THE "Old Skipper", Frederick James Rayner, had a remarkable life, and he liked to reminisce in Darlington's Brinkburn Dene and to tell his stories in his favourite working men's clubs.
He also told them to a reporter from the Darlington and Stockton Times (D&ST) in 1938, and the introduction to the subsequent article suggests there were many stories to tell. The article began: "Sailed the seven seas in windjammers and steamships; ship-wrecked three times; witnessed the execution of a man in Mexico and the public flogging of a woman in Russia, and finished his working life in the LNER workshops in North Road."
The Old Skipper's picture of the Railwaymen's Carnival coming down North Road in the early 1930s – the motor bus seems to be pushing against the tide of marchers
His grand-daughter Pauline Jones says: "He sounds quite a character. I would love to have met him."
He died, aged 69, in 1939, long before Pauline was born, but she has his small, black album full of three inch by two inch photographs which were taken in the early 1930s. They show his travels to places like Lowestoft, Windsor Castle and the Derbyshire dales, and they also depict local events in Darlington and his charabanc outings with his clubs.
This selection shows Darlington in the mid 1930s; in the next selection, we'll look at his outings.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE SECOND SELECTION OF THE OLD SKIPPER'S PHOTOGRAPHS
The Old Skipper came from York and, his imagination fired by geography and history lessons, at the age of 13 in 1882, he signed on as a boy on a three-masted barque when he was on holiday in Hull. "He informed his parents by letter," said the D&ST. "By the time they received news of their son's venture, the boy was on the North Sea bound for San Francisco.
"On the homeward voyage two-and-a-half months later, the ship docked at Cardiff, where an anxious mother waited for her venturesome boy. But maternal pleas for Fred to return home and seek a job on the land were of no avail.
“The boy had got sea fever and so, with the blessing of a stoic mother, to sea he returned."
He survived three shipwrecks – one beneath cliffs in Australia, another where he rowed ashore from his stricken vessel in the Caribbean, and a third when he was rescued in the Bay of Biscay – and he saw some extraordinary sights.
THE PADDLY DENE: The Cockerbeck Valley Park, now known as the Denes, opened in stages between 1923 and 1925. The first addition was a paddling pool, containing 1ft of water, which opened on March 20, 1926, in the easternmost dene at the foot of Drury Street. It was soon followed by a sandpit, as the Old Skipper's picture shows
The South Park rockery, above, opened on August 3, 1933 – it looks as if the Old Skipper took this photo soon afterwards. That's South Villa in the distance
In Odessa, in Ukraine, he encountered a woman striped to the waist, tied to a cross and thrashed in a crowded market place by a man with a 6ft knotted whip.
"Unmercifully he lashed her, the thong curling right round her body, each stroke leaving a line of blood," he told the D&ST. "After the second stroke, the woman's head drooped over her left shoulder. She had swooned, but the knout continued to descend on her body until the back was a mass of blood.
"But worse was to come. The flogger's assistant mounted the platform with a bucket of salt which he proceeded to rub into the bleeding wounds.
“Then the woman was unfastened and, still unconscious, thrown into the cart which took her back to prison."
After 12 years at sea, the Old Skipper returned to the land. He worked in York locomotive works before transferring to Darlington's North Road works. He and his wife Ellen lived in Chandos Street in the Denes, and after he retired, he settled down to telling his stories and taking his pictures.
The Old Skipper took this picture looking south from Parkside bridge. In the distance is the 1,000-year-old Blackwell Mill, which is where Darlington Rugby Club is today, and Blackwell Grange is out of shot on the right. The picture shows the Skerne flowing through a manmade boating lake which clogged up with coal sludge and so the river was canalised through the middle and the lake filled in. The trees on the lake's central island still stand on the edge of the river
The Railwaymen's Carnival terminated in Darlington's South Park, where the Old Skipper took this picture. What does "Pushus No 20,000" mean?
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