back lanes are one of the wonders of newcastle, taken from granted locally and unknown anywhere else except by geordies in exile like me. they are where the bins go so the bins don’t clutter up the fronts like in most other cities, they give the option of having a garage round the back not normally available for terraced housing (reducing parking congestion), and they are a great place to play; as a child i roller skated, learned to cycle, played any number of made up games and regularly kicked footballs over into people’s gardens.
an interesting side effect is that while grown ups might get to know their neighbours across the road, the kids are more likely to make friends with the kids who live on the parallel street but share the back lane.
having said that i think the garage feature probably only applies to houses with gardens, not these tyneside flats. i’m probably exposing my jesmond roots here!
Mrs K you’re supposed to take them in but in reality apparently hardly anyone does. The hubby tells me that even in Jesmond they are mostly left out all the time
We used to run through the washing (always a Monday) hanging out in the back lane, with a stick.
If we got caught, we got a good howkin’. And we had a coal house in the backyard, so a ton of coal was delivered in the lane and then we had to shovel it through the coal hole. We all shared the coal if somebody ran out they could always borrow a couple of pails full.
I too have such fond memories of growing up playing in the safety of back lanes in Jesmond and Shieldfield.
We didn’t have washing hung across in Jesmond as the yards of the houses were big enough for a washing line – or was it because the houses opposite were bigger and more posh? The smaller yards of the Tyneside flats in Shieldfield meant washing was hung across the lane, with it’s cobbled street, while housewives with their arms crossed, gossipped on their doorsteps, wearing pinnies and hair in rollers with a scarf on top like Hilda Ogden.
Dads were at work so Mams shovelled the coal through the coal hole and we helped sweep the lane afterwards. Even in the fifties and sixties the coal was brought by horse and cart, like other traders such as the rag man who gave the kids a balloon for a bundle of old clothes. Or what about the ice cream man who cycled along the back lane with some sort of insulated box. Blimey it makes me feel old, sounds like Beamish museum!
Old style dustbins, even in houses without back lanes, weren’t left in the street like wheelie bins are now. Binmen used to come in through your back gate to get the bin – they save money by making us all wheel our bins out. My Mam once put an old clock in the bin as she was sick of the loud tick and chimes. When Dad came home and was shutting the back gate he heard the ticking so the clock was reinstated on the mantelpiece!
If your back gate was locked when your friends came to ask if you were coming out to play, no one would go round the front. They’d rattle the handle on the gate and shout your name in a drawn out monotone ‘Vaaalreee’.
I can only ever remember one car in the back lane in Jesmond – a man [from the posher houses opposite] used to stop at the top of the lane to let his elderly labrador out. We were about half way down the lane and stood back for him to drive down to his house at the bottom of the lane, the dog slowly running behind the car!
No, they’re pretty unique in the UK. Not sure whether it’s a Newcastle thing or North East in general, but this is what you get in the Midlands http://g.co/maps/8jqgw – the bit with the locked gate across (known locally as an ‘entry’).
I like the photo very much but no-one seems to have noticed that the buildings are flats and not houses! Notice the stairs coming down from the top floor.
I sometimes try to predict which pictures will get the most comments but I would never have dreamt that a back lane would draw so many. It’s a funny old world. I wonder if anyone remembers the fish man coming round on his horse and cart with his cries of “sweet caller herrin” which I seem to remember meant fresh herring. When I was a kid we spent most of our lives in the back lanes climbing on walls, no health and safety then, lighting bonfires for Guy Fawkes and keeping them alight until the bin men came around and kicked them out so they make their collections and playing cricket with a dust bin as a wicket no wonder it was so easy to get out. Happy days!
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Come on, Beth, I’m sure we have told you before it is a back lane not a “back street”. Unless it is because Fenham is posher than where I live.
Are you going to put us out of our misery and tell us where you took the sunset shot?
