Some quirky memories

A few final funny memories from our residents at Glenmoor- a naughty dog, a stolen bike and some strict old ladies...

I was friendly with the neighbour’s daughter, Alice, and she had a bicycle. I was ten years old. She rode it and I sat on the back seat, and we went to Vernon Park, a mile and a half away. It was late summer. Up and down the hills, freewheeling all the way. It had new tyres on it. We played in the park until we were tired out and it was starting to get dark. But the bike was gone.

We went to the police station. The policeman, Bobby Walsh, asked how many bikes there were. I said only one.

“You’re a lad, and you’re sitting on the back?” he said. He took us home, and Grandma saw me first, and got me tucked up in bed before I could get a belting.

I had an Aunty Martha in Oldham. One day I was drawing something and she shouted at my mother. “Ethel! What’s he doing with a coloured crayon? It’s Sunday. Give him a pencil.”

She had a mahogany table with fancy legs, but on Sundays she covered the legs up with red blankets. Maybe she thought I’d start imagining ladies walking down the road! There’s good and bad in every religion. Aunty Martha did her best to be a good Christian.

-James

My grandmother, my dad’s mother, she rustled when she walked down the hall. She would only go in the sitting room on Sundays, when the vicar called.

We had a dog called Gyp, a Spaniel . He was a pup and one day we were going out, so my mother thought we’ll put him in the tall cupboard in the kitchen. He’ll be safe in there. When we came back he was looking very sheepish.

Then later it was time for Dad to get ready for the Home Guard and he was looking for his gaiters. We looked high and low but we never found them. The dog must have chewed and chewed them. They’re known for chewing, Spaniels.

You’d have thought Mum would have been wiser!

-Janet

Thanks once again to all the residents for sharing their stories and making this such a fascinating experience, and to Rachel and all the other staff at Glenmoor House for helping me so much with this project. Many thanks also to Made in Corby and the Arts Council for their support and advice.

More of James' Adventures...

Here's the final part of James' story. He talks about becoming a fireman and life in the prison service...

When I left the Marines I had to learn how to adapt back into civilian life. I didn’t know what the hell to do. I was twenty three years old. For a while I did some labouring on a building site, then I met a friend and he told me they needed people for the Fire Brigade, so I went there and signed up for that.

We had three months training at the fire station in Oldham, learning how to operate the big ladders, driving, tying knots. I already knew about knots. We moved to Burton on Trent, Millie and I, and lived in two rooms with a Miss Winchester, a very staid and orthodox Scottish lady. We started saving for a cottage on Stanford Road. There was an end cottage that we liked, on sale for £800. So we went to a solicitor, Mr Hicks, he was recommended by Mr Lowe the postmaster. Millie’s parents gave us £120 cash as a down payment, and then we paid the rest in instalments.

I remember one particularly terrible fire, it was the Ind Coope Brewery. The hops were set alight and we went in with our breathing apparatus, but then we had to come out because the bobbing barrels came tumbling down on us. My friend was with me, Arthur Adams, and his breathing apparatus came off. The whole building was lost.

Some time after that I left the Fire Service and started working in a hospital, helping the elderly, getting bathed and dressed. I had a wonderful interest in people. Then one day, there was a man with a fracture and I was taking the plaster off for him. One of the nurses saw me and said to go down to orthopaedics, so I could learn all about plaster. I did that for a while then, until somebody else suggested I try out working in prisons.

I decided to work in prison hospitals, and I was sent to St Thomas’ Hospital in London for training, a few hundred yards away from Wormwood Scrubs, where I was smartly dressed in a white uniform. After training I went to work in Lincoln Hospital for a while, about seven years, I think.

I nursed a lot of patients who were seriously ill with psychological problems. Some of them were quite dangerous, they could be paranoid and suspect you, they could turn violent. Others were placid and easy to manage.

There was a doctor there, and he saw my work, and he said, “You’re wasting your time here.” He thought I should go into the probation service. I met a probation officer, Mr Simpson, and I went for the interview. I got into the service, but first I had to go for training to university, and by the end of it I was highly trained.

The work I did was important because it helped them, otherwise you could go to prison and not be seen by anyone. I would talk to employers too, try and get some work lined up for the men when they left. I remember one chap who was serving time, but when you looked at his past, his father had mistreated him. And that was how he treated women, gave them a bit of thump.  So I found work for him with Mr Field, as an apprentice tuner and fitter on a trawler engine, and he did that when he came out of prison. Then one day I saw him, and he’d brought a girl. “We’ve been going dancing,” he said. They ended up getting married, and I was his best man, and they were very happy together.

There were some who couldn’t cope with life on the outside. There was one fellow, when he got out he stole some rope, just so he could get sent back to prison.

