One of my cousins sent me some images of old, black and white photographs recently spotted on Facebook. I was captivated; there were family photographs of my Grandparents wedding and some others of my aunts and uncles when they were young. Even one with me as a babe in arms! I have no idea when my Grandparents got married, but the photos were very formal, and the clothes looked Edwardian. All except for Grandad who was in uniform.
My grandparents were the sort that you find in stories. White haired, wholesome and loving. They always had time for me, and I adored both of them. It's the little things like if I washed my hair and wrapped it in a towel, grandad would call me his little princess, something I was quite unused to. My earliest memory must be when I was round about the age of three. It was Christmas morning and my brother and I were really excited. We must have stayed at my grandparents’ house overnight, and we were waiting to get up; only we couldn’t wait and began jumping up and down on the bed. All of a sudden it slipped and there was a crash and we had broken it! Fortunately, I can remember little else from that escapade.
Grandad had a car, a black Austin Six which he was extremely proud of. We would all pile in and go off for rides around the New Forest. I was a terrible traveller and we would only have gone a few miles before I turned green and needed to be out to be sick. On one occasion, I didn’t quite make it and the only thing that saved the interior of the car was a beautiful red wool plaid travel rug. Well it went in the boot and it washed, but the car must have smelt horrible for the rest of the journey. The one one and only time that I remember seeing my Great Grandmother was as she stepped from Grandad's car one day on a visit to their house. I still have the image in my mind of a rather scary, wizened old lady in black with a very sharp voice. Grandad was very safety conscious especially for the front passenger; when he came to a stop, he would put his left arm out to make sure that you didn’t fly forwards on to the dashboard. He definitely approved of seat belts when they came in. The best treat was when grandad drove all the way from the South Coast to Scarborough to see us after we had moved north. He was accompanied by my Gran and my favourite Aunt and Uncle, and we had a wonderful week being spoilt rotten by adoring relatives.
As I got older I often made the trip down south by train on my own. They would know I was on my way, but I would keep timings a secret so that I could savour the welcome when I turned up on the doorstep. I usually caught a bus from the station and went in through the back lane where my grandad had his garage cum workshop. That smile and hug was worth it. But equally so if I knocked at the front door, Gran would shuffle out in her slippers and then I would be wrapped in a suffocating embrace. I loved it. I can see it now. The shiny brass door knocker and step plate, through the hall into the back parlour with grandad’s special chair in the corner. The table taking up most of the space and then the kitchen and the garden beyond. It was only a modest terrace, but it was always warm and welcoming.
I realised all too late, that as much as I loved my Grandparents, I never thought about what their lives were like before I was born; they were already there, ready-made, so I only know little snatches about them. Gran, was born Edith Medley in 1897 and lived with her parents and two sisters, Maud and Lily in Southampton not far from The Avenue. Her childhood was disrupted when Maud died, aged 11 and then a couple of years later when her parents both died. Gran was only 10 at the time, so Lily, who was 14 years her senior stepped in and raised her. She was a bit of a tom-boy and loved climbing trees and swimming. Her first job was in a tobacconists shop in the High Street where all the service men would come up from the docks for their cigarettes and I reckon Gran would have flirted outrageously and certainly given some cheek. It’s even possible that she first encountered Grandad there, but I shall never know. She was very superstitious and wouldn’t have the colour green in the house. She loved a flutter on the horses and had quite a few low level wins over the years, but because of her superstition she missed out on betting on The Grand National one year because I had been talking about pigs!
My great grandmother on grandad’s side was married three times. Grandad had three brothers: Bill. Harry and Stuart plus two sisters - Marge and Hilda (not too sure of the names). Bill married Ivy and they had two sons, Leo Stuart Bowers who was killed in World War Two aboard HMS Hood on his 21st birthday. Also Roland, known as Rolly who had learning difficulties. Harry married Ada and had two lovely daughters, Joy and Anne who I like to keep in touch with. Little is known about Stuart except that he seems to have owned a pub somewhere, and as for Marj and Hilda, I have no idea whatsoever. Grandad's family on his mother’s side were Campion the bakers and had several shops in his home city of Portsmouth and a contract with the Royal Naval Base, I remember talk of grandad working at the bakery before going home for breakfast, a change of clothes and then hopping on the tram for his daytime job. He loved horses, was clever with his hands and had an innate intelligence. He was also very stubborn, but a gentle man.
As for most people, The Great War changed his life. One thing that I do know from his service record is that Grandad went to France on 21 August 1914 with the first troops of the British Expeditionary Force, which means that he was already in the army, having joined at the age of sixteen (I believe he fibbed about his age). His regiment was the 4th Dragoon Guards; mounted cavalry with rifles and swords trained in infantry and cavalry fighting. (Later to become The Blues and Royals which were formed in 1969 from an amalgamation of the Royal Horse Guards – Blues, and The Royal Dragoons - 1st Dragoons). But not a good idea in that conflict. He transferred to the Dorsetshire Regiment, although I’m uncertain as to why, but it is possible that he had been wounded, recovered and then was posted to an infantry regiment. I know he was injured at some point because it was at Netley Abbey hospital that he met a young redheaded nurse called Edith who was to become my Gran. They were married at St Mary's in 1919. When he returned to the fight, he trained in the use of the Vickers Machine Gun with the Machine Gun Corps.
