The Ient Family: Family History

My Career in the Housing Department

In between times, I’d applied for a competitive transfer from the transport department to the Sunderland housing department. The housing manager at that time was a Mr Corthorne, who I remember very well. I studied for three and a half years. There was no facilities in those days, no night classes, so it all had to be done by correspondence course, and this was ten shillings a month, ten old shillings a month, which was a bit of a drain because my wages at that time was £365 a year, I remember, £365 a year. I was buying a house in Ormond Street. It was up by the General hospital. This first house in Ormond House was £1,000, which was an awful lot of money, and we were struggling, but the mother-in-law came to live with us and she deferred part of the cost by virtue of me giving her two or three rooms in this big Victorian house that I’d bought.

Anyway, I eventually qualified and the first job I applied for was with the Middlesbrough Corporation. They had this wonderful idea of putting an estate manager on the estate, gave him a house with an office attached. You had 500 tenants or 500 houses to look after. Well, you were there in the middle of this estate and you’re all things to all men – you were known as the ‘rent lord’ in Middlesbrough. So you collected the rents, you saw your gardens were cultivated, you had to arrange exchanges and transfers, inspect houses, sort out neighbours’ quarrels and troubles – you’re the only one on the estate, there was only the one telephone, and you were the father confessor up there, you had to do all things for everybody. A marvellous experience; I was there for, what, three, three and a half years. I then applied for a deputy housing manager’s job at Tynemouth, Northumberland and I got this position. The housing manager there was retiring in five years and they wanted some continuity so they brought in a deputy, which was a new position. I started working there on 1 April 1953, in Tynemouth, then I was made housing manager in 1958 when the other housing manager retired. This went on from 1958 until 1969.

By this time, there was new government legislation indicating that local authorities which were too small had to amalgamate with nearby authorities. We had the amalgamation of Whitley Bay, Tynemouth, Walls End and so on. These five local authorities amalgamated eventually, but in between time I thought it would be a good move, as far as I was concerned, to get some more experience, because by this time Walls End Borough was advertising for a housing manager at the centre of a completely new housing department, which appealed to me. So I applied for this job and I was appointed in 1969 to create this whole new department. This went on til 1974, a very happy time, but come 1974 [in the actual amalgamation] the job was advertised and I didn’t get it. By this time I’d just about had enough of housing, so in 1974 I officially retired as housing manager. The then borough treasurer asked me to stay on in some capacity rather than lose all this local knowledge, so I went back there for 6 or 7 years as a District Ratings Officer with Walls End. At the end of that time, I retired – that was 1981.


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