Quick note
David, thank you for the encouragement to keep going with Papa’s journal. I need to get my finger out!!!
Part 9
Is there anyone who doesn’t love the smell of homemade bread in the baking? Living on the prairie, mother had to bake her own and I loved the smell so much that I hung around the kitchen to get my nostrils full of the pungent appetising odour.
When one decides to make a new home on the prairie it is necessary to find a water supply, and this is usually done by digging a well. At first, we had to carry our water in buckets from the well of our nearest neighbour who (fortunately) lived in a shack only about 500 yards away, but (unfortunately) at the bottom of a hill. When going down the hill, our buckets were empty, but when returning up the steep hill they were full and heavy! We carried two buckets, one in each hand, and I had to take my turn. This arduous task we had to contend with for many weeks until we had sunk our own well, going through earth, gravel and clay for sixty feet before striking water.
Father and my two elder brothers, Jack and Charlie, did the digging, shoring up the sides as they went lower and even lower. I helped occasionally by hauling up buckets of earth and stones over a pulley that had been rigged up at the top. That sixty feet of digging and hauling took great effort, patience and perseverance and when water was finally struck, and the little trickle developed into a good flow, mother rushed out of the house to learn what all the cheering was about.
I have a special memory about the digging of the well and this has remained with me throughout my life. Father was digging at the bottom, alone, and I was pulling up the heavy bucket. Whether what I am about to relate was due to a lapse in concentration on my part (not unusual for me), I do not know, but when I was about to control the lowering of the empty bucket, the rope slipped from my grasp and the bucket went crashing down, banging its way from side to side, as if determined to smash to pieces anything that got in its way, making as much commotion and clatter as possible in the process…
Now, I have always been afraid of my father, for he had a fierce temper and nearly a lifetime’s experience of unchallenged parental authority, and as that bucket bounced its inexorable way downwards, wreaking its vengeful, determined intention to the bitter end, my heart beat wildly with sheer terror. When the dreadful plunge was completed, I looked down the well and, trembling with fear, listened. There was an ominous silence and then, quaking, I stuttered, “Are you alright?” To which there came a choking reply in the affirmative, followed by dire threats of what would happen to me once my father could get his hands on me.
From this I knew that the choking sound was due, not to physical damage, but to wrath, so I fled for my life across the prairie, my intention being to put as much distance as possible between me and the enraged parent. I know that I didn’t return home until darkness had enveloped the daylight and I could creep into our little wooden house and to bed without being seen.
On special occasions, such as a Sunday school outing, we were taken to Banff to spend three or four hours in the mountains. But it was the trip that excited us children, for the train journey of about sixty miles took between three and four hours in each direction, mainly due, in those early days, to it being a single track for a good part of the way and we had to wait for a seemingly endless time on a siding at one point for the train from the west to arrive and pass. It was on the main Canadian Pacific route and some of us children spent the time standing around the great engine; indeed, I still have a snapshot of my young sister of three standing on the cow-catcher.
There were two moving sights I remember well as we reached the Rockies; one was the Three Sisters – I have since seen peaks bearing the same name in South Africa and Australia – for when we saw those three striking, snow-capped summits standing out from the rest of the range, we knew we were almost in Banff. And the other lovely sight was the beautiful tiger lilies growing in gorgeous profusion alongside the railway track.
But the place I loved to see tiger lilies most was growing on the prairie. Suddenly, I would come upon one, almost hidden in the browny-green grass, a little streak of flame sending out its modest message of grace and beauty. When I found one I always cupped it gently in my hands, never picking it, simply because I couldn’t bear to feel that I was shortening its life. So I just sat beside it with the admiration of a boy who loved the rapture of perfect things. I even remember thinking gratefully of the bird who had brought the seed and dropped it on the prairie, probably having carried it all the way from beside the railway track at Banff.
What I remember of Banff in those early days before World War 1, is of a few houses and shops in a single street, edged by a wooden sidewalk, all set in the midst of scenic grandeur, surrounded by mountains, one or two buggies moving aimlessly and a few cowboys’ horses tied up to posts. A sign pointed to a zoo and this I found contained about a dozen animals, including a couple of buffaloes, a mountain lion, a lynx, some brown bears and coyotes.
The bears in the mountains were fairly tame, especially if there was food about, as I found when camping there a year or so later with some other boys, we being awakened in the morning by seeing the flap of our tent opened and a brown nose pushed inquisitively inside!
The day of the Banff visit was never long enough but, like most other exciting things, it had to come to an end and the clanging bell told us it was time to return to Calgary – and home.
Part 8
The first school I attended was a two room wooden shack, but imagine my shock on the very first day, following the other boys out of the classroom at recess into a shed, to see a boy of about my own age take out a revolver – I learned afterwards that it was a Colt 32! - and start shooting with live bullets at a block of wood. Scared stiff, I quietly slipped away out of the shed.
We had great fun in winter and from the beginning I entered into it with enthusiasm – skating, tobogganing, sleigh riding. In those days, Calgary was a city that lay in a great bowl, surrounded by hills and we tobogganed down the hills. Once I was spilled off a toboggan and run over but suffered only a little bruising which, out of sheer bravado, I ignored. On my visit to Canada in Centennial Year 56 years later, I found the hills had all disappeared, town planning had streamlined the landscape.
I remember with excited impatience, waiting up through a long night during that first winter to see Sir Wilfred Laurier, the Liberal ex-Prime Minister, who arrived in a snowstorm, hours late, his train having been held up by snow drifts. He had come to address a series of electioneering meetings, being conducted from one hall to another where the meetings had been arranged to take place. I do not remember after all these years, which particular hall I waited in, but I have a perfect memory of all the Calgary citizens and old timers giving the veteran statesman an upstanding welcome as his tall, straight figure strode up the aisle, clad in a long fur coat that nearly reached the floor.
I thought of this incident when attending a conference at the Liberal Club in London, England, between the wars as a prospective candidate for parliament. After the war, I was asked to choose a constituency to fight as a Liberal candidate at the next election, but rightly or wrongly, I decided against this.
We soon moved out of the suburb onto the Alberta prairie and I revelled in the open free life, roaming where I would. Our little four roomed wooden house, built by father and elder brothers, was on the Edmonton Trail, and I had a three mile walk each day down the Trail to and from school.
Sometimes I slightly varied the direction and went through a little valley, but one day I was warned that a lynx had been seen in the vicinity, undoubtedly having come in from the Rocky Mountains, a distance of about sixty miles, for food. Returning home through the valley one day, I saw the vicious animal slinking stealthily through some bushes in my direction. I raced for my life and was relieved to see a man coming towards me. I called out “There’s a lynx coming”. “yes” he said, “I’ve come to get him before he gets you”, and then I noticed the gun he was carrying. A moment later I heard a shot and turned to see the man walking up to the dead animal.
The next day I went into Calgary to see the lynx exhibited in a shop window on Eighth Avenue. I was gazing at the dead animal through the shop window, transfixed by the memory of the previous day, when a man standing next to me said “How would you like to meet that on the prairie without a gun?” I turned slowly and looked up at the man, then said “That’s just what I did”. The man looked at me incredulously, then exclaimed, “Bless me, it’s the boy himself!” I recognised the man who shot the lynx.
Father decided it was necessary to have a small rifle in the house, mainly in case of visits from wild animals, particularly coyotes, as when driven out of the wild by hunger, these wolf-like animals could be dangerous. So we had a .22 rifle which could fire either bullets or BB pellets. Apart from its use as protection in case of need, we used it to shoot prairie chicken and wild duck in flight on the rare occasion we had the opportunity.
I recall how afraid we all were of meeting the outlaw killer who, having murdered several people, was being hunted by the Mounties and had made his way to the outskirts of Calgary, hiding in the basement of an empty bungalow, north of Crescent Heights. He was traced and the bungalow was surrounded by armed Mounties. A staircase led down to the basement, the entrance being through a trap door, which was the only way down to the killer. One of the Mounties volunteered to open it and, if the outlaw would not come out, he would go downstairs and make the arrest.
It was thrilling just to read in the Calgary Daily Herald how the Mountie pulled open the trap door and challenged the murderer to come out and give himself up. And I found it even more thrilling to read that the outlaw killer proved game enough to do just that. For when afterwards the Mounties went down to investigate, they found enough food and drink to keep the man alive for many weeks and sufficient ammunition to withstand a siege for a very long time.
We were more afraid of prairie fires than of wild animals, for the great heat of the summer sun, shining through a piece of glass on the dry grass prairie, often quickly started a fire and, once started, it spread with amazing speed. We used to wet sacks to put out the fires, and to protect the house, we dug a wide trench around the outside.
The thing I most liked doing was just wandering with my younger brother, Cecil, over the prairie, breathing its clean, fresh air and pretending to be cowboys and Indians. The favourite place we made for was a gully about a mile away, where we found skeletons of buffaloes, our pleasure being greatly enhanced by our imagination, which took us back into the days – not so long before, when these great animals with their massive, majestic heads, roamed the prairie as free as the Indians did before the white man came.
Part 7
Chapter 3 – Canada at last
The journey across Canada back in those days took about eight or nine days. Because of the cost, we travelled Colonist – the cheapest method, which meant we fed ourselves, buying food at stations on the way, envying those who could afford the luscious food, luxuriously served in the dining cars.
I was fascinated by such things as the cow-catcher on the front of every engine, the clanging of the train bell whenever we passed through a town, large or small, the length of the train seen rounding Lake Superior, both ends being visible at the same time in a long semi-circle; the miles and miles of open, flat prairie with the grain elevators, indicating the great corn industry at every little place we passed.
I have one sad memory of that train journey. We stopped on one of the little used tracks to allow another train to pass. As we started again, one of the train staff tried to jump on the steps of our moving carriage, but unfortunately had let the train gather too much speed and he missed his footing and was dragged under the train. I saw the whole tragic happening very clearly and was stunned speechless. The train stopped and later I told my elder brothers I had witnessed the dreadful accident, but they refused to believe me and laughed me to scorn. I was so bewildered and hurt by their disbelief and derision that I never mentioned the subject again, stifling my resentment and indignation.
However, the novelty and excitement of arriving in the new, vast country soon dispersed any feelings of gloom and forebodings of disaster engendered by the accident. There were all the hitherto unknown experiences awaiting me.
We arrived in Calgary, Alberta, in the middle of the night, in a tremendous burst of steam from the two engines pulling the long train and to the accompaniment of clanging train bells announcing with deafening, shattering explosion of sound that we were here at last. At the time, I wondered why it was necessary at such an unearthly hour to proclaim to the sleeping populace, the arrival of a train.
The father I didn’t remember met us at the station, but I suppose I must have been stunned physically insensible by the ear-splitting arrival, as I have no recollection of anything he said or did.
On our first Sunday morning in Calgary, we all went off to an English church, in deference, I suppose, to monitor mother’s religious persuasion, but it wasn’t long before we were attending the meetings at the Salvation Army Citadel. The first impression I got was of a joyous, happy crowd enjoying their religion in a mood of rapturous abandon. The service built up to a climax, the aim being to persuade sinners to go forward to the Penitent’s Form where they became converted from sin to a life of religious service. I well remember the jubilation all round the hall as my father led my mother out to make her confession. But I also remember wondering in my young mind, what possible sins my dear, sainted mother could have to confess, for I knew her to be an angel in thought, word and deed!
The Salvation Army in Calgary was started as far back as August 1887 and its first officer was Captain James Desson, the services at first being held in Boynton Hall. The building on 1st Street East, which for some strange reason – unique, surely, in Army history – was called an auditorium, was not built until twenty two years later, in 1909, by which time they were well established with flourishing musical and all other sections.
At first we lived in one of the few suburbs of Calgary, which had not long grown out of being a cow town; in fact, only 35 years before our arrival, it was merely a fort, Fort Calgary having been established in 1875 by F Troop of the North West Mounted Police. The redcoats had built up a great respect for themselves and the lawless fraternity made themselves scarce when they heard the Mounties were on their way. The Mounties made their first encampment at MacLeod and spent their first winter in the west hunting the scattered whisky traders.
The early history of Alberta was largely of buffalo hunters and, helped by the Indians, they slew thousands of these magnificent animals. Hadn’t I found many skeletons in my favourite gulley, proving this shameful bit of history? As was to be expected, the country was lawless and wild and this was made worse by those white men who peddled whisky to the Indians. However, their criminal activities were dealt with fearlessly by the Mounties who eventually succeeded in putting down all such wrong-doing. Undoubtedly, Canada owes a great debt of gratitude to its scarlet coated police force, of which all Canadians are justly proud.
I quickly made friends with some Canadian boys, learning to live as they lived, running barefoot about the streets, paved or unpaved, playing ‘knife’ and soon mastering this game with some dexterity. It was a game of skill, played with an ordinary pocket knife, the object being to throw it in various ways, each consecutive throw getting more and more difficult. Your turn came to an end when the knife failed to lodge in the earth.
