Chapter 2 The nineteen forties

 The Nineteen Forties

Alice Plucknett Brown née Sternberg, with John Summer 1944

When I was born on 27 September 1942, the Second World War was entering a critical stage. Hitler had made the fatal mistake of unleashing the horror and might of war machine on the Soviet Union. A combination of  resistance by its people and the deadly cold of the Russian winter would lead to the ultimate defeat of his forces and the collapse of Naziism. But that surrender was still over two years away.

I spent my early years with my mother and grandmother at 49, Topsham Road Smethwick, an industrial inner suburb of Birmingham.

My grandmother, Annie was a tenant in the terraced house, which she had lived in since her marriage to Arthur Downing in 1914. Margaret was twenty one at the time of Arthur’s death in 1938 and living at home. She worked in a secretarial role at a local engineering works Bellis and Morcom 

Margaret and Vic Winchurch met, I think, because they had mutual friends, in particular Nina Woodhouse whose parents ran a music shop in Smethwick High Street was a friend of Margaret from the age of five and they later went on to Holly Lodge High School for girls together. I don’t think Percy, my grandfather, was particularly approving of Margaret, she was from a financially poor background and as a shrewd and successful businessman, I believe Percy viewed her as a ‘gold digger’ There was certainly animosity between him and Margaret, which lasted throughout both of their lives.

The contrast between the house in Topsham Road and Percy and Marion’s modern home in Quinton was stark. Topsham Road had no electricity , the lighting and cooking were provided by by town gas, which was poisonous as well as being explosive!

There was no piped hot water and the only indoor cold water supply was a tap over the kitchen sink. Hot water was provided by heating a kettle on the gas stove.

The single toilet was outside in a small outbuilding in the back yard, the same single story addition to the house also had a ‘coal house’ to store fuel for the living room fire which was the only source of heat in the house. There was no form of central heating, As was usual there were ‘chamber pots’ kept under the bed to avoid the long dark trek to the yard toilet. A luxury item would be a stone hot water bottle to warm the bed on cold winter nights. I know it all sounds very grim, but even having running water , a flushing toilet and gas lighting were all advances one those conditions experienced by countless generations going back to the ice age and beyond. I often think about that when someone complains about having slow broadband speed !

My Dad’s family conditions were very different even allowing for the hardships of wartime. They had a bathroom with stored hot water provided by a ‘back boiler’ behind the kitchen fire and a flushing toilet. The house was lit and powered by mains electricity and Percy had a car to travel to and from work when there was enough petrol to be able to use it. He kept his garage business ‘Winchurch Brothers Limited’ operating with his brother Roland and a skeleton staff, often sleeping on a camp bed on the premises on fire watch duty in case of a hit on the garage by a bomb.

By the time I was born, Luftwaffe raids had decreased as German offensive action shifted to the Eastern front, but there was bomb damage  in Bearwood close to the garage on one occasion. The camp bed that Percy used became my bed as a child and I still have it: a well made folding bed constructed from oak with a canvas ‘hammock’ to form the sleeping base.

Percy also kept chickens to provided a welcome supply of eggs and occasional meat and grew vegetables as a contribution to the ‘dig for Britain’ campaign to provide food for the nation when supplies and imports were severely limited. He developed a contact with a farmer at Heightington, Mr Ward. In the years just after the war, I occasionally went with him to buy vegetables and loved to see the pigs and experience the smells and atmosphere of a working farm. David also remembers that our visits to Mr Ward were marked by purchase of rabbits and goats milk for David's eczema, which he suffered badly from as a child and resulted in a spell in hospital.

At the time I was born in September 1942, Dad was in South Africa on the battleship HMS Valiant. It was 1943 before he was home and able to see his first son. In the meantime he received carefully written mail from both Percy and Jeanne.

Jeanne, Margaret, Vic and John 

Jeanne was recruited into the WRNS early in 1943 and by Easter both she and Vic were on leave with Margaret and John in the garden in Quinton.

As an infant I suffered from a bad attack of gastro enteritis and it was (according to my Mum) only the loving care of Annie, my Grandmother that saved me.

Those wartime years must have been really hard for everyone and the years that followed were not much easier, with food shortages and rationing.

Some of my earliest memories are from around 1945 when my Dad was de 'mobbed ' from the Royal Navy. I remember him giving me a wooden toy train set when he came home. I can also remember that he confused me by always referring to the floor as the 'deck' a legacy of his four years at sea.

On reflection, I can see that a return to 'normality' was not easy for many people. I have talked about this with others who experienced the same circumstances and a common theme is a period of anti-climax and sadly, resentment once the initial relief and euphoria has worn off.

