Car boots and Castlegate

Now, it would be remiss of me to not start off this post by mentioning the passing of our dear old Queen Elizabeth II at the ripe old age of 96.

Anyway, I mention this, as it meant that plans for this weekend were a bit sketchy if they went ahead or not.

Let’s rewind a new days. I got sent a flyer on facebook… there was a car boot sale in an area of Stockton I’d never visited. Now, Stockton is a couple of towns over, and this wasn’t a journey that could have been made by bus. I asked Chris if he fancied it, and the answer was to the affirmative.

Evenrything was planned… until the sad death of our former monarch. Pretty much the country stopped. Horse races were cancelled. Football was stopped. Even the BBC dropped their coverage of the final Diamond League athletics meeting of the year halfway through their coverage of the women’s 3,000 metre steeplechase. The country had ground to a halt.

Understandably, there’s a period of mourning, and I was wondering if this car boot sale had been cancelled. I asked on facebook. Nobody got back to me.

Saturday morning rolled around, and I took a chance. Yeah, we’re going. The entire journey for me had a nagging, painful memory of a car boot sale that didn’t happen,back in… oooh, let’ws say 1996. Back then, I’d arranged with Chris to go to a similar car boot sale in Billingham on an early Sunday morning. Now, this was long before Facebook was a thing, and real-time information on events was non-exisent. Either way, Chris’s dad drove us up and down this road where it was meant to be… aaand no sign of it. Absolute waste of a journey, and I felt awful for it.

As I mentioned, I ‘took the plunge’ Google’s sat nav guided us to the destination. The church was there, and there were some stalls set up. Phew.

Overall, there were meant to be 33 stalls. There might have been than many, I didn’t count. I’d been though a few stalls, and picked up 6 from one at 50p each.

Now, the next stall I visited was… shall we say, awkward.. I’m going through some more CDs, at 50p each. While flicking through, and picking one or two from a particular artist, I heard the words “He liked those”. My heart sank. I knew what was coming next.

The sellers were two women, probably late 60s, early 70s. I’m clearly looking through some of the CDs that a late son had once owned. Oh my.

I was in too deep at this point. I’d picked some out, but I clearly wasn’t going without a few more, was I? Admittedly, I had a couple of them which I left behind, but the rest of those came home with me. “Think Of [Dave] While you’re listening to them!” were her parting words….

Shortly after that, the heavens opened. Thankfully, we’d managed to go through the entire car boot sale before the rain started. It was time to go, and head into Stockton’s town centre itself.

Now, 2022 is a bit of a time of change for Stockton. The “Castlegate Centre” that has been “at the heart of Stockton” for at least 40 years, is getting flattened. I have very good memories of this centre. And I hope you’ll excuse me if I go on a bit of a ramble. I’m archiving memories of a (now defunct) shopping centre….

Let’s go back to the 80s. I remember being there, must have been something like October or November, as the Christmas decorations were being put up. the fluorescent lanterns that were used to illuminate the external walkways were 4ft Thorns. At this time I don’t have an exact model number, but they were the same that were used in Hartlepool, and that’s what made them stand out to me.

Let’s fast forward to the 90s. In 1991, before I even owned a proper record player, I picked up my first “proper bought” single, “Carribean Blue” by Enya. It was either this, or “World In Union” by Kiri Te Kanawa. The Rugby world Cup had been happening at the time. There was something like 20p difference, which made me choose Enya. Plus, it had “Orinoco Flow” on the B side. A song I vaguely remember liking at the time. I remember going back to my cousin Julie’s house, and listening to both sides on her record player, as she lived near the Stockton railway station at the time.

So, as I mentioned, it’s getting flattened. Like a lot of shopping centres, it’s suffered a massive decline, and Stockton council think it’s going to be better off replacing it with a park.

Here’s a “few” photos I took at the weekend.

A brightly lit, modern shopping centre, with three people in it.

This was Kitsons butcher’s last day.

This left one shop still open… Herons. Quite surprisingly, this was the last shop before you hit the barricade of where they were demolishing the place. I asked the ‘lady’ behind the counter how long it had left. “A few more weeks”, she grunted, as the new shop in “Welly Square” was still being prepared. I genuinely don’t think she was much into conversation, or communication in general.

Even the parking meters had been “evicted”…

Did this mean the car park was free? I’ll never know. There was, however, a “graffiti wall”, where memories could be posted of the place… I was very disappointed with the complete lack of actual vandalism, and people posting actual memories of the place.