I liked the wooden houses right from the start, painted in bright colours, each with its wide veranda, screen doors and windows to keep out the flies and mosquitoes in summer and storm doors and windows to keep out the cold in winter. Our first home was a bungalow in the suburb of Sunnyside, with a basement accommodating the central heating system, this being a furnace with galvanised tin trunking carrying hot air to the rooms above, this being admitted through a grating let into the wainscoting. A bungalow without a basement had the advantage of being moved fairly easily and in those days, it was a common sight to see a bungalow being trundled along the street on low wheels to a new location.
Never before had I used a telephone but here, in Canada in 1911, already installed in the bungalow was an automatic dialling telephone! And we could have as many local calls as we liked included in the basic charge, for there was then no check or limit on the calls dialled. Of course, it was different for long distance calls
Part 6
Was there ever a liner sailed without at least one stowaway, or at least rumours of one or more on board? We had one on the Empress of Ireland and this provided much excited speculation and rumour. One had seen him found in a locker, another had caught him hiding in an empty bin in the kitchen, whilst others had him ignominiously dragged out from under various beds. Some even went so far as to tell stories of his appearance before the Captain with amazing quotations from the conversations that ensued!
In my subsequent travels about the world, I have witnessed many systematic and thorough searches when a hunt for a stowaway has been in progress. The passengers are always on the side of the hunted, hoping he will either not be found or, if caught, will be allowed to work his passage, but every effort and ounce of ingenuity in methods of detection are used to ‘ferret’ out the ‘villain’. Wardrobes, lockers, cupboards, store places of all kinds are investigated, not a square foot of space where a poor body might hide, left without scrutiny.
One day I saw a notice about wireless messages and this brought back my mind to the Crippen murder. This had interested my young mind the year before, being impressed by the fact that it was the first time in history that wireless telegraphy had been used to catch an escaped criminal. The first newsflash became the sensation of the day and, young as I was, it gripped my imagination.
The ship on which Crippen, the quiet little doctor of Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway, North London, and Miss Ethel Le Neve, his mistress, were apprehended was the Montrose and its master was Captain Kendall who played an important part in the drama. What links this incident with my story is the fact that Captain Kendall eventually became the Captain of the Empress of Ireland and was its master when it sank in the St Lawrence in 1914.
Sunday at sea and mother saw to it that all her family were clean and properly dressed in their best clothes for the church service conducted by the Captain. A kindly nurse offered to look after the baby and our young sister while mother attended the service with the rest of the family. Afterwards I saw two men playing chess, and I heard one elderly lady make a scathing comment about this, with details of the dire perils that might lie in store for us all as a result!
In those days, Sunday was strictly regarded as a day of rest and religious observance and all work that could possibly be done the previous day had to be disposed of before the Sabbath. The prohibition included riding on a public conveyance, unless it was absolutely necessary, we children were not allowed to play games, our boots and shoes had to be cleaned the day before and mother would have thrown up her hands in holy horror at any suggestion of sewing or knitting on the Lord’s Day.
The Empress of Ireland sailed up the Gulf of St Lawrence and I was deeply impressed as we came to Quebec, looking up at the towering cliffs, crowned at the top by the beautiful Chateau Frontenac Hotel with its round towers, the river flowing at the bottom and the lovely old-world city spreading out on the landward side. Little did I imagine then that one day, nearly sixty years later, May and I would stay in that same hotel, occupying a suite of rooms in one of those very same round towers! But we did, in 1967 – Canada’s Centenary Year, and our name in the hotel register is proud proof.
Part 5
Chapter 2 – We emigrate
Looking back to our emigration in 1911, I cannot help but to compare my mother with the brave pioneer women of earlier days. For she had the worry, work and responsibility of selling up the home, finalising all details of the journey, and then bringing the family of four boys between eight and fourteen years of age and two young sisters, one a babe in arms, by train from Birmingham to Liverpool, preparatory to journeying five thousand miles to a far-distant place in a strange new land.
Liverpool – and my first ever sight of the sea! My excitement overflowed, and I could hardly wait for the moment when we would all be on the great ship. Had I but a faint premonition of the eventual fate that was in store for that liner, I would have shuddered in fear, for it was the ill-fated Empress of Ireland. Three years later it was to sink in less than fifteen minutes, beneath the waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence after a collision with a Norwegian collier, the Storstad, carrying into a watery grave 1087 persons, including some personal friends we came to know after our arrival in Western Canada.
This tragedy was a bitter and agonising blow to the Salvation Army, as amongst those who perished was a large contingent of Salvationists, including Commissioner David Rees, the head of the Army in Canada, and all but a few of the Staff Band from Toronto. All of whom were going to England to attend an International Congress of Salvationists from all over the world.
http://www.greatoceanliners.net/empressofireland.html
The journey from Liverpool to Quebec took approximately six days, and we arrived on 23rd June 1911. More or less vaguely, I remember snatches of things about the voyage. I do recall that we four younger children were all in one cabin with mother, whilst my two elder brothers were in a different cabin with other young men. I know that mother had her hands full looking after the baby and my young sister, particularly as at times all her family were sea-sick.
One thing I remember about the food was that every day we were each given an orange after the midday meal, this being a great treat, for never before had I had an orange all to myself every day of the week. Once during the voyage, on his tour of inspection, I saw the Captain, and to my great astonishment and confusion, he patted my head and spoke to me, but I was so over-awed by the occasion and seeing so much gold braid, that I was speechless!
We were strictly confined to the steerage accommodation, all passageways leading to the luxurious quarters enjoyed by those more fortunate in the distribution of this world’s goods, being barred to us.
I clearly remember feeling sick and lying huddled in a corner of the deck, watching the effect of the pitch of the vessel as it rose in the water making it impossible to see the horizon; then the ship rolling the other way, and I could again see the water. The movement fascinated me, and I began to count the seconds until the sky would come into view again. I got quite expert at this, and found that I could measure time with an exactness that almost invariably synchronised with the return of both the sea and later, the sky to my vision.
We passed a number of icebergs of varying shapes and size, and I recollect the crunching noise they made against the side of the vessel as we ploughed through a floe of them. With keen eyes I searched each passing berg to see if a polar bear had got trapped and carried away. I asked a sailor about the icebergs and he told me that only one ninth was above water, the danger of which impressed me deeply. A year or so later we were having a lesson at school when this subject cropped up and I was able to show off my knowledge by divulging the sailor’s revelation before my teacher could mention it!
I liked that sailor, for he told me many things I hadn’t known before. I asked about the stars and I remember his look of surprise as he said “you interested in the stars?” “I like them” I replied “and especially a bright sort of blue-ish one I saw last night”. He asked me to show him which one I meant when it would become dark. I was excited that night as I waited for my sailor friend, so I could point it out. He told me it was called Sirius, the Dog Star, and was the most beautiful star in the sky. Then he showed me how to find it by following the three stars of the Hunter’s Belt in an almost straight line. Then he explained all about the constellation of Orion and I have never forgotten my first introduction to astronomy.
Part 4
My two elder brothers started their working life at Cadbury’s chocolate factory and were there up until we emigrated. Both these brothers learned to swim at the factory swimming pool, and both won certificates for distance swimming, diving and life saving.
Cadbury’s business was founded in 1824, when John Cadbury opened a tea and coffee business next door to his father’s draper shop in Bull Street, Birmingham. He sold cocoa as a sideline, roasting his own cocoa beans and then grinding them by hand using a pestle and mortar. John had a keen sense of showmanship, for whilst other shops had bottle glass windows, which obscured what they had for sale, he introduced plate glass to display his goods for all to see. Then to cap it all, he employed a Chinese servant dressed in native costume.
The business expanded until in 1879 John’s two sons, Richard and George, took the bold step of buying the Bournbrook Estate, four miles south of Birmingham, where they built the famous Bournville factory and housing estate, thus pioneering the welfare standards for which they have become famous. It was on one of my visits to Bournville that I had a thrilling and (for me), unique historical experience. Already in those days, Claude Grahame-White was a name to conjure with; the first Englishman to be granted an aviation certificate. My imagination was fired by the new science, and I had heard of the competition flight from London to Manchester, organised by the Daily Mail, which misfortune and bad luck combined together prevented Grahame-White from winning.
However, my great thrill came when, some months later, Grahame-White was announced to land his plane on Cadbury’s sports field, and at the age of ten, with my heart bursting with expectancy and excitement, I made my way there. I wasn’t allowed through the gates, so I squeezed up against the iron railings with a crowd of other people, I was the only boy I could see amongst them. It seemed the waiting would never end, but tenaciously, I held on. Then it happened, for as I watched, to my amazement, spellbound to the degree that only a small lad, whose whole being was obsessed with what was happening, could be, the plane came down out of the sky, and I had the overwhelming sensation how like a great bird it was as it gracefully swooped low over the factory buildings. The aviator’s legs were dangling through the plane’s flimsy landing gear, then it landed in front of the crowd gathered to welcome the intrepid pioneer aviator!
