Les Dunn interviewed by Jo Bath

Oral history interview with Les Dunn conducted and recorded by Jo Bath on 14 March 2004, as part of the Time Tracks oral history collecting initiative. Duration: 1 hour 7 minutes. Interview recorded whilst walking outdoors around the former Shildon Railway Works site and surroundings. [interview starts 00:01:15] Shildon railway works, site geography, gasworks, railway line, railway horses stables; childhood, born 1923 in Shildon, father’s work as a miner, then coal/goods transport with horse and cart, later also opened a fish and chips shop with his wife; [00:02:51] former surrounding buildings, near Victoria street; [00:03:56] childhood, living near Shildon works, traffic in the goods yard, coal dock; [00:05:49] coal drops for engines, shunting; tanks in Second World War; [00:07:44] leading timber for the railways, seeing railway workers encountering issues with heavy load lifting on tracks; [00:09:05] railway office building, goods clerk work, weighbridge, weighing vehicles, change of weighbridge after incident, collecting coal with horse and cart; [00:12:45] use of cranes, weight and loading goods, coal or parcels; [00:13:45] father gave work to all family members after school years, goods transport or fish and chips shop; [00:14:00] shunting operations observed at the goods yard; coal merchants, station master supplying coal for family business; [00:16:30] big traction engine to Show Fields; Wall Side line, farmers bringing potatoes and hay, sugar beet transport; [00:18:30] loading coal, truck issues; [00:19:28] coal delivery by lorry; coal and other goods delivery in Second World War, family business doing road transport for British Railways; [00:21:19] Shildon gymnasium, boxing, brother was a boxer, LNER box championship 1936, links between Shildon railway works and boxing; [00:23:00] when circus came to Shildon; [00:24:30] types of lorry and wagons used for transport; Bishop Auckland cattle market; [00:25:45] machine used for coal transport; helping father with business as a child; siblings joining both family businesses, coal and goods transport, fish and chips shop, work linked to railways; [00:27:19] parcel delivery, silver delivery to the bank, safety measures; [00:30:05] wages; comparing horse and cart and lorry, care for horses; meeting people in goods yard, helping others; goods yard closure; water pipes and leak in goods yard building; relationship with railway workers in goods yard, Dunn family renting goods yard office; 1925 celebrations, Stockton and Darlington centenary, the Dunns had set lorries for public to watch event in goods yard, loading coal in engines for cavalcade, Green Arrow, Dunn family helping on day of cavalcade; [00:38:15] crane breaking lifting 2 tons; being buried under coal at age 5; childhood caring for horse, working; coal house, equipment, incidents, goods yard playground for children; railway horses, stables; Mr Appleby, station master; [00:43:20] Second World War, presence of soldiers; [00:45:00] plates from Shildon LNER Good Templars, temperance; [00:46:00] horse stables; fish and chips shops, public houses; [00:48:24] usage of church building, housing for homeless people; Soho cottage, station master’s house; [00:51:26] former gasworks and surrounding, weekly coal deliveries; [00:54:10] goods yard closure; bombing in Second World War, anti-aircraft guns (ack-ack); stolen commemorative plate; [00:56:34] goods yard staff; Dunn family transport business, A licence, delivering timber to colliery, different types of licences for railway road transport; deliveries to the bank, shops, fresh goods deliveries; [00:59:13] Geest bananas delivery, using railway weighbridge, Dunn family buying over Geest warehouse; banana road and rail transport; [01:04:20] birds collecting grit from coke piles; Hackworth house, historical railway memorabilia; [01:06:20] childhood family house, living arrangements [01:07:09] [end of interview]

Time Tracks, Shildon Railway Village Community Project was an initiative funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund that encouraged members of the public to bring photographs and documents at Locomotion to form a community archive, when Locomotion museum was opened in Shildon, 2004. Over 50 oral history interviews were also recorded with members of the community. They shared their memories of Shildon as they knew it in their childhood and throughout their lives, from as early as the 1920s, as well as their work experiences in local factories and industries, including Shildon railway works.