I was educated at the Girls’ Upper Standard School in Princess Road, Seaham, being amongst the first pupils to open that school. Our Headmistress was Miss Aird, whose family claimed to be amongst the oldest inhabitants of Seaham Harbour. She was a grand lady and was a great student of Shakespeare’s work. Her brother was an art master, and I attended his classes at the Sunderland ‘Old Lec’ for some seasons. I well remember when I was chosen from Dawdon School to sit the entrance examination for the Upper Standard. Mother said, “No, definitely not”. You see, my oldest sister had been chosen to study for teaching in the Londonderry School, but after a week of homework she would not stick it. Mother said I would probably be the same, so it was a waste of time. I got about four girls to call for me (all living at the Cottages) on the night of the examinations, so after quite a struggle
Mother said yes, but with the added warning that if I was successful I must never grumble at the work, and I never did. Two of us were chosen from our class at Dawdon and that was how it all began. In the meantime we moved to Seaham Colliery so I had to travel on foot everyday as there were no forms of transport. I walked down the long ‘Farm Road’, crossed over the railway bridge onto the ‘Colliery Road’, crossed another bridge onto the ‘Black Road’ now called Strangford Road and on to Princess Road. I had seen Princess Road built from just a stony track, and both Dawdon and Princess Road schools brick by brick.
By this time the First World War had started and soldiers were billeted in the field beside our school – they were the Staffords. We watched them training and marching to the tune of ‘Away to our Mountains’ from Il Travatore. They went to the front and were almost wiped out to a man. What a sad waste of lovely manhood. Tempers were running high and a German Pork butcher’s place was the target for everybody when word got round about the Staffords and their destruction. The occupiers of the shop had to be taken into custody for their own safety and their property was badly damaged. I remember the submarine attack on Seaham when luckily only one person was killed and the Zeppelin was destroyed off the coast by Big Lizzie. It had bombed Sunderland and was moving south above the sea off Seaham Harbour.
We had a gun squad stationed in a field at Yate’s Farrow. That was just past the school where I taught later on. The gun was called Big Lizzie and it was supposed to be a military secret. There were search lights too and it was a great event to see these playing across the sky at night. The crews were feted and spoiled by everybody. Came the night of the Zeppelin when sirens sounded and the search lights flashed and everybody en masse raced into the streets to watch. Men climbed up trees and lamp posts and onto roofs to get a grandstand view as Big Lizzie opened up with her shells. We could see the Zeppelin like a brilliant brooch in the search lights which followed its flight and at last a burst of gun fire broke it right in two and it fell into the sea.
There was shouting and cheering and dancing in the street and of course we all claimed our Big Lizzie had done the trick. But there were other Big Lizzies stationed around the outlying districts so it was a controversy which lasted forever. Then the crowds became more sober for some poor mother would receive the same message as ours were receiving every hour of every day. “Missing presumed killed”. We thought they were dreadful lines with the telegram boys running day and night and all the fine young fellows we knew personally from the cricket and tennis clubs and the Mission boys all being slaughtered . I could weep now when I picture them – eighteen to twenty-ones. Your Dad’s own brother David was one of them. Ben took this very badly, although I did not know him at the time. Then he lost a half-brother called Norman and there were three more away at the time.
I remember seeing this very young boy sitting on the end of a form at one of our threepenny hops at the mission room. He looked so very, very young and he was in uniform. I learned afterwards that it was Wilfie Arthur, half brother to Ben Hodges. Ben at that time was running all these social things to get money to make a big welcome home party for the boys when the war was over. We had a long, long wait and not many of the ‘Old Brigade’ lived to return. But we had a party and everyone received a hymn book. To you this might seem an odd thing, but I can assure you the poor fellows appreciated it.
My mother, poor soul, stood in queues for hours on end, sometimes her reward being a quarter pound of bacon. We grew our own onions and potatoes, and you should have seen the tin of panacelty this bacon made, as the old miner said, “We could make soup out of the dish cloth”. It was really four long weary years of make do, but those of us who survived were only too pleased to be alive. Ben’s brother was killed very near to his 21st birthday. My sister’s boyfriend was killed within one month of landing in France. I remember he was in the territorials and on the Bank Holiday Monday I went with my sister straight from the fairground to Seaham Harbour Railway Station to see him off. He had one leave for a week-end and we never saw him again.
Ben could not join the forces as he had a crippled arm. He was very put out about this but he worked very hard for those who had been called up. He worked in the office at Seaham Colliery and evenings were spent working to make parcels for the forces, and he was on call for the ambulance service. He had always attended night classes to further his office work and he attended ambulance classes to help in his work at the pit. He took the lady to the Infirmary when she was fatally hurt in the submarine attack. Although I knew him as one of the Mission boys at this time I had no further acquaintance with him until we discovered our birthdays were the same. We were twenty-one, a rather special birthday, and as we were often dancing partners and we discovered at a dance that night that we were celebrating our twenty-first, it made us take more notice of each other.