When life in Darlington was absolutely pre-fabulous

“When I was a child, I thought it was very big,” she says, “but I’ve seen one since, and it was very small, just two bedrooms, but it had a fire with two doors on it and a fitted kitchen with a fridge – my mother never had a fridge again after we left there.”

Maureen in her pram, probably in early 1948, with her brother Tim outside No 25, Cabot Road, Darlington. The gardens have yet to be finished

Between 1945 and 1948, 156,623 prefabs were erected in Britain at a cost of £213m. They were made of concrete, asbestos and aluminium on a timber frame, and the idea was they were “truckable” – the segments arrived on a lorry ready to be bolted into place by unskilled labour with all the heating, plumbing and electrical works all in place. Some even had lightbulbs pre-installed.

To those people whose homes had been bombed or who had grown up in a crude Victorian mining terrace with outside netties and no running water, they were the height of modernity and even luxury: an indoor flush toilet, a separate bathroom with hot water, plus warm central heating and, the wonder of the age, a fridge.

Tim and Maureen outside their prefab home in Cabot Road. The prefabs had small gardens immediately adjoining the road - no pavements in those days, so the children played out on the road

The prefabs were usually set on a little land in the hope that residents might grow produce – again, an advance on the terraces which just had brick back yards – and they were placed on estates that had open communal spaces. Maureen, for instance, talks of “our green” organising a party for the 1953 coronation so these were almost model communities – most of the residents were of a similar age, and were former servicepeople starting again in peacetime and bringing up children.

The first prefabs in Darlington were wooden huts built in 1942 at the top of Yarm Road for “key workers” at the Royal Ordnance Factory at Aycliffe. These were not a success as they rotted quickly, and today the waterfowl streets – Teal, Widgeon, Mallard etc – are on their spot.

At the end of the war, to address the severe shortage of houses, materials and skilled labour, the Temporary Housing Programme copied the American “truckable” concept and devised prefabs that might last 10 or 15 years.

In 1944, Darlington council applied to the Ministry of Health for 200 prefabs. It received its first 23 the following year, and with German prisoners of war levelling land near Bank Top station for the foundations, these were installed in Green Street. They were a type of prefab known as an “Arcon”.

Tim and Maureen with their father, Patrick, in their matching Sunday best

Then 118 “Tarran” prefabs arrived for a new estate to the south of East Cemetery. These were erected on Burnside Road on four new streets named after great explorers: Cabot, Drake, Shackleton and Frobisher.

The Geaneys qualified for one as Maureen’s father, Patrick, had served in Egypt in the Army. He’d met her mother, Nancy, at a do at Catterick and at the end of the war, Nancy was living with her mother and a baby in Eastbourne Road.

So the prefab was their first family home.

Nancy Geaney oversees a Gill, Maureen and Tim balancing on a bicycle outside the prefabs

Patrick, an Irishman who had come to the North East to study to be a priest at Burn Hall near Durham before taking the big decision to join the British Army, recorded their early years with a Box Brownie camera. It shows how when they moved in to No 25 Cabot Road, the gardens and roads were unmade.

The street party in Cabot Road to celebrate the 1953 coronation was held in front of the prefabs. "I remember the girl was singing Me and My Teddy Bear," says Maureen, which explains the outfits

Maureen, the little witch on the right, won second prize in the fancy dress competition held among the prefabs to celebrate the 1953 coronation

The Geaneys celebrate the Queen's coronation in Cabot Road in 1953: Maureen, Tim and Gill

The trouble with young families is that they tend to grow. Eldest brother Tim was the first to arrive in 1945 followed by Maureen in 1947 and Gillian in 1950, so that by the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953, the prefab was pretty cramped. Shortly afterwards, they got a bigger home around the corner in Ingleby Moor Crescent.

“I remember walking with my dad carrying stuff to our new house,” says Maureen, who was six at the time of the move and so doesn’t remember much about her early days in the prefab.

The Green Street prefabs were removed in the late 1950s and now the Centre for Process Innovation is on their site. The explorers’ prefabs on Firth Moor were removed in 1963 to 1965 and streets like Holgate Moor Green were built on their site.

Maureen and Tim Geaney get an ice cream from a seller with a three-wheeled bike - is this the legendary Alex Martinio who had his ice cream factory in Clark's Yard?

Every town in the North East must have had prefabs – Clarence Green in Newton Aycliffe, for instance, was originally made of prefabs – so are there any other prefab stories to tell? For instance, we think Beacon Hill, that straggly road of properties beside the A66 near Sadberge, was originally prefabs built in connection with the nearby Women’s Land Army hostel. As the prefabs decayed, their walls were rebuilt in brick and so the existing properties stand on the prefabs footprints.

And are there any prefabs still standing? Billingham and Marske-by-the-Sea had scores of prefabs still inhabited into the 21st Century.

All prefab tales to chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk