,peter guys waskerley team).You had 3 shops, mine being Audrey's about 100 yards away.2 lovely old women serving you wham bars and 10 pence mix ups.Then Bobby(THE Bobby who still has shop now) and his family arrived and you could literally buy anything. Then you had the marble arch under the lines where you could go frogspawning,and there was a class motorbike track there.Nearly everyone down the bottom of barmston had a steppie in their teens.You had Bowmands pond between barmston and Brady Square to make swings and have a swim and make rafts.Proper swallows and amazon's(in an urban setting) stuff really.Walking up the galleries to go to the baths every Saturday,barmston community centre disco on a Friday.Barmston club was always rammed,me da used to bring half of them back to ours for a nightcap.I think by the 90's the community spirit had broken down a bit.I am loathe to blame it on troublesome outsiders coming in, there has always been the odd dodgepot family about from when we lived there. I think society became less community driven,Thatcherism is more to blame in my eyes.Me,me,me.Old timer on here has some great info about washington. They planted 3 times more trees than they should've, thinking most of them would die.50 years later ,its like a jungle in the summer!
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Chesterladmackem
Midfield
When were you there?
I worked for ITSA on mainframes,output and giro printing from 87 to 96.
Jumped ship back into normal civil service when EDS got its paws on the contract.
Worked on Kern, Ciba machines on shift work.
High Entropy
Midfield
MONTYMCPHAIL
Striker
When it was built as a new town
LewisLad
Midfield
Still not making sense
He was there every night.Sunday afternoon was the pinnacle though!... go on Sunday afternoons
Hansel
Winger
Me Nana used to live in Washy and we used to love going to visit. Spent hours mucking about in Princess Anne park as a kid. I remember when the galleries and Woolco opened. It was like something from another world.
It really did feel a bit utopian for a while,70's into early 80's.
BILLY BUS PASS
Midfield
The big head made out of crushed tin cans ………….. or did I dream that.
Think the term you are looking for is it was character building living in Blackfell in the 70s and 80s! Especially for us in the white prefabs @DaveH
DaveH
Striker
I know what you mean, I think particularly late evening. During the day it was ok but rougher at night. In my teens if I was walking up from the Galleries, I'd come to that bridge, then being on alert until I crossed the road to the top end of Backfell, and then I'd relax again. Nothing ever really happened.
I think a lot of it depended on the years you were at school. I was Oxclose 88-93 and there was nobody really bad on our year. But the ones most likely to get in a fight were from Lambton. But there were a few kids in the years above you would not want to bump into after school. If you were a couple of years older then I can understand your view.
A friend lived in Striding Edge, down the bottom end. That was council housing and at first that was great for them. All young families, all mixing with each other, and like the posters promised. Then policy rounded up the problem families from the wider area and moved a lot in at the same time. That dragged the whole area down.