Since that experience I have flown in many parts of the world – from Alice Springs to Adelaide, a thousand miles over the Red Desert, the great Australian Outback; three thousand miles from Toronto across the breath-taking Rocky Mountains to Vancouver; again, taking off from Montreal in a thunderstorm to fly to London, rising above the storm to meet the sunset reflecting its glory as far as the eye could see on the clouds below. Yet nothing I have experienced or seen in all my travels has set my heart ablaze with excitement as did Claude Grahame-White’s landing that day so long ago, seem through the railings surrounding Cadbury’s sports field.
The main recurring excitement of the outings to Bournville was always the return journey, which I was allowed to do by train. At the little railway station at Bournville I used to sit in the waiting room with my eyes glued to a picture above the fireplace. After over seventy years I still see the great liner, flags flying, red funnels belching out smoke that curled away in the distance, two sailors on the quay, arms akimbo, leaning on a rail, their backs to me, as the ship steams away. I had a great longing for adventure, a yearning for far-off places. So many times, with that longing filling my heart, I had taken my fill of that picture, until one day for me, it came true!
An announcement from my mother zoomed my little world into an unbelievable adventure. She said, simply, like the way she tackled all her problems, “We’re going to Canada”. I could hardly take it in, the news was so incredible. Vaguely, I knew Canada was a vast country away over the sea, where there was a father I as yet did not know. Fascinated and excited by my thirst for adventure, the picture at Bournville railway station came back to my mind, and immediately it took on a new meaning for me. I could hardly believe my luck!
Then another wonderful thing happened almost at the same time; there was to be a moving picture show at the church hall and it was to be about Canada. I had never seen a cinematograph show at all, so surely Providence was working overtime on my behalf. I ran all the way home from the Band of Hope, where the show had been announced. Excitedly I danced around my mother as I begged permission to go to this special show. She agreed and I could hardly wait for the night to come round. Of course, I was fascinated by the moving pictures of wigwams and Indians, cowboys and canoes. The film broke down several times and the pictures flickered and jerked, but to me it was sheer wonder!
Part 3
Until I was ten I never knew my father, except for fleeting glimpses on his occasional visits home, which I was too young to remember. For me he was a mysterious person who lived in far-away places with exciting names such as Arizona and Mexico. I remember being told with appropriate solemnity that he was in San Francisco at the time of the disastrous earthquake in 1906, and this for me, placed him in a somewhat superior, almost unreal, class by himself. This indeed was true fame!
One day mother broke what to us children was the strange news that father had joined the Salvation Army, and my first reaction was to ask if he would have to go to war! Mother explained that it wasn’t that kind of army, and I was left wondering what other kind of army there could be. How my mother managed to bring up a large family, acting in the difficult dual capacity of both father and mother to four boys, a girl of two and a baby in arms, dependent on a more or less regular remittance from the other side of the world, I was too young to realise. But she did, and her control of her family was firm, kindly and wise. We were taught to fear God, honour the king, respect our elders, be honest, never use bad language, and to call the doctor sir.
One side of Heeley Road consisted of a seemingly endless row of terraced houses, all joined in monotonous uniformity, broken occasionally by separating passages called ‘entries’, each providing a back entrance. On the other side of the road ran the railway, running to Bournville, beyond which was unknown territory to me. And this to me was my little world; the stereotyped little houses with their depressing uniform consistency, and the railway, the mysteries of which were concealed from me behind a high board fence. The trains I could hear but couldn’t see restricted me to listening to the pompous chuff-chuff-chuffing of the steam engines, followed by the clack-clack-clacking of the wagon buffers as they vociferated one after another until every wagon had endorsed the fact that the train was stopping. When the engine restarted I would count the chuffs before they burst into what sounded to me like ‘there-I’ve-done-it, there-I’ve-done-it, there-I’ve-done-it, now-we’re-off, now-we’re off’ and then I would listen with excited anticipation as the engine wheels made their final spin round at terrific speed before gripping the rails, as if celebrating achievement.
At Bournville I had an aunt and uncle with a lovely family of six girls. Occasionally I walked there to visit them, on the way contrasting the lovely landscaped garden estate with the drab monotony in bricks and mortar where we lived. My visits to Bournville were always a great treat to me, not only because of the superior neighbourhood, but because my aunt made lovely fruit cake and my uncle grew beautiful roses. He also played the bass violin in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. I always returned home with a bunch of roses for my mother. My six cousins were all beautiful girls who made a great fuss of me, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
My uncle never wasted effort on needless words, but what he did say was always pleasant and usually said with a smile. I loved his dialect, and when I would find him in the garden with his roses, he would look up, smile and say “Tha ‘ast come to see thee cousins, ah reckon”. Then with a sly smile, “Bist thee want some of ‘er cake?”.