So, yeah. this will almost certainly be my final trip into Castlegate. I’ve just had a couple of memories come into my mind while typing these. There used to be a “Cash Generator” in there. I remember picking up some great vinyl from there which they were getting rid of, for 20p a pop. At some point, it moved across the road, became “Tyne Bargains”, and became of little interest to me, as they stopped selling music.

This was also one of the sites of my final “That’s Entertainment” pilgrimage when I found out they were closing. I picked up a box of empty CD cases from there for 50p. To this day, the cardboard box full of empty CD cases is still cluttering up the kitchen. Whoops. This very same store wa also the one I picked up “Now That’s What I Call Music! 4” on CD, for 49p. I’ve seen it go for hundreds of pounds with the case… sadly, mine was just the CD and therefore probably worth nowt.

Oh yeah, I also bought “Faithful” by Go West from there. It was exactly a week after my mother’s funeral, and it was also the first time Id ever been over the Transporter Bridge…

Right. We’re getting a bit too deep into the memory banks there, so let’s just draw this bit to a close. I hope that somewhere down the line, these photos remind someone of The Castlegate shopping centre…

UPDATE OCTOBER 2022: I can confirm the shopping centre has now closwd down, though B+M, Barclays and maybe another one will remain. Can’t remember. These are all accessible from the high street. No doubt these will go in the future too.

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2023: the demolition continued. They’ve taken a fair chunk out of the old Swallow Hotel now too.

There’s a chance I’ll be going back at the weekend for a proper look at the weekend, so I’ll post a proper update if I manage to get any decent shots. I’m not sure how much of it is fenced off.

Bye bye Steetley part 3, the demolition

Well, it’s all over. the dust has literally settled, there is officially no more steetley Chimney. After many decades overlooking the residents of Hartlepool, its fate was sealed at 11:06AM, and it crashed to the ground in a cloud of black smoke.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have as many cameras covering the event as I anticipated, but I still managed to get these…

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Bye-bye Steetley, part 1

I know I’ve left it a bit late, seeing as there’s less than 12 hours, before this local landmark gets blown up, but I am indeed sad to see the old thing go.

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Those of you not from Hartlepool won’t know this place, unless you’ve came into Hartlepool from the north. It’s the big huge chimney that stood next to the tran track, and was surrounded by rubble. After the entire site being a death trap for many years, at 11AM tomorrow, the chimney stack will be demolished. the rest of the site, which has also been flattened over the last few months, will then be covered with crushed stone and a housing estate built on top of it. A sad, undignified end to something which was, for my entire life, such a prominent part of it. For those of you who know Mercuryvapour Towers, you’ll know that the chimney is visible from the front window, which means I saw it at least once a day for my entire 32.5 years of existence (minus holidays and foggy days, naturally).

The question that I keep asking myself is, am I sad to see it go? Some days I’d look out and think “I really wish they’d get rid of that eyesore”, next day I’ll look out and think “I’ll miss it when it’s gone. The end of an era”. Its purpose was to extract magnesia from seawater.

Steetley has had many names over the years. Some readers may remember it as the Pallister works, others simply as “Redland Magnesia”, which was one of the last companies to own it before it closed. I’m pretty sure most of the local area knows of at least one person who worked there.

There are three things that were certain in nearby West View – death, taxes, and the fact that Steetley would kick out its unmistakable stench as soon as your mam put the washing out. The smell was an ungodly mix of chlorine and rotten eggs, and if the wind was coming in off the sea, the entire estate spent the next half-hour gagging. The afore-mentioned Washing would also need to be done again too, as there would be little yellow spots all over it.

Steetley also featured in the very first time I borrowed a camcorder, was Wayne’s. Some of you may, or may not mention Wayne. He was someone who I went to school with for a bit, was really good friends with up until about 2000, and then almost completely disappeared off the face of the planet. Past mentions of him on here, feature a recording of his mam asking Wayne… “Is he still an alco?” More on that, in another post.

Anyway, the very first camcorder I ever borrowed was his. He had an interest in lasers, and we both lived a mile from Steetley, albeit at different angles. One night, he left his camcorder over here, and we talked over ye olde CB radio while he shone the laser pointer onto Steetley to see if I could see it, or if the camcorder would pick it up. The answer was a resounding no. I don’t know why either of us thought it’s be possible to see a dot the size of a pinhead on a structure 1 mile away. Still, I got to use his camcorder for a bit, and yes, I still have the tape I made somewhere. I doubt he still has his copy. In fact I don’t even think he remembers who I am.

