IN May’s local elections, the name of Charles Johnson was missing from the list of Conservative candidates because, after an on-off relationship with Darlington council lasting for nearly half-a-century, he decided that, at the age of 83, he had served his time.
In that time, he’d been mayor, deputy leader of the council, chair of the Conservative Association and chair of various council committees, plus a magistrate, a school governor, a chair of several charities, and, as befitted his engineering background, an advocate of Darlington becoming the home of a university technical college.
Plus he’s the keeper of a couple of scrapbooks that shine a light on the bad-tempered local politics when he was first elected in the late 1970s, when the heated issues included buses, car parking fees, housing, and the fate of Darlington covered market.
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The Johnson files take us back to when it cost 5p on a bus for three stops, 5p in a car park for an hour, and to when there were 173 traders in the open market and 80 indoors.
Charles was born in Larchfield Street in 1940, although his parents and older brother, Michael, soon moved to Pierremont Road where their house had an air raid shelter in the back garden.
His mother, Rhoda, was chair of Pierremont Conservatives while his father, Sidney, was a railwayman working in the tool room at Shildon works. “I wouldn’t say he was involved in politics, but he put up with meetings in the house,” says Charles.
He left school at 16 to work in the laboratory at the Black Banks Chemical Works which, in an isolated site beside the Skerne to the south of Darlington, heated coal tar to produce noxious substances.
“It wasn’t a good place to be – there were these huge cauldrons fired by one or two men throwing in coal and distilling off various products,” he says.
At 18, he met Carol in the Green Tree café in Skinnergate. They married in 1962, had two children, and were a formidable partnership until Carol sadly passed away in 2019.
At 18, Charles moved on from Black Banks to be a lab technician at Bishop Auckland Technical College and then Branksome School in Darlington, before settling in the quality and inspection department at the renowned Whessoe engineering firm.
In 1976, at the tender age of 36, Charles, with a full head of hair and a broad smile, was first elected to the district council (Darlington was then part of County Durham) as the Conservatives, led by crime writing sensation Bill Newton, won control from Labour.
Charles was made chair of the Transport & Public Protection Committee and the Housing Committee, and the Johnson files reveal the big issues of the day…
Bus fares
Back then, Darlington council owned the transport company that ran buses and which was losing £103,000-a-year. Charles’s committee decided fares had to rise.
Stage 1 fares (three stops) went up from 5p to 6p. Stage 2 fares (six stops) went up from 8p to 10p. But Stage 3 fares were capped at 12p, which for the longest journeys was a few pennies reduction.
The Conservatives said it would raise £70,000-a-year, but Labour said it would drive poorer people off the buses. Instead, the opposition, led by Cllr Jim Skinner, proposed doubling car parking charges which were 5p for short stays and 10p for long stays.
Tempers became heated, and at a fractious full council meeting, the mayor in the chair, auctioneer Harry Robinson told the leading Labour councillor Alan Robinson (no relation): “You will either sit down or I will haul you out of this chamber.” The fares rise went through.
Covered Market
Darlington had spent years flirting with the idea of demolishing its Victorian town centre, including the market complex, and replacing it with modern boxes, but when a public inquiry prevented the destruction, the council was left with decaying buildings. The neglected covered market, home to 80 traders, was facing £660,000 of repairs.
However, the restoration would close the market for at least six months, and the 80 traders would have to set up their stalls outside. They were not happy, but the 173 traders in the twice weekly open market were livid at the prospect of new arrivals which might drive them out of business.
Labour’s firebrand Frank Robson said that “to embark upon a scheme which at best will destroy the present character of the market, or at its worst alter dramatically the variety of trades in the market, is lunacy”.
But the cuttings show that the Echo’s sister paper, the Northern Despatch, backed Charles’s plans. “It’s the first change in Darlington town centre for 10 years, thanks to previous arguments and dilly-dallying,” said a column. “For heaven’s sake, let’s get it right this time.”
The restoration began in the early 1980s.
Stray dogs
“Darlington’s jay-walking dogs” were a major problem, fouling the streets. Charles’s committee changed the rules that governed the dog catcher’s work: he could now pick up collared dogs as well as uncollared ones that were roaming without their owners. And the owners would have to pay a fee to be reunited with their wandering hounds.
Refuse station
Durham County Council proposed creating a £500,000 refuse sorting station on Faverdale, causing emotions to run high among businesses – many in the food industry – and local residents. At public meetings, councillors were manhandled by protesters.
The Darlington district councillors voted against the county proposal, with Cllr Johnson saying: “The county cannot give assurances that only refuse from Darlington will be dealt with here. I see this as the thin end of the wedge – we are being used as guinea pigs.”
The county council subsequently backed down.
Housing
Above and below: A Darlington council leaflet from the late 1970s when they were persuading tenants to buy their homes before "right to buy" became a key part of Margaret Thatcher's policies
Darlington council owned 8,500 houses worth £70m. This gave the council all sorts of headaches over rents and repairs.
One story in the files tells how the council had bought a two-bedroomed terraced house in Hopetown Lane in 1976 for £100 with a view to demolishing it for a road scheme. When the scheme was abandoned, the neglected house needed £6,000 of repairs. Charles’s housing committee – which was an early promoter of the “right-to-buy” which would become a hallmark of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership in the 1980s – decided to sell it for £100 and give the purchasers a £2,500 grant towards its repairs. Despite the doubters, there were 22 applicants on the first day.
Then there were problems with tenants. One headline in the files screams: “A reign of terror ends”. The story beneath tells how a 42-year-old widow with six children, who had a penchant for using airguns against their neighbours, and two Alsatian dogs, which used the pavements as a toilet, had been removed from Eston Moor Crescent to a secret address. This led to accusations that the housing committee was creating a ghetto full of problem families.
But most controversial of all was the Older Housing Report in which the committee, headed by Charles, proposed demolishing 1,000 elderly houses – initially called “slums” – in the East Raby Street area over 15 years and replacing them.
Residents, both council tenants and private owners, objected and the plan was a major issue in the local elections of May 1980, which Labour won. The plan was scrapped, although houses in Larchfield Street have since been rebuilt.
Charles retained his seat in the election, and was tipped to takeover as party leader, but – sensationally, according to the headlines – quit in September 1980. Hamon, a Belgian company which built power stations, had recruited him and wanted him to relocate, with his family, to South Africa to oversee the construction of the Tutuka power station in Mpumalanga.
The Northern Echo labelled him a “Conservative hardliner”, and he told them: “I am sick of being branded a rebel and a Thatcherite when I in fact support the official line.”
And then he criticised some of the newly elected councillors, saying: “Both parties have a number of people whose competence must be questioned.”
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Charles, Carol and their children, Nathan and Fay, stayed in South Africa until 1986, and didn’t return to Darlington until Charles retired in 2000. He was re-elected to the council in 2003, but the Tories were now in opposition to Labour, led by John Williams and Bill Dixon.
Charles was mayor in 2013, with Carol as his mayoress. Their year celebrated the heritage of Darlington and raised £20,000 for their 12 charities.
In 2019, the Conservatives – at the start of the Tory tsunami that would turn the Tees Valley blue later that year – wrestled control of the council from Labour for the first time since 1976.
Just as Cllr Johnson had been a leading figure in that council so, more than 40 years later, he was deputy leader for a couple of years to Heather Scott. That, though, was a very different time to the 1970s, and he completed his lifetime of service in the digital age rather than when controversies were cut out of newspapers and stored for posterity in ring-folders which give a unique insight into the travails of the day.
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