Jack Common, in his autobiographical novel ‘Kiddar’s Luck’, was famously negative about some of his school experiences. For, as many readers will know, 44 Third Avenue was his home and he wrote: ‘ …when you could call and totter, you always made for the street whenever the door was open. It has been said of Common that his writing was, ‘warm, ironic and quirky’. Interestingly, Douglass then goes on to talk of how he felt sympathy for Common in his role as worker-writer. Smajo  says that people in Heaton and the north east of England share a lot of similarities with Bosnians – they are friendly, with a lot of time for people, just like people in Bosnia. He states that they had no option but to flee. This quality, being a great writer, but being from a genuine working-class background is what set Common apart. Parallel lives just 150 metres and four years apart. Ken was a teacher at Chillingham Road primary school, which serves the Heaton area of Newcastle, and gained funding as a focus of the school's work in the community. The occupations are just as diverse as those on the next street. Rain or shine, along with friends living near me, I walked to school each day and home again for lunch. The woman was a natural overlooker.’. It has also been claimed that it was at this school that Common developed a lifelong love of the poetry of Shelley. Is that always the curse of the so-called ‘working-class writer?’. Especially as it was only built as recently as 1928, so wasn’t exactly ancient. This is the story of Smajo and his family….and other Bosnians who fled the deadly war and horrific concentration camps of Bosnia and came to the sanctuary of Tyneside will have similar tales to tell. School-yard games included (for those of us who wore boots protected with metal studs to save shoe leather; and that was most of us) being hauled by a long column of boys around the smooth concrete, sliding at great speed whilst on hunkers. Indeed it has been noted that Tyneside’s notions of working-class solidarity were an anathema to the bullying tendencies of the racists. Contact. A pretty regular daily menu, Mondays always being Sunday’s leftovers .Occasionally we had jelly having been left  to set covered outside on a window sill. The 1970’s reprise, ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads’ is clearly set more firmly on Tyneside, with the pictures of a changing Newcastle during the intro and outro music and its habitual Whitley Bay jokes, but still one of the two likely lads themselves is played by Bingley-born Rodney Bewes, while another Yorkshire-born actor, Brian Glover has a starring role in perhaps the most famous of all the episodes, when Bob and Terry try to avoid the score of an England match. Their eldest son Henry was to become a major in the Tyneside Scottish Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He says that this is an outsiders’ explanation and simply not true. We move forward to 1946 where we find a record that George Elliott returned for the forces. Smajo was playing outside but when he ran back in, he saw his mother crying, while watching television. Common’s father was a railwayman and so it is no wonder that he recollects a railway strike on page 51. However, his influence wasn’t strong enough to dissuade us from singing the following at the Christmas service: ‘We three kings of Water-logged Spa are selling toffee threepence a bar; matches tenpence,          Fags elevenpence, that’s what the prices are. In summer 1919, every schoolchild in Newcastle was given their own, personally inscribed, copy of a booklet commemorating the ‘Signing of the Great Peace’ on 28 June. Jack Common, on the other hand, always stressed his working class credentials. He soon won admirers throughout the 1930s as a writer with a genuine proletarian viewpoint, as distinct from the purveyors of middle-class Marxist fiction. Here, Basil Peacock’s memories of marbles: ‘Most marbles were then made of pot (fired clay). She used a belt to reprimand pupils. Basil Peacock wrote that from the age of three as ‘some schools administered by local authorities were prepared to take toddlers into the baby class providing they were properly weaned and toilet trained.’, ‘Coming from a “respectable” family, and being rather a timid and retiring child, I found it difficult at first to associate with more robust and turbulent pupils coming from less orderly homes, who spoke in extreme Geordie dialect, so I dwelt on the words of my school teacher, which I could understand, and gained her approbation as a “bright pupil”’. On page 19, Common states that he, ‘belonged to that street by the same right that I had to belong to one particular family on it….often the lamplighter was on his rounds before all the small fry were safely back in their boxes’. I was four years old now, I suppose, thin, rather weakly, too feminine in appearance for the taste of the local matrons but undeniably bright; and while sprawling on the floor with a comic open at the pictures of Weary Willie and Tired Tim, or Dreamy Daniel, or Casey Court, or the Mulberry Flatites, I found that the captions under suddenly began to read themselves out to me. I  believe their daughter, Lily, was serving as a  Land Girl. Schoolchildren were also supposed to be given a commemorative mug but not enough could be produced within the short timescale. There were three front steps to each dwelling leading to a small tiled level surface before the front door. Common relates that, ‘by luck, we found the surly Seventh in just the right mood. A peace agreement with Croatians had been signed, but no agreement had been concluded with the Serbs and the nightmare of the genocide at Srebrenica was still to come a year later. One party in lower Pilgrim Street bedecked with flags, bunting and red and white chalked kerb stones, was painted by local artist, Joseph Potts. See property details on Zoopla or browse all our range of properties in Chillingham Road, Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE6. He spoke sharp and hurt her, he didn’t want to hear about the people she had met in town that day..’. Jack Common takes up the story thus: ‘Wilf and I ran on to Eighth. Orwell was famously rather envious of Common, stating that Common was the writer he would like to have been. How barmy was that! In primary, when wet, we would be entertained by Miss Brown playing the piano. One recipient was Dorothy Mary Flann who, aged 10 years old, had just started Chillingham Road Senior School. Alas Chillingham Road School had a glass roof  so  children were sent to North Heaton School. Researched and written by Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group. It was particularly difficult for his mother; she was leaving her parents behind to see her husband in Newcastle. We had to rattle off our message before we were scragged – we did all of that twice over. Common could write about the harshness of working-class life in Heaton, but as we see here was also more than capable of writing of the glorious setting so much of Tyneside enjoys to this day. Unfortunately, there was a train strike with the result that the wood for the makeshift grandstand and theatrical scenery did not arrive and so the council had to spend its own money to ensure that the pageant took place. At the time of his death his parents were living in Newport, Monmouthshire but are recorded as ‘Native of Newcastle upon Tyne’. Meanwhile nearby Ravenswood Primary School initiated a campaign to try and stop the deportation of a pupil and their family back to Croatia. Smajo makes it clear now that while the conflict in Bosnia is often explained by using the argument that there were ancient hatreds, which just exploded like a deadly human volcano and there was an inevitability about it all, he doesn’t doesn’t agree. But it does seem a pity that you will look in vain to find mention of any books by Common in the National Curriculum or in most north-east schools. This was because Common had genuine working-class roots in Heaton, the likes of which Orwell might have yearned for, but could never have claimed. Please look out for these emails. After a brief unsuccessful search for John Brown and John Brown Jnr as well as John and Leonard Davies I moved to Edwin and Thomas Lant. Different to the traditional 'Tyneside Flats' in the area, this property has a solid background of rental history and is excellently located for proximity to all the amenities nearby. This property is located at 86a Heaton Road, Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE6 5HL and has an estimated current value of £140,000. The north-east born playwright, Alan Plater, once described the way Jack Common described his birth in ‘Kiddar’s Luck’ as part of a ‘bobby-dazzling opening chapter’ in which Common bemoans his genes missing out on much more genteel places of birth, such as lush Sussex, many a solid Yorkshire village, affluent Mayfair and Surrey soft spots to instead be born into the relative poverty of a railwayman’s family near the East Coast mainline in Heaton. Inevitably all this childhood ‘fun’ had to come to an end once local adults had got wind of what was happening. Yet, if the universal themes of the work of the Bronte sisters from Haworth can be acknowledged then perhaps so will Common’s one day. In this, his third piece, Eric Dale, who lived in Eighth Avenue Heaton from 1939, remembers his schooldays: ‘I attended Chillingham Road School from 1942 until 1949. He was born in Middleham, Yorks, the second youngest of nine children. She loved the town and was happiest in company, with the full household of her childhood. NE1 6UF | Reg Co. No: 08077334, Campus North, 5 Carliol Square, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Margaret, my elder sister, was just about to start school. Jack Common’s story, ‘Nineteen’, which was first printed in the 1931 edition of the London-based literary journal ‘Adelphi’ is seen as a case in point. What Claire did I will never forget for the rest of my life and we can all learn so much for that one act.’