It's amazing to think that not only did Grandad survive the whole of the First World War, but then in the winter of 1918 he went with the North Russia Expeditionary Force to Archangel (the allied intervention in the Russian Civil war). He did talk about the extreme cold and he was ultra-impressed by the sight of train tracks being laid across the frozen rivers in winter, a sight that stayed in his mind's eye for the rest of his life. They were supposed to be trained to ski, but I think it was all a bit too late and the snow too deep. At one point, he and his Commanding Officer went out on a recce and got lost. The local peasants found them, pulled them out of a snowdrift, took them home, wrapped them in furs and placed them on the top of a huge Russian stove to slowly thaw out. It took several days before they were able to return to their unit, but the kindness of these people undoubtedly saved their lives and Grandad never forgot it. He also suffered a lot of pain in later years because of it. He formed a deep friendship with his Commanding Officer and I still have a silver cigarette case which he gave to Grandad, it is inscribed: To Fred from ECB NREF* 1918-1919. (*North Russia Expeditionary Force) It is my only memento of my grandad and every time I look at it I want to know more, and who ECB actually was, but it’s not an easy task; it wasn’t called the Forgotten War for nothing.
He left the Army after eight years of service, with the rank of Sergeant and his three World War One medals Pip, Squeak and Wilfred. The command had changed and he was no longer involved with horses, which was the part he loved the most.
On the home front the family grew steadily until there were seven children: four girls Jean, Molly, Olive and Pat and three boys Fred, Dennis and Stuart, on top of which were two lodgers whose rent helped to make ends meet. It must have been a tight squeeze, everyone shared a bedroom and there were certainly no en-suite facilities. It was downstairs and out in the back yard to the outside toilet. Grandad loved his girls and had plans to go into business with his boys. He would be the foreman, my dad would be the electrician, Uncle Stuart the joiner and the eldest son Uncle Fred, the painter, but for whatever reason it never came to fruition.
I think Gran paid the price physically for such a large family, she had always walked everywhere but then in later life suffered badly from ulcers on her legs and I never saw her without bandages to protect the skin from knocks.
Grandad loved to potter out on his own in his car and one of the eternal mysteries in the family was where he went on a Thursday night. He would dress up smartly and disappear after tea, returning a few hours later without a word being said. Nobody asked and now we’ll never know. He finally gave up driving in his seventies when he realised that the traffic was getting too fast and he was getting too old. It was a tough decision but the right one. He used to take a medicinal teaspoonful of liquid paraffin, which was supposed to keep his bowels regular, something that he picked up from army life. My dad said that when he broke wind they could hear it down the street! Despite that, he was a very honest, upright man, strict but fair and his word was law.
After his discharge he became a Rent Collector working for the Southampton City Council as rents were paid weekly and on the door in those days. His next role was as a Maintenance Officer which he took very seriously. Too old to serve in the Second World War, he was asked to sign up for the local ‘Dad’s Army’ as a Fire Warden but as Maintenance Officer for Southampton City Council he was kept pretty busy as each evening he would man the telephones at City Hall from 6pm to midnight, logging calls about the bombing and any urgent work that needed following up because of it. However, my dad was a young lad and still at home then and he took on the role of Fire Warden. Southampton was badly bombed, especially down by the docks, but the rest of the family were safely evacuated to relatives who owned Black Farm in Hursley near Romsey so Grandad did not have to worry about them.
Gran always knew when it was going to rain by listening to the trains as they went along the end of the road, by the side of Southampton Water, it was something to do with the echo, or lack of it. One of my favourite stories about where they lived was that the big ocean liners such as the QE2 berthed in Southampton Water and it was almost as if you could cross the foot bridge and step right onto one of them. When they set sail there would be a blast on the ship’s funnel and everyone from the street would come out of their houses to see the liner leave. What they wanted to see was the liner maneuvering from its berth into Southampton Water; it had to turn which looked for all the world as if it would sail right up the street.
Grandad was 92 when he died, so that makes his year of birth 1894 whilst Gran went on to be 93 and was quite smug that she had outdone old Fred. Gran was a real character and I do regret not getting to know more of her life's story and certainly her time as a Nurse at Netley during the War although she must have witnessed some terrible injuries. As for Grandad, I know that old soldiers don’t like talking about their wars, and who would want to relive those terrible years of killing just so that one country can wield power over another; but if I had my time again I would definitely sit down with him and try to find out more about the remarkable man who was my Grandad.
Comments