Nostalgic 1950s memories recalled in book, Teesdale Mercury

A Teesdale writer evokes 1950s Northern England in a newly published family memoir.

Mary Robertson, from Barnard Castle, has written Watch the Right Lock: A Car and His Family in the Fifties.

The story recounts the adventures she and her family had travelling around the North in a 1937 Morris Ten.

She decided to learn to drive and buy a car, because, as a young single woman, “it was the only life-filler I could think of.”

Living at home in Sunderland in 1954, she told her family at the dinner table that she was considering taking driving lessons.

“Bette Davis would have envied me the dramatic effect this statement had on my audience,” she writes. 

“Four mouths dropped open, four pairs of eyes widened in astonishment, and four dinners began to congeal on forgotten plates,” she writes.

 

“What a strange idea,” replied her sister, while her brother thought driving to be “men’s work”.

Her father however agreed to pay for lessons – “if you really mean it” – and so the family’s journeys could begin.

Mrs Robertson took the lessons and passed her test, and then saw an advert in the newspaper for the car.

The family clubbed together and the car, which became known as ‘Ebb’, was theirs for £120. 

 

Now fully equipped, the family embarked on a series of adventure that took them all over the post-war North.   

 “We really enjoyed those days with this car,” said Mrs Robertson. “It was a happy time for us – and all the stories are true.”

One of the outings brought the family to Teesdale, where Mrs Robertson would later come to live.

“One day we came through Barnard Castle,” said Mrs Robertson. “I saw the castle and said ‘one day I will have to come back and have a look around that castle’. I didn’t think I would end up living here.”

The book, which is full of humour, represents a real step back in time, and will be of interest to those with a curiosity in the period, and those who enjoy a well-written memoir.

It will be enjoyed particularly by those who can relate to Mrs Robertson when she writes: “Sometimes, I wish I could wave a magic wand, and live again for a day in the 1950s, when the world was light and bright and natural, and the roads were bare of yellow lines and bewildering traffic signs.”

Watch the Right Lock: A Car and His Family in the Fifties by Mary Robertson is published by Authorhouse, and is available online from amazon.com and waterstones.com