97 Thornhill Road on Google Maps

In 1946 we moved into an end of terrace house in Thornhill Road, Handsworth. I was unusual in the that it had a fairly primitive form of central heating. This was fuelled by 'coke' the by product of town gas production which had powered British homes for a century and a half. It was labour intensive as domestic fuel and my mother struggled with it. I once caused a little hilarity when sitting in front the kitchen boiler which was shedding ash and declaring that ' the boiler has been sick'

Just after David was born, Dad had a bad case of 'mumps' and probably came very close to death. He had a severe fever and his bed shook from the violent shivering that he suffered. Additionally, an electrical device in a bedroom caught fire and set the floor boards ablaze. I think I am right in remembering that the Fire Brigade was called in to extinguish the flames, but that might have been the imaginings of a four year old ! 

The winter of 1946 - 47 was particularly harsh with freezing temperatures and widespread snowdrifts. I was four years old and I have vivid memories of becoming enveloped in a snowdrift in the garden of the house in Thornhill Road, Handsworth.

Stone

Annie, Arthur, Margaret, John, Lizzie plus cousin.
March 1943 at Stone

Annie parents, my great grandparents Lizzie and Arthur Smith lived in a small terraced house in Victor Street, Stone, Staffordshire. I was even more primitive than Annie's house, but typical of so many working class homes built in the 1800s.

7, Victor Street had a front door which opened directly on to the pavement. It was common for the entrance step to be coated in red lead and kept polished and spotlessly clean and my gt grandparents' house was no exception. The 'front room' was a small dark space kept as a kind of showpiece. There was heavy dark furniture and some kind of potted plant, probably and aspidistra in a dark red pottery container.

A  door at the back of the room led to a stairwell, which had no window and as far as I recall, not means of lighting. The steep staircase led to a tiny landing off which there were doors to the two - front and back - bedrooms. There was no running water upstairs in the house. 

The kitchen or scullery led from the 'back' living room and had an outside door to a shared yard with a communal drain in the centre. The only toilet was in a brick building in this yard and by the time I remember it, it was a flushing toilet. However an earlier earth closet toilet was situated at the bottom of the small garden against the substantial rear wall. In a cutting beyond this wall, the express steam trains of the LMS railway thundered past belching out steam, soot and smoke and occasionally setting fire to the vegetation on the banks of the cutting. The house was separated from it's neighbour at ground floor level only by a narrow 'entryway' leading through from the street at the front.

Next door live a great uncle, Fred and his wife 'little auntie' Polly (to distinguish her from 'big auntie' Polly who was was married to another of Lizzie's brothers). In fact many relatives lived in Victor Street and other streets close by, including Annie's brothers Tom, Fred and Bill and Lizzie's brothers Albert and Fred and their extensive families.

I have a vivid memory of accompanying Arthur on a short walk to the public park at the end of Victor Street when I was about four or five years old. Since Arthur used a walking stick, I insisted on doing the same, so a stick of some description was found for me. On reaching the park a group of elderly men turned to Arthur and one of the asked 'Is this your young grandson then Arthur' to which he replied 'No, it's not my grandson, John is my GREAT grandson'

I felt very important. 

Visits to Stone were also memorable for biscuits. Lizzie always seemed to have a supply of Lincoln Creams stored in a large chest of drawers in the living room. The limit was one per child per visit, but a real treat in the post war years of rationing and hardship.

The house was heated by a coal fired black leaded range in the living room. This also provided hot water via a large kettle which was kept close to boiling at all times. Baths, if taken at all, were in a galvanised tub placed in front of the range. I never saw that actually happen !

Another source of fascination was a well behind a door under the stairs. This had been to sole water supply for several houses in the street before the coming of piped water several years before. As a small boy access to this was severely restricted, but every now and then I was allowed to peer down the dark hole to the water down below.

The scullery housed a copper washing boiler, heated by a fire lit beneath it in a brick enclosure. Bedclothes and other linens were boiled in this tub and swilled around by hand using a wooden 'dolly'

Another washing day essential was the cast iron mangle with huge wooden rollers used to squeeze out water from the linens that had been washed.

The scullery also had an extra room above, accessed by a steep open tread wooden staircase. This had been used by Arthur as his shoe making workshop in the early years of the twentieth century. He was employed as a skilled craftsman and examples of his work were exported to various countries including Australia. I was allowed up that staircase once and saw the remnants of his trade set out on a bench in the small room with a low roof. Arthur's work as a skilled cobbler had been cut short when he developed bowel cancer some time after the first world war. He had a colostomy operation, still quite rare at that time and even as a child I was aware that he had to retire to 'the parlour' at the front of the house to attend to his stoma. This must have been unpleasant and humiliating for him, but he bore it with quiet patience and lack of complaint. Arthur lived to within a day of his eighty ninth birth and for the last few years of his life Annie, my grandmother travelled regularly from Smethwick to Stone to care for him and Lizzie who died in the same year as Arthur - 1949.

Visits to Stone were usually made in Winchurch Brothers' van an Austin A40, similar to the one shown below. There were no rear seats and , of course, no seat belts, so David and I were perched on cushions in the back, sliding around dangerously if our father took corners too fast

A late 1940s Austin A40 Devon van

It was quite an adventure and over the years I was able to identify landmarks along the way, such as the rather futuristic looking Midland Counties Dairy in Wolverhampton. 

