My Family

My father, John Featherstone, came from West Hartlepool and my mother, Beatrice Crilley, from Seaton Carew. They were married in St Cuthbert’s Church, Hartlepool in 1920 **check** and they set up home at Seaton Snooks where my father worked in the local zinc works. Not long afterwards, they moved to a nice modern house at No. 13 Graythorp.

My mother raised 10 children, five boys and five girls: Lily, Peggy, Bea, John, Danny, Joan, Jimmy, myself Charlie, Mary and Brian. Also in the family was ‘uncle Dan’ Coleman, a colleague of my father’s at the zinc works, who had lodged with my parents since they were first married. No. 13 Graythorp was a three bedroom, mid-terrace house with a living room, a front sitting room - which doubled as a fourth bedroom and air-raid shelter - a kitchen and a bathroom, although I can remember having a bath only in a zinc tub in front of the living room fire. The water heating for the house was from a small back boiler, which wasn’t very efficient, so perhaps this was the reason for the zinc tub.

The front sitting room was used only to entertain visitors, especially the priest who occasionally came to see my mother on a Sunday afternoon – not that she was a regular churchgoer in those days. She did start to attend church regularly later when we moved to Billingham. My dad was a Wesleyan and did not drink alcohol but he smoked very heavily and this contributed to his ill health in late life.

After the war we opened a fish-and-chip shop in the village. The frying range came from my aunt Mary Geritz, who lived at the Snooks. It had not been used for a long time but with a lot of love and care my parents restored it to working order. I can remember helping to clean the cast-iron pans with a wire brush until they shone. It had two pans: one for the fish and one for the chips. To comply with fire regulations, the building had to be lined with asbestos sheeting, a job undertaken by my brother John who was employed by the shipyard as a joiner. This later proved to be a wise move because the fish shop did catch fire.  It was one Saturday morning when I was 13 years old. I was sent to light the coal fires to heat the oil ready for my mother to open the shop for the lunchtime trade. I had to leave the fires unattended to go and collect the potatoes, which were in large bins at home. By the time I returned, the oil in the pans had caught alight and the chimney soot had also ignited. Mr Moon, who lived near the shop, came in with a bucket of water and threw it over the hot oil causing it to explode into a fireball that rose to the ceiling! Fortunately, no one was hurt and the fire brigade arrived in time to save the building from serious damage. Thanks to the asbestos sheeting and the fire brigade, it was not long before we were back in business.

In 1950, we left Graythorp to live in Haverton Hill where my parents bought a general dealers shop, which was the original ‘Open all hours’. My mother never turned away customers! The shop was a little run down when they bought it but my parents soon had it running as a successful business and later owned two more shops in Haverton Hill. When Haverton Hill was knocked down in the 1960s, due to the pollution from the local Imperial Chemical Industries factory, they moved to two shops in Billingham.