Kirk
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I was 28 years old at the time of this photograph, living at Roseworth, with wife, Doris,and daughter, Judith, aged two. Married at St Peter's Church in 1947, with Rev'd J McGill officiating, a 'wartime' wedding really, with rationing in place, and I in a khaki uniform with royal artillery brass in place, Doris in a treasured but borrowed weddding gown - coupons were reserved for more pressing items then. Two years after the photograph and we three had embarked on the 'Empress of France' from Liverpool to Montreal, Canada, then by train for four days to Edmonton where the oil and gas business, on which I had pinned my hopes, had faded somewhat. Within weeks Pacific Petroleums Ltd had identified my value and we drove 500 miles or so on gravelled highways to Fort St John, living there for the next seven years. We moved east in 1964 to Montreal, influenced by a career move and the chance for a better education for Judith, who became fluent in French within a year. Peter, our son, was four years old when we made that trrip via auto to La Belle Provence, with my parents, Vera and Walter, along for the ride. They were vacationing with us for the summer, and shared with us the experience of house-hunting, purchase. and finally receiving the household effects from Fort St John, having sold our first-owned home there. My father thought we were crazy for leaving Fort St John, which had grown upon him since the spring of that year!
Back to Stockton on Tees ... We have returned numerous times, when family visits were very important, but since the demise of my parents, who had moved from Kilburn Road, where our family of four were primarily raised, the reasons for additional trips became less attractive. Thanks to the archives maintained by the Borough of Stockton I am able to achieve my 'Stockton fix' periodically.
The picture, whilst being familiar, evokes thoughts of ancient times within my life's span - it is dated beyond what I would have deemed correct, but there it is, just as it was when I visited the down-town area so often. At that time I owned a pre-war Austin 10, and so must have parked it many times in the confines of the Median in the High Street.
I never, ever entered the Town Hall. It seemed almost hallowed in my day!
Traffic patterns were ultimately changed, both in the High Street and in the surrounding small, neighbouring streets, making my sense of where I was and how I was to navigate to destinations that were formerly straighforward, extremely complex. At this age I will probably never need to navigate them again. Air travel being so onerous these days severely curtails all thoughts of making a nostalgic trip back to Stockton on Tees, but it remains in my mind and will always stir emotions within.