Remembering The Past

31/08/2026

Burradon

There are some wonderful memories of the mining village of Burradon on our website. This is just an excerpt of one of them, but you can explore may more by visiting our website!

"My childhood in the colliery rows in Burradon were the best days of my life, we had a great welfare (park), co-op, the smallest sweet shop, family butchers, and the smallest picture house you could ever find, which I fondly remember.... All these buildings are now long gone.

... I remember growing up in this little village, a beautiful but old colliery cottage which I loved and lived in as a little girl. The outside toilets and little coal house right opposite the back door. We lived directly in front of the pit baths and canteen where we used to play. Each winter, when the snow would turn to ice, we used to ice-skate up and down the front road without any worries or fears, the days and years just passed by so quickly.

Office Row had approximately 40 houses, we knew just about everyone. We had good neighbours who became good friends, who would look out for you and help you anyway they could..."

https://www.rememberingthepast.co.uk/memory/a-very-sad-day-a-great-step-forward/

30/08/2026

Read the full memory here: https://www.rememberingthepast.co.uk/memory/a-very-sad-day-a-great-step-forward/

24/08/2026

Read the full memory on our website. https://www.rememberingthepast.co.uk/memory/round-and-about-in-monkseaton/

22/08/2026

Monkseaton

“Bygate School had a crab apple tree, the apples look small and very nice but taste them once and you never do so again, they are amazingly bitter and sour. They would make an interesting c***r though.
The second St. Peter’s church was next door to Bygate School but got demolished by a bomb. The first temporary St. Peter’s Church was in what is now the Methodist Chapel before the old Church was built about 1880. My mother took me to Bygate School twice a day and twice a day collected me. Before each return journey, she lifted my brother out of his pram and put two bits of broken church stone under him. Over the months she built quite a nice rockery in our garden, the only consecrated one in the area!
The buildings opposite Bygate School (now the Spar Shop etc), formed a working farm in the 1940s. The little stone shed opposite Jenkinson’s Glass shop housed a bull. Us kids shouted rude words at the bull whereupon it would charge the wall with an almighty crash – very impressive and a bit scary.”

Read the whole memory here: https://www.rememberingthepast.co.uk/memory/round-and-about-in-monkseaton/

Bygate School had a crab apple tree, the apples look small and very nice but taste them once and you never do so again, they are amazingly bitter and sour. ...

21/08/2026

We’ve been a bit quiet lately as some of our volunteers are having a well earned summer break! We thought that this might be a good opportunity to look into our archives and feature some of the stories and areas of our region that we haven’t shared for a while. Keep checking our feed and you might spot a memory from your area!

27/07/2026

Shared Ground - Burradon
Last week we kicked off a new project in Burradon with two fantstic sessions. This project is funded by our National Archives ‘seedcorn grant’ which is part of their Spaces, Places and Belonging programme.
Here we are using archive images and maps to explore how Burradon and Camperdown villages have changed over time, and in particular how the spaces and places in the village that children and young peope played and socialised in have changed over time.
In september we’ll be working with the local
Primary school to compare and contrast young people’s experiences of the village today.

27/07/2026

A very different holiday experience compared to today. Find more wonderful memories like this on our website.

27/07/2026

Shared Ground - Burradon
Last week we kicked off a new project in Burradon with two fantstic sessions. This project is funded by our National Archives ‘seedcorn grant’ which is part of their Spaces, Places and Belonging programme.
Here we are using archive images and maps to explore how Burradon and Camperdown villages have changed over time, and in particular how the spaces and places in the village that children and young peope played and socialised in have changed over time.
In september we’ll be working with the local
Primary school to compare and contrast young people’s experiences of the village today.
better National Archives UK

14/07/2026

We're recruiting digital volunteers!
Once our interviewers have collected memories and recordings there's still a lot of work that needs to be done to process the raw material and get it ready for our website. If you have the skills to help with this we would love to hear from you.
We need help with:
Editing oral history recordings,
Creating sound clips for our website,
Cataloguing digitally,
Updating our website using WordPress,
Digitising items from our collection.

Contact: [email protected] to find out more.