And it must be dustbin day – and nobody tell me off for saying dustbin, instead of garbage.
back lanes are one of the wonders of newcastle, taken from granted locally and unknown anywhere else except by geordies in exile like me. they are where the bins go so the bins don’t clutter up the fronts like in most other cities, they give the option of having a garage round the back not normally available for terraced housing (reducing parking congestion), and they are a great place to play; as a child i roller skated, learned to cycle, played any number of made up games and regularly kicked footballs over into people’s gardens.
an interesting side effect is that while grown ups might get to know their neighbours across the road, the kids are more likely to make friends with the kids who live on the parallel street but share the back lane.
having said that i think the garage feature probably only applies to houses with gardens, not these tyneside flats. i’m probably exposing my jesmond roots here!
Sorry, now updated!!!!
And yes I will do so just now!
Mrs K you’re supposed to take them in but in reality apparently hardly anyone does. The hubby tells me that even in Jesmond they are mostly left out all the time
I think I kind of assumed it was the same everywhere!
I have a friend in a Tyneside flat in Walker and he has a garage door and pulls his car into the back yard, so it’s not just Jesmond
We used to run through the washing (always a Monday) hanging out in the back lane, with a stick.
If we got caught, we got a good howkin’. And we had a coal house in the backyard, so a ton of coal was delivered in the lane and then we had to shovel it through the coal hole. We all shared the coal if somebody ran out they could always borrow a couple of pails full.
Love hearing about it
I too have such fond memories of growing up playing in the safety of back lanes in Jesmond and Shieldfield.
We didn’t have washing hung across in Jesmond as the yards of the houses were big enough for a washing line – or was it because the houses opposite were bigger and more posh? The smaller yards of the Tyneside flats in Shieldfield meant washing was hung across the lane, with it’s cobbled street, while housewives with their arms crossed, gossipped on their doorsteps, wearing pinnies and hair in rollers with a scarf on top like Hilda Ogden.
Dads were at work so Mams shovelled the coal through the coal hole and we helped sweep the lane afterwards. Even in the fifties and sixties the coal was brought by horse and cart, like other traders such as the rag man who gave the kids a balloon for a bundle of old clothes. Or what about the ice cream man who cycled along the back lane with some sort of insulated box. Blimey it makes me feel old, sounds like Beamish museum!
Old style dustbins, even in houses without back lanes, weren’t left in the street like wheelie bins are now. Binmen used to come in through your back gate to get the bin – they save money by making us all wheel our bins out. My Mam once put an old clock in the bin as she was sick of the loud tick and chimes. When Dad came home and was shutting the back gate he heard the ticking so the clock was reinstated on the mantelpiece!
If your back gate was locked when your friends came to ask if you were coming out to play, no one would go round the front. They’d rattle the handle on the gate and shout your name in a drawn out monotone ‘Vaaalreee’.
I can only ever remember one car in the back lane in Jesmond – a man [from the posher houses opposite] used to stop at the top of the lane to let his elderly labrador out. We were about half way down the lane and stood back for him to drive down to his house at the bottom of the lane, the dog slowly running behind the car!
No, they’re pretty unique in the UK. Not sure whether it’s a Newcastle thing or North East in general, but this is what you get in the Midlands http://g.co/maps/8jqgw – the bit with the locked gate across (known locally as an ‘entry’).
I like the photo very much but no-one seems to have noticed that the buildings are flats and not houses! Notice the stairs coming down from the top floor.
I sometimes try to predict which pictures will get the most comments but I would never have dreamt that a back lane would draw so many. It’s a funny old world. I wonder if anyone remembers the fish man coming round on his horse and cart with his cries of “sweet caller herrin” which I seem to remember meant fresh herring. When I was a kid we spent most of our lives in the back lanes climbing on walls, no health and safety then, lighting bonfires for Guy Fawkes and keeping them alight until the bin men came around and kicked them out so they make their collections and playing cricket with a dust bin as a wicket no wonder it was so easy to get out. Happy days!