. Heaton is very much their home and most Bosnians in Newcastle live in Heaton and High Heaton. Students from Chillingham Road Primary School were filmed singing on school grounds the day before school closures as a way of showing their support for NHS workers. In Bosnia the outward appearance of religion was not obvious, particularly from a child’s perspective; there were a lot of mixed marriages and people were not treated differently. When one teacher told me to “go upstairs and get some clips” (the stockroom being in the Senior Boys Department,) it made me giggle, but I didn’t dare let her see this. Chillingham Road School, 1994 (Copyright: Eric Dale). In Primary we competed in the North of England Music Tournament at City Hall, where as a small choir singing two or three songs we were highly placed. A few decades after the time about which Common was writing in ‘Kiddar’s Luck’, Oswald Mosely, leader of the British Union of Fascists stated that the north-east with its high unemployment in the 1930’s should become a ‘storm centre’ for his new fascist movement. If you have memories or photographs of your Heaton schooldays, please either post them directly to this site by clicking on the link underneath the article title or email them to chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org. A similar renaissance of northern English literature and culture in general is long overdue and Common could and should be a major part of it. Common, on page 17, notes that the ‘street was usually lively enough. One day a school pupil was run down by one as he made his way to school, I believe he survived the accident. Oriental patience might withstand the loud chanting of ”Ching, Ching, Chinaman, choppy, choppy, chop” by a choir of twerps around his door, but when that door was frequently flung open, its bell jangling, to enable one of that choir to fling in a couple of damp horse-turds that might land among the parcels of finished washing, then the love of cleanliness, natural to a laundryman, must have been offended beyond the immediate consolation of Chinese philosophy’. This mixed-sex primary school has 247 pupils, with a capacity of 260, aged from two up to eleven, and the type of establishment is foundation school. Not on this occasion however: On page 54-5, Common states that, ‘often enough the invaders were met and turned back on the bridge itself; this time however, we were caught napping. Indeed it has been noted that, ’In 1951 Turnstile Press published Common’s best-known book, the autobiographical “Kiddar’s Luck”, in which he vividly describes his childhood on the streets of  Edwardian Tyneside, as seen through the lens of his adult socialism. Common describes the different entrances for different aged pupils at Chillingham Road School during his time there. In 1949 I began attending Heaton Grammar School in form 1c and stayed at ‘c’ level until the fourth year when I became a ‘d’, not exclusively due to my own lack of application. I would like to think that even in the darker days we are going through at the present, this type of racist behaviour would not be expected in the Heaton of 2020. Fifty nine names from the First World War along with seventy eight from World War Two are listed on St Gabriel’s Church war memorial. He had been fighting the common enemy for the ideal of a multicultural Bosnia. More work for Mam having to arrange blackout curtains etc. We are always interested to receive information, memories and photos relevant to the history of Heaton. Claire remembers going to the school gates that first morning and that she had no real knowledge of what Smajo and other children from Bosnia had gone through. For years to come we’d see midwife Jean around Heaton,  Mam continually reminding me that she was the reason for my name Jean. So, while Common wrote of the excitement of North Heaton School being commandeered as temporary barracks and of school being reduced to half days, Peacock joined first the Junior Training League and then Durham University OTC before signing up, ‘aged seventeen and a half’ and eventually serving as a commissioned officer with the Northumberland Fusiliers. Both bothers are remembered on the Chillingham Road School WW1 Memorial. He has three younger siblings but there is no mention of Thomas. As soon as you got into that dangerous area, however, some girl would come to lift you up and totter with you back to safety. Of course the railway was arguably more important then, at a time when people didn’t own cars. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org. The latter lived on Rothbury Terrace. Consequently, the school requested a meeting with his parents to discover why he wasn’t talking and subsequently things improved. Chillingham Road School interior (undated). The soldiers told them to go a nearby concentration camp. He is buried at Hannerscamps New Military Cemetery. A daughter had died age 5. They had found out just before they left Stolac and then heard nothing for months. This generated a great many sparks and had the added advantage of warming the feet! Baby Dorothy (5 months) sleeping peacefully in her cot, Mam decided  unusually to leave her at home. He remembers that he was taken there with a Croatian interpreter. General enquiries . Newton Road again but this time to buy a small loaf, scoop out the middle and eat that, then fill, If you have memories or photographs of your Heaton schooldays, please either post them directly to this site by clicking on the link underneath the article title or email them to, https://heatonhistorygroup.org/2015/02/07/jack-commons-avenues/, The Great Peace: a Heaton schoolgirl’s memento, Class Act? What would you do if you did see children going in somebody else’s yards? If you were walking between Chillingham Road and Heaton Road down Third Avenue and Cheltenham Terrace back in 1904, you might well have encountered two year old Jack Common on the street. Maybe the crucial difference is that sixty-five years ago we ran around a lot more and burned the extra calories off. Welcome to Chillingham Road Primary School Website Newcastle. All in all it is hard to disagree with Keith Armstrong, when he says of ‘Kiddar’s Luck’, that Common’s earlier writing was, ‘followed by imaginatively twisted tales of childhood and teenage in Kiddar’s Luck (1951) and The Ampersand (1954), which surely rank among the very best descriptions of growing up working-class ever committed to paper.’ It also begs one more question: who is writing about Heaton today with such compassion, understanding and real insights? Memories are vague now  although I do recall a teacher Mrs Whitehouse  who absolutely terrified me and others. Very serious this. An army instructor suggested that Peacock study medicine when the war was over and that, after qualifying, he apply for a regular commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Remembering Chillingham Road School . Finally home in 1947 with a serious limp, he couldn’t go back to his Heaton postman job but was given work at Orchard Street Sorting Office. Philip Hensher, editor of ‘The Penguin Book of the British Short Story’ , in which ‘Nineteen’ was republished in 2015, said: ‘What I loved about “Nineteen” was its understanding of how broad and varied working class culture could be, and its warm and humane understanding of two young people. I hadn’t been at school long when I developed scarlet fever. Smajo’s father lost 27kg in his first few weeks there. I think a Dr Bell was in attendance and a midwife called Jean. They would have to, in any case, because Third Avenue parents were now at their doors and a lot of our lads were being ordered to lay down their arms. Fortunately one soldier recognised the family and got into the car with them, so they were able to go to another house. Poor Freddy. ... Chillingham Public School. On page 5 of ‘Kiddar’s Luck’, Common relates how he ‘came upon the frost-rimmed roofs of a working-class suburb in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and in the upstairs flat in a street parallel with the railway line, on which a halted engine whistled to be let through the junction…’  This gives us a clear image of the Avenues around South Heaton at the start of the 20th century. Our talk will take place on Wednesday 24 April 2019 at The Corner House, Heaton NE6 5RP at 7.30pm (Doors open at 7.00pm. Consequently, they have integrated well, with many Bosnians becoming doctors or working in other professions. The five Robson brothers could be trusted to hold their own Fifth for a bit. Like most buildings in this part of Heaton, the two properties date from the late nineteenth century. This ‘other England’ would indeed take decades after Common’s best work to even be fully discovered. Whilst his parents were living in Brighton, his wife, Annie Isabella was living at 12 Holly Avenue, Wellfield. They were always about, hurrying along clean-faced towards the sharp dawn paling the signal lamps over the lines, drifting wearily back on an afternoon sun; in groups jolly and joking in the Chillingham Hotel or outside the social club, in pairs coming out of the light of the blue arc lamps at the end of the shift and ready for their bed. NB p76. Denmark Street, 1945 Certainly racism was unfortunately part of the life of some young people growing up in Heaton at the same time as Common. On page 56, Common talks about the trials that a man from China had to go through due to appalling behaviour from some young people in Heaton. Other parks had dancing until 10pm at night. There is 1911 record of Ernest Watson living in Jesmond with his father John and mother Margaret as well as younger siblings. Most of the teachers were single ladies and quite strict. The uncle was taken a few days later and they saw it happening. If you know anything else about any of the people mentioned in this article, please get in touch either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org. He is buried there. One in particular remains a friend to this day, even though she now lives in Scotland. Some of the more exotic ones, for example from the south of England became much sought-after and were used as ‘currency‘ or for swaps. Smajo’s father had to take a ferry, then a bus to Zagreb, walking on enemy territory, when he could have been killed any time. However, the school had not been told that he was from a war zone. In June the Red Cross picked up Smajo and his immediate family  so that they could join Smajo’s father. One incident I recall was when she used it on   Cynthia Jackson, a girl  who wore a calliper on her leg. He lost his life on 4th October 1917, age 24, serving in the 12th/13th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. Race and Migration in Northeast England since 1945 / D Renton; University of Sunderland Press, 2007, https://libcom.org/blog/common-words-wandering-star-keith-armstrong-06032010, Researched and written by Peter Sagar, Heaton History Group. Thomas is also on the Royal Grammar School Memorial. I could read myself! If you were clever were top of the class you received a medal. The streets might not have been packed with cars, but Heaton’s streets were still busy. ….A little way down the street their girls were skipping with a big rope, two turning, the rest running in, pair after pair, while all chanted, “Never mind the weather girls,; in and out the fire girls” We asked the girls who were waiting, where the lads were. Diverse occupations but definitely no pitmen! However, there is a significant proportion of pupils from a diverse They were still friendly and Smajo’s dad knew the commander and he was able to reassure Smajo’s family that even though they were Muslim they would be alright. At evensong on November 27 1921 the new war memorial was dedicated. There was English folk dancing in Jesmond Dene, as well as bands in parks throughout the city. Smajo’s early childhood was pretty idyllic, living under a beautiful mountain, surrounded by nature. At 9.30pm, the Tyneside Scottish Pipe Band processed around the city streets and an illuminated tramcar seemed to cover the whole tram network, leaving Byker Depot at 5.30pm for Scotswood Bridge before returning via Barras Bridge, Newton Road, Heaton Junction before finally ending up back at Byker Depot at 11.15pm. The Croatian troops who went there in August 1993 torched every sign of Muslim existence – with even the local mosque foundations dug up and archives burnt. George’s brother, Edgar, who would have been 14, does not appear at home in the 1911 census, which was something of a mystery until Arthur found, in a Chillingham Road School admissions book, that he had been awarded a Flounders Scholarship, named after a Quaker industrialist called Benjamin Flounders. The elderly died on the side of the street and they were all shelled and shot at. His own father had fought with the Partisans against the Nazis in WW2 , but now Smajo’s dad was up against what was still then the Yugoslav army, then the fourth biggest in Europe. £2 for non-members. He didn’t care who he took from Stolac. He is buried at Godewaersvelde British Cemetery. The ILP Hall on Shields Road was the meeting place of anarchists, pacifists, the old ILP and the exponents of direct action…’  If you can excuse the pun, this kind of identification with Common’s work is not uncommon, among a number of commentators. Fortunately Dorothy survived unscathed even though glass was all around. In it were the names of 75 who belonged to St Gabriel’s before giving their lives for their country. However. On the contrary, Bosnia was a country where people of different religions co-existed very peacefully. If you'd like us to keep in touch with all of our latest events and news, join our mailing list above. During air raids we would go across the road to the Taylor family air raid shelter. There are also a number of primary schools spread over the area: Ravenswood Primary School, Chillingham Road Primary School, Hotspur Primary School and St. Theresa's Primary School. Which brings us neatly to the issue of gang warfare in Edwardian Heaton…. Smajo sometimes thinks of what might have happened if he and his family hadn’t come to Heaton. Jews, for example, were made to feel welcome in Bosnia when they were not welcome in other parts of Europe. The Peacocks considered themselves middle class. Newcastle Central MP Jim Cousins was among those who helped them get to Newcastle. I once thought of becoming a postman so I could wear such a uniform. Not only did local tradesmen fill the streets of Edwardian Heaton but, on page 18, Common tells us that, ‘behind our houses, as was general in that district, ran the back lane.
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