MEMORIES 301 took a stroll down Priestgate in the past, paying particular attention to the Darlington Co-operative and Industrial Society which grew like topsy until it had spread through to Tubwell Row.

The super store, founded in 1868, closed in May 1986 and was bulldozed. Now the Cornmill shopping centre sprawls across its large footprint.

Those, then, are the bare facts, but readers have been filling in the gaps with their own reminiscences…

The Northern Echo: AWFUL ARCHITECTURE: Fortunately, we only have a black and white picture of the co-op's 1964 Tubwell Row elevations – what colours were on that first floor frontage?In the middle is the Raby Hotel, or Pied Piper Inn, as it was sometime called

GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON: The Raby Hotel is dwarfed by the co-op's two blocks that were built on Tubwell Row between 1962 and 1964

THE Co-op burst out into Tubwell Row through two enormous slabs of 1960s architecture which always remind us of old-fashioned hi-fi loudspeakers.

Inbetween the loudspeakers was the Raby Hotel, where Chris Jones lived between 1968 and 1973 as his parents were the landlords.

He says: “On the right hand side was the Co-op’s furniture department and on the left was crockery and ornaments – I remember the sign there said: ‘Nice to handle, nice to hold. If you break it, we say sold.’”

The Raby’s main door was onto Tubwell Row but there was also a side door down the arched alleyway on the right.

“One story my mam still tells was that one night my dad put out a drunk from the front door but the drunk then went through the archway and came in again at the side door,” says Chris. “Dad was waiting and put him out again. The drunk looked at Dad and said: ‘How many pubs do you own?’.”

The Raby dated from at least the 18th Century when it was known as the Pack Horse Inn. In 1867, it was bought by Joseph Kimber Wilkes from the Duke of Cleveland in Raby Castle. Mr Wilkes rebuilt it as a six-bedroomed hotel and renamed it, with His Grace’s permission, as the Raby.

In the arched yard at the rear, there used to be a couple of cottages and a slaughterhouse for geese. In 1957 in the yard, a 10ft deep red brick well was discovered which still had 4ft of fresh spring water in the bottom.

The Darlington Co-operative Society had been preparing to expand into Tubwell Row since the 1930s, but John Smith’s brewery refused to sell the Raby so, in 1962, the Co-op built the loudspeakers on either side.

From 1976, the pub was known as the Pied Piper. It was demolished to make way for the Cornmill in 1988.

The Raby was renowned for two further reasons. Firstly, it is said to have had the last pub in town with a closet bed. Apparently, closet-beds were once common in pubs. They were built into a recess off the bar and separated from the serving area by a curtain or double doors.

What went on inside a closet-bed is not recorded – surely the only people inside were drunks sleeping off their session.

Secondly, the Raby had a ghost. Unaccountable footsteps were regularly heard in the pub until in the mid-1960s, a ghostly lady was spotted in a long white gown combing her hair on a bed in the attic.

It would be great if a shopper in Tesco or Bright House could report that the ghostly lady still haunts the area today – perhaps combing the shelves for bargains.

The Northern Echo: GOING UP: Pat Brophy on the right of the basket, with fellow Co-op worker Alfie Moss, centre, attending to the wobbly chimneypots in Priestgate in the late 1960s

GOING UP: Pat Brophy on the right of the basket, with fellow Co-op worker Alfie Moss, centre, attending to the wobbly chimneypots in Priestgate in the late 1960s

MEMORIES 301 showed a photograph of a Simon Snorkel fire engine – registration SHN 999 – tackling an incident at the Co-op in the late-1960s.

Pat Brophy remembers it because he was one of the two Co-op workers who was raised on the Snorkel’s platform to take down three large chimneypots which had been apparently wobbling in the wind.

Pat worked for the Co-op maintenance department from 1960 to 1972 and was lifted on the Snorkel’s 85ft arm to attend to the pots. “We had to go up three times because each pot was three feet high,” he says. “They weren’t unsafe but we took them down because they had been reported.”

The shop next door to the Co-op was occupied by photographer Derrick Penman who came out with his camera.

The Northern Echo: PRIESTGATE 1950: The chimneypots are still on the Co-op roof and Charles Sharp's father's car is on the right

PRIESTGATE 1950: The chimneypots are still on the Co-op roof and Charles Sharp's father's car is on the right

THE front cover of Memories 301 featured a splendid 1950 picture looking down Priestgate – Pat’s three chimneypots can clearly be seen on the roofline.