Then there were the escapees. The Thompson family, that was one, prisoner by the name of Fred. He got away and nobody knew where he was. We went to his house and the officers were searching everywhere and they couldn’t find him. I said to his wife, “Come on Hilda, where’s Tommo?”

“I’m not telling you,” she said, looking at me contemptuously.

Eventually they found him, down the road, in a pub in Victoria Street, having a drink. He’d gone up into the loft of his house, then moved along into the next loft and the next, gone down into the house of another criminal family. I think he’d stolen a Vienna clock from a shop.

I’m always telling young people about how I was helped in my life and how they should always aspire to something more, try and progress, and to look for people who can help them, help them get to the next stage.

A little more about James' time in the Marines, and a lovely memory of meeting his wife Millie, to whom he's been married for over sixty years...

There was one man by the name of Warrant Officer Chivers. He inspected the lines. He asked me, “Can’t you stand up straight?”

“I am, sir,” I said.

“Put that in the book!” he shouted.  I had to stand still in front of the mirror for two hours then, as a punishment.

I think he wasn’t born like a normal person, Officer Chivers, he was poured out of a big jug, with neither mother nor father, so he was just standing there, a fully formed Marine, nothing else. You couldn’t imagine him being anything other than a Marine.

As I progressed I was put in charge of a landing craft, I was promoted to coxswain. There were forty four troops, most of them crouched under the gunnels, twenty men on one side and twenty on the other.

It had two big V8 engines. It was a flat bottomed boat, so it could be pulled onto the beach and land the troops on sand and mud and pebble beaches. Pebble beaches were the best for landing. It was buoyant because it was filled with thousands of polystyrene balls, filled ping pong falls that looked like expanded treacle toffee. It wasn’t bullet proof but very few people were killed on landing crafts.

After three and a half years I was posted to a training squadron, where I taught other officers about navigation.

It was on one of my visits home that I first saw my wife, Millie. It was the second week in July. Millie was working as a confectioner, doing an apprenticeship in a village across the river from where I lived, a big shop in Rawley. There was this lovely girl standing outside on the step, wearing a short dress and she had flour on her hands and knees.

They’d been baking only twelve rolls a day, but when Millie started she churned out God knows how many muffins and cakes and buns. She ordered more flour and more yeast, and told them to get a new oven. The manager was astounded.

So I met this girl, and all I could think of was, what a nice person. I had no experience of romance. We saw each other, and wrote letters, and there was an affinity. We had lunch in a restaurant of a beautiful shop, and then later I met her parents. Mr Pearson supplied the meat, a lovely piece of roast meat.

I spent time with Millie’s grandfather too. He had a 1927 Alvis motorbike, and we worked together on it, got some new tyres for it. I think that was why he accepted me, in the end.

                                   WW2 Landing Craft

Here's the next part of James' story, and his life takes a very different turn to working in a grocery store...

I wanted to join the army but I was still a few weeks away from my birthday. Then I met a friend in the village. He was dressed in a blue uniform, and he told me he’d joined the Royal Marines, and they were recruiting people in the old school in the village.

There were two Grenadier guards without their bearskins on and they pointed us down the corridor to the room. Then there was a sergeant and a chief petty officer, and they asked me if I wanted to join the Navy or the Marines. He said the Marines were the finest corps in the world, "Per mare, per terram", by sea, by land, and he gave me a picture of the Royal Marines. I thought that sounds alright, and I signed up, just like that.

My mother told me I’d received a letter and a warrant from Plymouth, and she packed my things in a case. I was sent on a train to Winscombe in Devon on a certain date. I fell asleep so they lifted me up and put me on the luggage rack. I nearly fell off. My mother was a clever girl and she gave me sandwiches to eat on the way, and a flask of tea of all things, and then the other boys gave me a beer, a half pint glass. It was the first alcoholic drink I’d ever had. It wasn’t meant to make me drunk, just to be with them.

When we got to the big station there was a lot of noise- it was being bombed, and there was crashing and banging. Eventually it stopped and we got out. We were put into files of threes and we ran up the grassy bank to the depot.

We sat down in the mess to have our meals. The first meal I had in the Royal Marines was a tiddy oggy, a huge Cornish pasty that went over the edge of the plate, with meat at one end and jam at the other, and a cup of tea or cocoa, and I ate every last bit. They cleaned the tables with a little brush, made sure there were no crumbs left.

The next morning we were woken up at 6.30am by the sergeant who was very rude. Our civvies were packed up and sent back to our homes, and we went to the store wearing dressing gowns, socks and pants. I put a label on the parcel and it got sent back to my mother in Oldham. The store was full of rows and rows of clothes. We’d all been measured previously and we needed two vests (woollen), boots (two pairs), slippers, tunic top, trousers, all to be stamped.  It was all piling up in front of us. “Get dressed!” Then we got changed and one by one we stood in front of the mirror, and the corps sergeant made sure we properly dressed in Royal Marine battle dress.

