A step back in time ...

Byline: By Barbara Argument

Hands up if you spent many a summer's day at Leven Bridge when it was buzzing like a miniature Blackpool?

Swings, merry-go-rounds and fairground stalls lined the river.

Families picnicked on its sandy "beach" while the kids splashed about in the water.

There was a cluster of weekend chalets jostling for space down the bank from the Fox Covert pub.

And so many Teesside families wanted to take a day trip to the riverside pleasure ground, the bus services had to be duplicated.

Day trippers who couldn't cram on board buses set off to walk home along the road or took the short cut across fields to Thornaby village.

So you are gobsmacked by this 1950s description of a local beauty spot turned 21st century eyesore?

Well read on...

Fifty years ago, this was the sight on the River Leven at the bottom of the bank between Yarm and Ingleby Barwick.

Today, the river and beach are still an attraction, but a dangerous one for local youngsters.

Leven Bridge itself is dominated by wrecked and vandalised buildings shored up with scaffolding and with huge warning notices for everyone to keep off.

A sad end for an away day place which brought joy to thousands of families.

Leven Bridge and the walk to Thornaby past the fields of Ingleby Barwick, features along with 25 other rambles in a great little book called Green Ways Around Tees-side.

It cost 1s 6d (12 1/2p) back in 1950 and reveals some fantastic blasts from the past.

The book is a compilation of the Evening Gazette's very own guide to Teesside walks written during 1949 as Cleveland Footpaths by our very own expert, Rambler.

He was the walker who knew every beauty beat around Teesside before our very own country walk expert Bob Woodhouse came on the scene.

"We have traversed the paths described; we know they existed; but we cannot guarantee that the town and country planners or even the humble ploughman will leave them as they were," says Rambler.

These days, he might find he was right.

The book was turned up by reader Alan Ramsay who now lives in Horsham, while he was sorting through some old maps and personal archives.

"I'd be interested to know how many of the walks are still available or at least, are still in open spaces and haven't been built around by urban sprawl," says Alan who left Teesside in 1960.

He was fascinated by the images of how Teesside was, not just the descriptions of walks through places now radically changed, but the adverts too.

Bus company United urging ramblers to use its buses and pick up a timetable for 6d (2 1/2p).

Saltburn and Marske-by-the-Sea shouting about the Valley Gardens (cafe, daily orchestral concerts on the tea lawn, miniature railway, pierrots, dances in the ballroom, donkeys and roundabouts).

Redcar urging everyone to spend their holidays beside the seaside at Yorkshire's most popular resort.

"Redcar ( popularly known as the workers' playground and the children's paradise.

"If you feel below par, need a change or just want a good time, try Redcar.

"In no time, you will realise that you are eating better, sleeping better, feeling better and having a jolly good holiday at little cost."

Then there's the advert from Thirkell's the industrial caterers at the junction of Union Street and Newport Road, Middlesbrough, which pictures a fleet of cars and vans ready to deliver packed meals to factories and building sites.

Sparks (famous for the Daylight Bakery in Stockton now converted to flats) invites readers to enjoy a refreshing cup of tea "after your ramble".

There are Rea's cream ices "rich and refreshing and obtainable on all of your favourite routes".

Or the council-run Bank Cafe at Saltburn - everyone's rambling rendezvous where a trio played each morning between 11am and noon.

William Armstrong, of Linthorpe Road, where the adventurous could buy Sunbeam, Rudge, Hopper and New Hudson cycles and Triumph, Norton, Ariel and Velocette motor cycles.

But revealing Teessiders' passion for cycling there were numerous adverts from cycle shops. Hyams & Son at Stockton; Upton's "Tees-side's largest cycle stockists"; Matt. Newton's in Middlesbrough and Stockton; Ted Kyle; Pallister, Yare & Cobb; A.S. Gibbon; W.H. Watts & Son; Bill Beattie's; B. Swanson; Talisman of Longlands Road and Duplex of Grange Road, Darlington.

Middlesbrough Empire offered variety from vaudeville, ballet and comedy every evening at 6.15 and 8.20pm as "The home of family entertainment on Tees-side".

Barkers, "Tees-side's friendliest furnishing service" based in Bishopton Lane, Stockton, and Newport Road, Middlesbrough, took an advert which is as quirky as their present day offerings.

It features a photograph of the Barker brothers perched on top of Napes Needle on Great Gable in the Lake District thanks to their "adherence to certain rules of safety".

Then it insists: "In the same way, the risk of building a new business can be reduced to the lowest possible level.

"Daring must be tempered with caution, but skill, energy, foresight and service to others must be there in full measure."

It's a philosophy which obviously took the firm successfully into their present 21st century business.

Teessiders could visit Newhouses department store to buy lisle stockings in hosiery, Waukeezi shoes and all-important head squares.

Or trot along to Coats & Sidgwick in Redcar's High Street for mantles, millinery, underclothing and much else.

And take "the right path" to Middlesbrough Co-operative Society's emporium in Linthorpe Road.

All the adverts are wrapped around Ramblers descriptions of walks.

In the Twenties and Thirties local rambling clubs took the tram to the Five Lamps at Thornaby and walked back through Thorn Tree Farm and the Fox Covert to a little cottage just beyond Leven Bridge.

"There they looked for a board which advertised 'Teas, as much as you can eat for sixpence", wrote Rambler.

"You may still get a small bottle of lemonade or a packet of crisps for this sum ( provided of course you are not afraid of wasps."

The insects prove to be Rambler's downfall on his walks. He talks about them loving "the tender flesh of the town dweller" and how "one neat back-hand flick will bring down any of these slow-moving beasts on the wing."

He recommends a rub with a raw onion to reduce the swelling and pain - "although of course, the tears will remain. And medical friends are of the unanimous opinion the chances of a fatal sting are millions to one".