Remembering Sunderland in 1978, and the intriguing connection between Oor Wullie and the area
and live on Freeview channel 276
Intrigued? It was 1978 and 45 years on, we are looking once more at the year when a giant puff ball mushroom and a bridge also got the spotlight.
Let’s start with the Broons, as well as Rodger the Dodger and the Numskulls.
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Hide AdCartoonist Tom Lavery is the link to the North East and he was the man who brought characters such as Oor Wullie to life 45 years ago.
Roger the Dodger also used to get up to his weekly tricks thanks to Tom’s skill, as did the Numskulls in the Beezer.
The former Boldon shoe repair business boss turned to cartoons after the original Uncle Charlie cartoonist decided to give it up and offered the job to Tom.
Oor Wullie’s got Mackem links
“My drawing style was very similar to his, so I did this for two or three years. During that time I started doing work for children’s comics. I was offered the Broons and Oor Wullie when the artist died,” said Tom in 1978.
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Hide AdThe pools winner in the Echo headlines was Viv Nicholson who won a fortune on the pools in 1961 and spent £100 for charity on toys and gifts for Sunderland Children’s Hospital.
Spend, spend, spending on toys for a hospital
She loaded up two supermarket trolleys with acquisitions.
Staff from the hospital who helped with the spending spree were nursing officer Mrs Jean Tindill and sister Val Whitfield.
The year of 1978 was also when Blacketts finally left the Sunderland skyline. It was set up in Sunderland in 1826 by William Blackett and finally closed in 1972 when it made 150 people redundant.
Over at Wearmouth Bridge, it looked like a brush with danger for the men up on the metalwork.
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Hide AdBut it was just another job for the men giving it a new coat of paint.
The bridge was being re-painted in Sunderland’s colours of orange, chocolate brown and light beige in its five-yearly touch up.
The old coat of arms on the side of the bridge was also due to be repainted in its original colours as part of the work.
The pub mushroom no-one would eat
What about that puff ball.
It happened at the Stapylton Arms, Hawthorn, where a giant puff ball which measured 23 inches across and weighed 23lb was on show.
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Hide AdLocal farmer, Geoffrey Tate, dug it out of a muck heap which was on his land at East Batterlaw Farm.
With a circumference of 66 inches and a height of 16 inches, experts reckoned it would have fed a family of 20, but no one risked tasting the delicacy.
Champagne at the Silksworth dairy
And finally …. It rained champagne at the Sunderland and District Creameries at Silksworth as workers celebrated a takeover by local dairymen in 1978.
The takeover was completed by Sunderland Bottled Milk Buyers, a company which had been formed by local dairymen, and it saved the jobs of more than 70 workers at the dairy, which the Milk Marketing Board had planned to close.
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