RECENT Memories have been looking into Vale’s garage, which was behind the Three Tuns on Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland – where Boots the chemist is today.

“The Tuns was a shiny brown bricked building with stained glass windows on the inside,” says Terry Tucker, who frequented the pub in the early 1960s. “It was a bit rough with old seats and old iron-legged tables.

“The landlady was Mary O’Dowd who ruled with a fist of iron. If she heard you swearing on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night, you would get the sharp end of her tongue the following day.”

Our most regular car correspondent, John Biggs of Etherley Grange, has cause to remember Vale’s, as he still has the receipt for a Morris Eight that his uncle, Syd Biggs, bought for £82 10s in 1939.

“Shortly after, he went onto the forces and the Morris was laid up in an outhouse at my grandmother’s house in High Escomb,” says John. “It was the first car that I had anything to do with – it was always there at the back of the coachhouse, a big blue thing.

“It was put back on the road in about 1947 and he kept it until 1965 when he replaced it with a 1964 Austin 1100 which had also come from Vale’s.”