Paul Butler was was my form tutor and physics teacher for a few years when he moved from Usworth to Oxclose School. Fascinating to see him just as I remember him.
Bus service was amazing when I went to secondary school 90-95… was cheap, regular service and usually on time! I could go to Newcastle or Sunderland on a bus for about 25p return journey (bargain) 😂
So sad to see how the Galleries has declined, reflecting a lot of the local problems. It's like a Victorian soup kitchen now. So much poverty around Washington.
They overbuilt. Washington was great from about 1970 to 1980 then any sense of community just seemed to vanish as tens of thousands of new people moved in. Then Sunderland Borough Council took over.
I can still remember smell of the fountain wall on the first floor, I also remember being absolutely fascinated and kind of frightened of the conveyor belt/ dumbwaiter in the cafe at savacentre.
I'm proud of my years spent in and around Washington New town 1970 to 1980. St. Bob's was an absolute blast, Blackfell and Oxclose had tons of energy. Burn's in me, now that I live 3000 miles away.
On the 1967 OS map there is a factory marked simply as "Works" in the V of the railways where one line went south over the Victoria Bridge and the other went west through Biddick Lane.There's a road called "Shepherd Way". Can anyone tell me what it made ?
