John Coburn
John was born in 1974. He loved playing out. The photo showing him sitting on his first toy vehicle was taken in the street outside our home on Basingstoke Road when he was one year old. When he was about three, I bought him a peddle go-cart, which was top of the range. He loved me pulling him along on it to the town centre, so that he could ride down the ramps as fast as he could go. The photo [top right] with John sat on the back of the go-cart must be from around 1978. That’s Ronnie Coxon and Nichola Coxon [standing] in the photo with John. They also lived on Basingstoke Road. I bought him his first bicycle when he was four or five. It was a Rally and came with stabilizers, though these were taken off after two or three weeks. He just took to riding a bike. Zoom, he was away. He quite quickly outgrew the Rally and was bombing around the estate on a BMX by the time he was six.
In 1981 we moved to Helford Road in the South West area of Peterlee. John and his group of friends would ride down to the Dene on their bikes all the time. Elizabeth Cannon helped me to make the bogey that John is playing on outside our house at 59 Helford Road. Her mum and my mum worked together at the fish and chip shop in the town centre.
June Coburn