Part 2
At home in Selly Oak I played street games with other boys, the most popular of these being tip-cat and last-across. Tip-cat was played with a stick, with which one hit one of the pared-down ends of a small piece of wood, thus making it rise in the air, then trying to hit it as far as possible along the street. Last-across was a dangerous game, the idea being to see who could be the last to cross the road in front of an oncoming horse!
In those days, little things pleased us and provided the excitement of life. If someone gave us a penny, we thought we had a fortune! I sometimes think the children of today may have lost the sense of wonder with all the amazing inventions and discoveries they enjoy and which to some of them are commonplace. I got a great thrill out of flying a ha’penny kite: a few years later I had the unspeakable wonder of hearing radio for the first time, the result of fiddling a ‘cat’s whisker’ on a wireless crystal set until the sound came through. And I remember the first thing I heard; it was Paderewski playing his minuet in D.
As a boy, and indeed, all through life, strange or unusual things have interested me. For instance, I have always wondered why workmen tied their trousers below the knee with a leather strap or just a piece of string. Whenever I asked the question, I could never get a satisfactory answer. I loved unusual odours, such as the smell of a coal-cart, and I would hang around while a coalman delivered his sacks of coal, just to enjoy the smell.
Unlike most boys, I never indulged in fighting. Some may think of me as a coward, but I have never been able to understand why men and boys resort to fisticuffs to settle what after all is a moral argument. The only thing that fisticuffs proves is that the winner is physically stronger or more clever with his fists than the loser; it certainly doesn’t prove either person to be right or wrong.
Sunday school outings have always been a great adventure for children, and in those early days of privation, when the smallest benefit was a Godsend, we appreciated and enjoyed everything we got. We were up and dressed at an unearthly hour, long before the prescribed time, with our name-tickets, tea mugs and whatever else we had been instructed to bring. We were taken by horse-drawn ‘brakes’ to some field or park, and were usually accompanied by what we children called the ‘bummer toots’ (boys brigade bugle bands). The one connected with our church had a small cannon, which was pulled by hand and operated by older boys.
On one occasion an accident provided the whole district with the greatest talking point for many a long day; a cannon failed to explode its small shell, so a boy was detailed to push his ramrod into the cannon mouth, whereupon the shell exploded and blew off one of the boy’s fingers!
On Saturday mornings we older children were each allocated by mother regular tasks. Mine was to clean the knives on an emery board, or on the stone doorstep, using a bath brick, a solid substance that removed all stains – and occasionally the skin from my fingers – and, with the application of much energy, made the knives gleam brightly.
Part 1
My earliest memory is of my mother melting goose oil in a spoon held over an old fashioned gas jet in a bedroom, then making me open my mouth so she could pour the nauseating liquid down my throat. This was to bring up the thick viscid fluid that threatened to choke me. One never hears of the illness croup today, nor of the remedy, but back then this remedy was very effective, though loathsome.
It may be my avidity for the imaginative that forced me to withdraw into myself and become something of a lonely child. I have never had any difficulty in keeping secrets and confidences. Another thing, we were very poor, but very proud, and I personally have always had an abhorrence of accepting charity. On one occasion I found my mother had accepted a parcel of groceries from a neighbour at a time when we were struggling against adversity – I begged her to return the parcel. Mother ignored my pleading; she believed implicitly in God and that Providence would always provide – and he did!
Mother was a devout churchwoman, and with my brothers I attended the English church of St Mary, situated on the Bristol Road, Selly Oak, near Birmingham. Here I revelled in all the Old Testament Bible stories, which my imagination made very real for me: Joseph with his coat of many colours was let down into a pit at the bottom of our narrow garden in Heeley Road, whilst David slew Goliath in the same surroundings, and Daniel turned the lions into docile friends near where we grew a few potatoes to make up for the scarcity of money.
We had a small grotto in the tiny garden, in which we placed pieces of coloured glass and anything else that seemed to give it colour and unusual interest. I suppose we couldn’t afford to aspire to a rockery, and had to be content with this cheap imitation.
