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!