Midland Counties Dairy in Wolverhampton

Soon afterwards buildings gave way to green countryside and by comparison to Handsworth, Stone was quite rural with areas like the Downs Banks - a favourite area of open parkland within walking distance of Victor Street.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/downs-banks#Overview

Visits to Stone were always memorable. Annie's cousin Mary (nee Gadsby) Williams live near to Victor Street and had an allotment where Bill, Mary's husband grew chrysanthemums in a greenhouse. I was fascinated by the sight and scent of so many flowers in a confined space.

School days

I was almost six years old when I started school, because my birthday in September was just after the schools admission date of 1 September.

My first primary school was St Michaels Church of England school a short walk from home in Handsworth.

I cannot say that I immediately took to school life. The rules at St Michaels were strict, for example no child was allowed to go to the toilet during classroom hours. The headmaster, Mr Jacobs would watch from his study to see that this rule was obeyed and it caused me agonies trying to hold on until break time. Occasionally, I had accidents as a result and eventually my mother went to see the Headmaster to ask that I should be allowed, pleading a 'weak bladder' The outcome of this was almost as embarrassing though, since the toilets were across the playground, in full view of several classrooms and it was rather humiliating to make that 'walk of shame' - even with official sanction !

The school had been built in the 1900's and was austere, with rows of wooden desks with integral seats and metal knibbed pens and ink wells.

As with many Church of England schools, St Michaels had been taken into the State school system, but retained strong links with the church, so we had for example, prayers at the start of each day. Once a week we listened to a radio broadcast service for schools originating in a large church in Birmingham (possibly St Philip's Cathedral) with an organ played by the redoubtable George Thalben-Ball.

It was the sound of the organ reproduced on a reasonably good sound system that impressed me most about those services. The religious content never became an important part of my life.

Percy asked me once when I was about eight years old what my favourite music was and I think I surprised, and slightly amused him by replying 'Handel's largo played on the organ'

Percy himself had a good singing voice and would often sing whilst travelling in the car. One of his party pieces was 'the blind ploughman' 

Sung here by Paul Robson

I enjoyed school more as I grew older. This is my class about 1949. Sadly, although I can remember several of the faces, the same is not true of the names. The only exceptions are Edward Lawson (front row, third from right) and Brett Hubbard (back row, fifth from right) - whose birthday party I went to at his house. The notorious Mr Jacobs is on the left at the back.

John - middle row, extreme right 1949

Jeanne

In June 1949, Jeanne committed suicide.

The background and details of this I have written down in a blog post.

Jeanne Marion Winchurch 1919 - 1949

Later in the summer of 1949 we went on holiday the Friog on the coast of mid Wales. This must have been poignant for my parents since we had stayed in the same cottage with Jeanne the summer before.

Even so David and I delighted in the sea, sand and walks into the hills behind Friog and Fairbourne.

The first time I went to Friog, was, I think, with my grandmother, Annie. I can remember the excitement of catching the train at Snow Hill station in Birmingham and the journey through mid Wales to arrive at Fairbourne station. We were met there by my parents with David for the short drive to the cottage called Arosfa in Friog. 

This was not my first train journey though. I have a hazy but frightening memory of being in a big train station and being terrified when our train arrived belching steam and making a deafening noise, I think I was three years old and I travelled with Vic and Margaret to London to stay with relatives, but sadly, I don't know who they were ! It was approaching Christmas time and my special present was a Teddy Bear from Barkers in Kensington. Two very different memories from an early childhood journey.

A few years later, I was a small boy with a group of older children in Handsworth park, close to where we lived. A railway line ran through the middle of the park in a deep cutting. We were on a bridge over the railway, when one of the children screamed 'There's a train coming'. With that they all ran away in panic leaving me alone to face the oncoming train, which, of course, passed safely beneath my feet. That didn't stop me from running home in floods of tears with a memory that has lasted over seventy years ! 

Another memory from Handsworth Park is more positive though. From the children's playground someone pointed out the distant construction of Sutton Coldfield TV mast in 1949. Little did I know at that point in my life what a large part TV broadcasting technology would play in later years.

It was on the final trip to Friog that my relationship with my Dad developed beyond just accepting that he was now around to stay. On a previous visit, when Jeanne had been with us, they had walked up a valley behind Friog to the Blue Lake. A well known deep pool formed by slate quarrying, once common in that area, but long abandoned. I finally persuaded Dad to take me to see this and we set off one afternoon from the cottage. Scrambling up the grassy hillside and into the old quarry workings lit a spark in me that led on later to mountaineering and coast paths. The lake itself, as I recall it was a bit of an anti climax, but the experience and the friendship with my Dad stayed with me.

The Blue Lake, Fairbourne

Chapter 1 <go to> Chapter 3