My memories of our neighbours is still very clear; one grew masses of beautiful sweet peas on a trellis, which I thought was wonderful. Another was a drunkard who had a sickly child about whom the women sadly shook their heads ominously. I remember my detestation of the father on hearing it said that when a neighbour sent along an egg custard for the child, the father ate it himself. There was also the woman who obviously could never get her finances in order and was continuously paying visits to the local pawn-broker, either to pledge something or redeem an article before her husband returned home. Then there was the wife who took in washing because her husband was too lazy to work; she was often not seen for days because ‘she don’t want to show her black eye’.
One of the highlights of my life was the occasional visit from our uncle Charlie, from the great City of London. He seemed always to be wearing knee britches and a Norfolk jacket. He was a graduate of Cambridge University, became a headmaster of a London grammar school, and was the chairman of the political party that sent the late Horatio Bottomley to parliament. Horatio Bottomley is mainly remembered today for having been sentenced in 1922 to penal servitude for fraud! Uncle Charlie’s visits were anticipated with keen expectancy because he was very jolly, and guffawed heartily after every sentence he uttered. He demonstrated his interest in us children by dipping his hand deep into his trouser pocket, then, with his jolly manner and air of mystery, he’d say ‘now, what do you think I’ve got for you?’ And we, having been warned in advance by mother to not say anything, but to maintain an expected silence. Then with a loud guffaw and feigned difficulty in extracting his hand from his pocket, Uncle Charlie would look with great surprise at the shining silver coins. He would then place a bright new shilling in the hands of four astonished boys and one little sister.
Uncle Charlie lived in a large house in Hackney, London. – in those days an important residential district, and once, as a very small boy, I was taken there for a holiday by my beneficent uncle as a result of one of his visits to Selly Oak. The only thing I remember about the journey was the thrill of being taken in a horse-drawn tram across London. My memories of the house are far more fresh in my mind, for I remember that I had to live ‘below-stairs in the servants’ quarters, being cautioned that I must never go upstairs unless taken there. Occasionally I was allowed to climb the stairs to the ‘forbidden’ territory to play in the nursery, the highlight of which was to ride my cousin’s splendid rocking horse. Once a week, on Sunday afternoons, I was taken to the large dining room to have tea with my aunt, uncle and any guests. On these exalted occasions I was instructed not to speak unless spoken to, to be careful not to make a noise when drinking my tea and to not take a cake until one was offered to me. I had two cousins, a boy and a girl, both older than me. I concluded that they were either kept away from me or were away at boarding schools, for I never saw either of them.
There was a servant called Lizzie, who looked after me, and I, being only six years of age, slept in a small bed in Lizzie’s room. She was always very kind to me and I became very attached to her. I was dependent on her, particularly to make sure I was properly dressed on my weekly visits to the large dining room. Lizzie occasionally took me into the large garden at the back of the house. It had a beautiful lawn that was like velvet to walk on, and there was a wooden summerhouse stacked with wicker chairs and other garden furniture, but I was never allowed inside; in fact, I was permitted in the garden only when no one else except Lizzie was there. I remember with an air of reverence and mystery, a winding iron spiral staircase leading up from the garden to my uncle’s study. Lizzie told me I had better keep away from it. However, once I crept up to the iron balcony at the top of the staircase, and gave a quick, guilty, burning with curiosity, look through the window. There was a large globe of the world and rows and rows of books lining the wall. Overlooking it all was a picture of King Edward the 7th, resplendent in crimson and gold. Truly, this was a ‘holy of holies’ and I stole away feeling that I had had a glimpse into a hitherto unknown world.
There was a special occasion when Lizzie took me into the garden, and this was a wonderful experience for me, for she gave me a piece of bread and told me to walk softly as far as the summerhouse, adding that if I was very quiet a little robin might come to me. Once I had seen a picture of a robin in a book, and I asked excitedly whether the robin would have a red breast, like the one I’d seen in the picture. Lizzie smiled at my excitement and assured me he would have a red breast, then to my astonishment, she confided that she knew this robin very well and he might be friendly if I didn’t frighten him. Lizzie followed me to the summerhouse and I waited, but the robin didn’t come. She then told me to break off a bit of bread and throw it, which I did, and to my great surprise and joy, a robin seemed to come from nowhere and picked up the bread. I was thrilled, and when the robin hopped towards me, chirruping, I was so happy that my eyes filled with tears. Smiling, Lizzie stooped and wiped away my tears, then said ‘bend down and hold out the bread on your hand, but don’t be afraid’. The robin gave a couple of chirrups, cocked its head to one side, then flew up and settled on my hand, pecking at the bread.
