Echo memories - Tropical name with very English origin

MORTON Palms is one of the loveliest names in Darlington. It should be a tropical place, with exotic plants fringing a sun-soaked beach, but at the moment it is a dirty great building site.

Morton Palms is at the top of Yarm Road, where the new Morrisons store is situated, and where the "prestige business park" is being churned out of a green field.

There were once a couple of hamlets here, Great Morton to the north of the road from Darlington to Yarm, and Morton Palms on the south side.

Together, they consisted of "a few scattered houses and a public house, a cartwright and a blacksmith".

Their name came from the simple fact that they were the town on the moor, variously Brankin Moor and Hurworth Moor. In the 16th Century, a Yorkshire man called Brian Palmes married the right heiress and came to own part of Morton, to which he gave his name.

His ownership was short-lived, because in the 1569 Rebellion of the North he backed the Catholics. Queen Elizabeth punished him by confiscating his land, and it ended up in the Surtees family.

Officially, there is little more to say about Morton Palms. Unofficially, there are rumours that there was once a monastery here and that even in living memory, opposite today's building site, there were the remains of an ancient graveyard, one headstone standing long after its fellows had fallen. On it was one word: Mariner.

We would love to know more.

IT was at Morton Palms in 1933 that the Co-operative Stores built a lonely house for £800 for Jack Johnson.

As Echo Memories reported several weeks ago, he named it after his well-known singing group, the Aeolian Male Quartette, which used to practise on the verandah. Jack formed the quartet in 1906, and they soon won medals in contests all over the north of England.

They released at least one record on the Sterno label which featured Polka Serenade and their own composition, Darkie's in de Farmyard, a novelty item which included a chorus of farmyard noises.

Although it is fair to say they would not get away with it now, they performed Darkie's in de Farmyard in London for a BBC broadcast.

The Northern Echo's radio critic said: "They came through remarkably well. Every word was heard distinctly, which is a very rare thing even with the solo singers who broadcast. The tone quality and blend were especially pleasing and the intonation faultless.

"They did a little thing of their own with some very clever farmyard effects and then sang the Negro Spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and Land o'the Leal. Their performance compared very favourably with anything of the kind the BBC has given us."

When Jack died in 1937, aged 61, the Aeolian folded. He left Aeolian House to his second wife Mary, and she brought their children, Mary, Marguerite and John, up there. Jack's daughter, Mary, who lives just down the road in Middleton St George, has helped greatly with this article.

JACK Johnson was a stonemason by trade, although he started work as a printer with The Northern Echo and lost a finger in the Priestgate press.

He then went to work with his stonemason father, James Peacock Johnson, in Russell Street East.

In 1900, they moved to the corner of Quebec Street, from where they did work on the technical college in Northgate, the King's Head Hotel and the Boer War Memorial in St Cuthbert's churchyard.

They were forced out of Quebec Street in 1911 when the New Empire Electric Picture Palace was built on the site, which is now occupied by Wilkinson's hardware store.

They moved to a piece of waste land in Parkgate, between St Hilda's Church (built 1888) and the Hippodrome (built 1904). Next door was a garage which became John Neasham's.

Johnson's stonemasons closed after Jack died, and his buildings, with Neasham's garage, were demolished in the early 1960s when the inner ring road was built. A car park next to St Hilda's marks their spot.

THE Aeolian Male Quartette had a fluid line-up during its 30-year history. Jack founded it with his nephew, Jim Johnson. Fred Bradley was another key member, as was Jack Cooke, who had been trained at Durham Cathedral.

Jack fought on the Somme in the First World War and worked as chief rental clerk for the gas board. He also acted as a caretaker at Faith House, in Northgate, where he lived, when it was a morgue. The house is still opposite Darlington club, although it is now used for less deadly purposes. Jack's daughter-in-law, Olive, still lives in Darlington.

SEVERAL weeks ago, Echo Memories was telling of the Salters Lane Open Air school. John Wilson writes from Hurworth to say that he was born in a neighbouring street to the school in 1938.

He remembers four square wooden outbuildings in the school ground which were used as classrooms.

"Winter or summer, rain or storm, the walls on these buildings seemed to be folded down," he writes.

Following a German bombing raid late in the Second World War, John's mother took him into the main school buildings to clear up shrapnel and spent bullets.

"I ended up with jam jars full of the lead and with jam jars at a halfpenny each. It was quite a prize," he says.

"Many years later, I asked her about this incident and the thought at the time was that the plane must have been looking for the Aycliffe Munitions Factory. The four wooden outbuildings must have looked suspicious, and so they just machine-gunned the school."

THANKS for all the letters sent to Echo Memories recently, and apologies for the column's non-appearance in the past two weeks.

If you have any information, memories or pictures to add to any of the topics covered in today's column, please write to: Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF, email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.