The fact that Steetley was also visible from so far away was also another “attraction” for me. As a kid, I made a couple of trips to Roseberry Topping. I always wanted to know if Steetley was visible from there. Unfortunately, each of the days we’d chosen were no good for viewing. It wasn’t until April last year that I confirmed with my own eyes and camera that it was visible – a distance of exactly 14.67 miles.

I had plenty more memories going around in my head, but it’s approaching 2AM. I’m going to get some shots in the morning before it goes…
I have a million other memories and photos to go through,

It’s finally, finally happened.

Since I started attending flea markets and car boot sales back in about 1993, when my Aunt Rose took me down one Wednesday morning, I have been after owning one object. It has, as far as I know, never been there. Everything else has been sold, including broken smoke alarms, rubbers in potties, and more second-hand underwear than you could shake a nasty gonorrhea infection at.

This particular object is, thankfully, none of the above, it is in fact a 7″ copy of “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby and The Range. Eagle-eyed flickr-ists will notice I already have one copy, but I got that from ebay. It’s easy to get them ebay. There’s no challenge, and no sense of achievement.

Yeterday, I awoke on the sofa at 8AM. It looked like a sunny day, so off I went.

Something which is very odd, is the fact that around near where I live, they’re flattening the old hospital buildings which have been there for years. Lots of years. I’ve discussed on here that I’m glad to see the back of them, as they were very cold and sinister. Not nice places to be in at all, especially when you’re a six year old getting your chest x-rayed in them… ooo, childhood flashback.

Anyway, yes. There buildings, I believe, date back to the days when treatment was more of a punishment. I have heard it used to be a mental asylum of some sort. The surrounding walls actually have broken glass bottles embedded in the concrete. I don’t know whether that was to stop people getting in, or to stop them escaping. I guess I’ll never know. Either way, these buildings have now be reduced to this.

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Anyway, I put the camera away, and headed towards the flea market, a mere short bus ride away, which cost me £1.05. Jaysus.

I had no intention of staying a while, or anything over a few minutes, if I’m honest, but it was pretty busy, and there were a good few stalls there, for once.

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However, the ones that stood out, were the ones I didn’t expect to be any good. There’s always a few stalls which appear to be full of garbage and rusty metalwork or rusty tools, which nothing worth looking at. I walked past one of these stalls, and saw some random guy flipping through some records. I had been bitterly disappointed by the CD’s on offer from one of the stalls which are normally quite good (£1 each, and I’ve bought some great ones from there in the past.), so I thought I’d take a look. That’s when I found “it”. Its yellow, creased cover, staring back at me. The title, arranged in a semi-circle, in the middle of the cover. It was all there. I was holding it in my hands. For ten whole seconds, I just laughed to myself, and thought “Heh, Cool” as I placed it back in the box along with the rest of the records I was holding.

Of course, I suddenly had a moment of clarity, and it suddenly struck me, that this was the moment I’d waited for since way back. Every single flea market, car boot sale, record fair I’d ever been to, had been all for this moment. I was about to buy “The Way It Is”. I handed my shiny pennies over (well, OK, they were 50p each, and I bought about another 6), and I walked away with a sense of satisfaction, as if to say to myself “I’ve done it. It’s all over. It’s finished”.

The day didn’t just stop there, I continued my searching for other stuff. The next stall along had an Andrew W.K’s “I Get Wet” buried amongst the likes of Engelbert Humperdinck and Pavarotti. Needless to say, I snapped that up. I’ve been after that CD for years too.

I walked around the stalls, to see that Eric has returned permanently. Eric owns one of the good stores, he used to be the one near the Corner House (or whatever it’s called now), but in his own words, he gave up for a couple of years. I did miss his stall, as he always had a good (and varied) collection of CDs. He’s back, but with a smaller CD collection. A few other things are missing too, but hopefully he’s going to be there for a few more years to come. He had a sealed copy of Sandi Thom’s CD (oh, I wish I was a punk rocker, etc) for £2, so I bought that. I’ve not listened to it yet, as I’ve got the Andrew W.K. CD on repeat. His album is only 35 minutes long, but every track is a winner. The longest track is 3:33 in length.

Overall, a fantastic day music-wise.