'I can smell it now' - Mail readers share tasty memories of trips to Balmer's Bakery and your favourite Hartlepool shops

It's something so many of you remember from growing up in Hartlepool.

Our picture of a bustling queue outside Balmer's Bakery, taken in the 1970s, jogged the memories of dozens of Mail readers, prompting you to get in touch with some tasty morsels of life in Hartlepool.

As well as reminiscing about a bite to eat from Balmer's, in Murray Street, you told us some of your other favourite places to visit for a bag of sweets, a cone of chips or a pie.

Here are some of your memories from the Hartlepool Mail Facebook page:

Karen Scott: "I can smell it now, used to love the fresh warm buns from here."

Chris Cornish: "Can't remember ever having to queue that much but it would have been worth it. Fabulous bread."

Carole Anne Raftery: "My nana Nelly Young, god bless her no longer with us, she used to send me here to get her pies all the time and there was always a queue and the smell of buns in the air was to die for. What a good memory I have from [those] days RIP Nana."

Denise Sanderson: "Loved this shop, wish we could go back to [those] days so miss them."

Nicky Brown: "Love it ... can remember they always used to give 13 buns as a bakers' dozen and getting a warm bun to eat on way home."

Diane Evans: "Their mince pies, gorgeous."

Andrea Peart: "Loved walking past there with the smell of bread in the air."

Pat Young: "Went there every Saturday with my mam, all the kids got a free bun, that's when bread tasted like bread."

Sharon Clow: "Always went in and got hot buns and ate them on the way home."

Tony Malone: "Bet me mam was in the queue she went every day from work."

Sarah Daniel: "Ooh I remember the hot bun, best buns ever! The smell from that shop ... I still remember today."

John Naylor: "They don't make things like they use to. Food was so good back in the day."

The best of the rest ... here are some of your other shop memories from growing up in Hartlepool.

Chris Cornish: "Taking your own bowl for hot 'pease pudding and duck' from Palmer's butcher over the road or going to the farm shop, again on other side of the road, for fabulous pork pies they made themselves and were the ones on sale at the kiosk outside Seaton baths! Wonderful."

Joanne Kelly Morter: "Frank Wright's, loved going there as a child to spend my pocket money. Ron and Jane's chippy for a cone of chips drenched in vinegar Top Shop for my mix up."

Paul Cottam: "Elcho Street chip shop for a bag of chips with scraps!"

Angie Cottam: "Morells pork pies when they were fresh out of the oven."

Mark Dawson: "Wilf Spence on Oxford Road & Frank Wright on York Road."