On the ground, both sides of Priestgate are lined with parked cars. On the right is DKF 301 which, it must be said, is not parked as neatly against the kerb as it might be.

The Northern Echo:

PRIESTGATE PARKING: Charles Sharp's father's car

“I believe the car belonged to my father, Robert “Bob” Sharp who was the “son” part of C Sharp and Son, the radio and television dealers on Prebend Row,” says Charles Sharp. The shop was where the Cornmill entrance is today, although the family sold out to Rumbelows in the late 1960s.

“I think the car may be an Austin,” says Charles. “I’ve got an old photo showing its front end which may help other people identify it.”

KF, we believe, was a Liverpool plate, but what sort of Austin was it?

“I REMEMBER as a kid in the early 1950s going to the Co-op with my gran,” says Tony Crooks. “Her shopping was picked and wrapped by a counter assistant, and when it was time to pay, her money plus a ticket was put in a wooden coffee jar which was screwed to a trolley on a wire. A toilet-like chain was pulled and the pot and contents were sent at some speed up to a central office above the back of the store.

“After a short time the trolley returned much slower by gravity, complete with ticket and change. There was a trolley for each counter position.”

Everyone of a certain age remembers department stores where the front counter staff were not trusted with money. To complete a transaction, they had to send the money to back office accounts staff through strange automatic transport systems.

Tony seems to be describing the Co-op’s unforgettable mechanical system, and another favourite south Durham memory is of the pneumatic capsule pipeline in Doggart’s 13 stores.

The cash was put in a pod which was inserted into the pipeline and then it was driven by air-power to accounts. The accountants worked out the change, put it back in the pod which was sent down to the counter to be given to the customer.

So which stores had pneumatic cash systems, or other mechanical devices? Are there any pneumatic systems left anywhere? Does anyone have any bits of them – perhaps a pneumatic pod? Please let us know: email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk

The Northern Echo: DAMAGED GOODS: The only decent picture we’ve seen of the 1931 co-op on the north side of Priestgate – although we’ve had to repair it a little. It was taken in 1964 after the co-op had relocated its drapery department to the newly-opened Tubwell Row

THE Co-op in Priestgate was so large that in 1931 a new drapery department was built on the north side of the street. It lasted until 1964 when it was replaced by a row of shops.

“One sold quirky ornaments and was called, I think, The Pink Elephant, and another was Priestgate Lighting, whose fittings still grace our living room,” say Gill and Bob Wootten.

Today the King’s Head and the Cornmill overbridge are on this site.

“When we married in 1968,” continue the Woottens, “the dining suite we wanted was 114 guineas (£119.70 I think) in a local furniture store which was a little above our budget, but the Co-op had the same one and was offering ‘double divi’ at something like 2s 6d in the £1 which, though not paid out on the spot, meant we could afford it.”

Our picture of the north side Co-op showed a dinky little motorbike and sidecar parked outside.

“The motorbike is a BSA A10, possibly a Golden Flash, and it is attached to a Watsonian sidecar,” says Chris Greenwell.

Richard Stone just about agrees on the bike, but reckons it is hitched to a Busmar double adult sidecar.

“My 16th birthday was celebrated by sticking L plates on my sidecar, riding to the bottom of the road, and, in turning left, tipping the damn thing right over on top of myself,” he remembers, nearly happily.

Bill Bartle in Barnard Castle – who still remembers that his mother’s Co-op number from 60 years ago was 30421 – says it is a Busmar Carmobile.

“This was one of, if not the, largest ‘chairs’ ever built,” he says. “Side cars were classified according to their capacity, and the Busmar was often jokingly classed as ‘double adult and small elephant’.”

BRENDA FLYNN emails to point out that there used to be a large Co-op grocery branch on West Auckland Road in Cockerton which is now Rowland May's carpets – you can’t miss it as it has the word “carpets” painted on its rooftiles. It had a Co-op butcher’s next door, which is now a hairdresser, and there was a Co-op pharmacy next to The Travellers' Rest.

Brenda also draws out attention to the 1.8 hectare Co-op nursery and milk depot at Merrybent. Its acres of glasshouses were constructed on top of the Merrybent Railway’s coalyard after the railway shut in 1950. The greenhouses lasted until the 1980s and the milk depot until this century, but since then a housing estate has been built on the site beside the A1(M). One of the streets on the estate is Nursery Lane.