leave your wallet and anything else you can pay with back in your lodge when you go to that rip off villiage.

Take it you have been then Accy.

live a couple of miles off but only go to take the dog up the moors. best thing about the place is that plus the steam railway which like everything else now is getting a bit pricy even with my residents rail card.

We’ll have the dogs so I find a bench and let her wander off….I can’t be arsed with the place.

I had honestly never heard of the place or village which is strange when you consider I lived over that part of the country years back.

bet the locals there hate having a blackburn postcode.

Just looked and its Nelson so yes Blackburn post code. I have been to Blackburn Burnley Darwen Oswaldtwistle even Colne many many times but strangely enough never actually visited Nelson ( but passed it many times ) even though I lived only 20 miles away in Tottington for 3 years.

Mention of Blackburn, the place we stop at is out in the sticks but well disguised nearby is the Blackburn training ground, very impressive, with it’s adjoining ‘closed community’ of Executive homes all fenced off with one entrance though a checkpoint…..there’s some money in that, there football business.

do not bother you have missed nothing. like the planners who have done there best to kill the town and anything good about the place. if you do have to visit go on youtube first to see what it was like 50 years ago. Even the football club lost its ground with a motorway being built to take everyone past the town and the junction from hell for anyone wishing to visit.

Well it does sound shit these days Accy just a shame like most places they have been cha ged in the name of so- called progress.

Aye sounds about right, and pretty much the same pattern all over the UK.

Got to hand it to Durham council mind. Who'd have thought that anyone could make Peterlee even worse?

I got made redundant in mid-2020 - and I've still worked more than that fucking clock in the town.

Peterlee - the place where it's always twelve minutes past two..!

Totally nuts. I mean why not take that fxing clock down rather than it just tell the wrong time across the town all day every day.

Don't be giving kenny any idea's Robbie he will probably take you quite literally and pull in down with his car after a few bevvies.

unlike the council its right twice a day.

I remember in the late 70s going into the Raby Arms on friday nights before going to town. A few of us crowded around the fruit machine with one lad using a magnet to bring down the three golden bell jackpot symbols ( which if memory serves was £20? ). We would do it a few times and repeat the drop until the cash fall went below £20 so empty.

If memory serves didnt all cars have a penny slot key hole back in the early 70s. I know we could open a door or boot simply by putting in a coin and turning it slightly. I have no idea who showed the kids these tricks but they worked a treat to get a few bob from the ashtray.

Catapults and homemade bow and arrows. Would be regarded as dangerous these days yet we used them for fun back in the day.

Jumping off the bus platform before it stops…..didn’t half make you little legs whirl.

That brings back a funny memory. I was about 17 yrs old and had been for a few of jars before getting the bus up to Clavering. It was a double decker and I casually stepped off the back in front of a good looking girl stood next to me. Thinking I was cool but ended up rolling down behind the bus for around 25 yrds until it stopped at the bus stop. I jumped up behind the bus smiled at her and casually walked away. Went round the corner and sat down in agony what a twat I made of myself.

Four of us (average age 9) were coming along Catcote Road on the No6…sunny day after tea time we all got on the platform to see who jumped off first…..well as we approached the Pink Dominoe one lad jumped….sadly the conductress hadn’t rang the bell so when he jumped assuming the bus was slowing down his legs went like Billy Whizz…and impacted a garden wall….ended up in St Hilda’s. We couldn’t stop laughing…..but kids are cruel.

A kid a year younger than me when I was in 2nd year tried to jump on the middle door and grab the handle while the bus was pulling off...he slipped. R.I.P.

got to go back to the days of the blackout for this story. a bloke came running down the stairs and went for the grab pole on the platform. for some reason it was missing and to repeat the accident form of the time he disappeared silently into the night. just think of the compo he,d have got if that happened now.

I must have been about 10, but shortly before we moved out of the Manor, three lads roughly my age drowned up on the North Sands …and my brothers best mate in 65 and who was due to start St Bede’s (Martyrs) rode his new bike across Catcote Road next to the Red Admiral and straight under a double deckers front wheels.
There was a display on at the time on the land next to pub and it involved lads from the Parachute regiment doing a demonstration who rushed down and isolated the scene till the services arrived…we all just waited till it was sorted out and went down to see the fire brigade hosing the road down…but oddly enough we just accepted all these things without any trauma, it was just life, shit, but shit happened.

true. we had a lad killed crossing the road and possibly most schools had a death of a pupil at one time. the school was never shut down, classes cancelled for pupils to get councelling. how did we get where we are now.

i used to regularly hitch a lift by hanging onto the back doors (outside) of the bus. Crazy looking back but it meant i could spend my bus fare on sweets in Diducas shop on Chatham Road.

That’d be Ben Diduca by the way.

being a real bus nut i spent my sweet money on riding on the buses as soon as i was allowed to do. A round trip to darlo via the United bus felt like a foreign holiday must have felt for some.

I tried the same sort of trip on the 230 to Sunderland with a white fiver.

The conductor said she couldn't take it until we got to Horden...

IOR - Ken Hodcroft AND stable ownership

just talking about players and football on the pitch and not club ownerships.

United buses with bench seats upstairs

Hoppa buses which had a capacity of about 8 people - not entirely sure what the point was

easy answer. to lower drivers wages.

know one situation where they were handy for a crew to partake more easily in a sexual adventure. we certainly needed an adult version of on the buses back in the days of female clippies to make it more realistic.