Then we went and signed the papers, “Sign there! Sigh there! Sign there!”  We went down to the quartermaster’s store and we were issued with a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition, and a beret. We also had a leather string with a number tag on it. Sergeant Blackburn asked, “Who are you?”

I told him my name and he said, “Forget about being James Smith. Now you’re a Royal Marine.” And that was what happened, you weren’t a person with a name any more, just a number- PLY/H8218.

After that we weren’t allowed out of the barracks. We could go to the naffy, where you could sit down and have a rock cake or a cup of tea and a bun.

We’d walk and run for ten miles and they’d drag you through the drainpipes. We went over the moor, Dalditch Moor. When I see these things on television now, I think, “Did I really do all that?” It’s hard to believe but I did.

One of the residents at Glenmoor House I've had the the great privilege of meeting is James Smith. James has so many fascinating stories to tell from his experiences as, among other things, a Marine and a prison officer, and for the next few posts I'm going to share some of these. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did...

I was born in Bradbury, Cheshire, on 28^th April 1924. We lived at 2, The Cottages.  I went to the infant school there, and the secondary modern was next door, over the big wall. I didn’t pass the 11+ to get into the grammar school so I went to the local school, until I was fourteen.

My first job was in a grocer’s shop, and I worked there, clad in a white coat. The adventurous part for me was cycling to work along the tow path.

I weighed sugar and flour, and two days a week I took orders from the local villages in the rural areas of Cheshire and Derby. There were hills and sometimes I’d push the bike going up, but otherwise it was round the bends and down the hills, across viaducts, along the river, the basket piled high with deliveries. For a young man who loved speed it was wonderful.

Soon I moved to another shop, a high class grocer this time, so I had a smarter coat, and I was a shop assistant.  You start where you are in society and move up from there. I packed the groceries and I engaged with the cheese, Cheshire, Lancashire and a large Stilton that I cut with a wire. It was two shillings and sixpence more in wages.

Some houses that I had to deliver to would have a dog at the gate. One of them had a Great Dane. The lady at my shop used to have bags of broken biscuits that she saved for the children and I would keep these and give them to the dog so I could get to the door. The butcher and the gardener would ask, “How did you get there?”

It seemed like the size of the dog reflected the ascendancy of the family- the bigger the dog, the higher up or richer the family. This is the way life was.

Then one day two plain clothes police officers came and took the manager away. He’d stolen some money, so he was sacked and sent to prison, Strangeways, I think. He had to give up his house and move away when he got out. We sent him letters of condolences.

Next I got a job as a labourer at Woodford Aerodrome. There was an Irish gaffer, and I made tea and got their fish and chips and pie. I was allowed to keep the money that was left over. After that I was a van boy delivering cotton reels and paper and shellac packed in huge baskets to the mills all over Cheshire and Lancashire. They were placed in the van in offloading order. I’d go with Percy the van driver. The lady in the office would give us tomorrow’s route by 4pm, and we’d check it on the map. Manchester, Ashton, Underlime, Liverpool, Preston, big mills.

For lunch we’d have ham or lamb with apple pie for dessert, or sometimes fish cakes, chips and peas, and big pottery mugs of tea. Sometimes when the engine got hot, we stopped and waited for it to cool down. We’d go into a greasy spoon and have bacon butties and chips.

Then the war started and everything changed…

-JAMES

Weddings and Work

Today the ladies shared memories of their working lives, how they met their partners, and even a wedding...

I used to work at the clothing factory, for Aquascutum. I did everything. Studding, making trousers, later I was at the silk factory. During the war I went to Finedon, then when it was over they moved us back again.

I met my husband at the pub, when I was twenty one. I’d seen him at the dance before. We weren’t married till four years later because we didn’t have the money.

-HILDA

I was at the steelworks when I met my husband. I didn’t think it was for life. He was smaller than me.

-KITTY

After I left school I stayed at home till I was eighteen. My dad wouldn’t let me work before then, he just wanted to protect me. There were so many forces and that around, you see. They were nice years for me.

Janet, second from right, with ladies from the shop

What a lot of girls did was get service in a big house, but I got a job in a shop. I had to cycle seven miles to the nearest village, but that was a lovely time. It was like I had broken free.

Then a boy called Norman wrote me a letter.  Dear Ginger. I was the only girl in the village with red hair. He must have seen me going up and down to the bank and took a shine to me. I was supposed to meet another boy, but he left a letter for me at the shop where I worked.  He put his address on the back of the envelope so I could write back. So I went to meet him and I recognised him. He was wearing a donkey jacket and boots. We had a pleasant evening at the pictures. The lady in my shop said, “If you’ve got your eye on him and are going out with him, don’t go out of the town lights.” I said, “I haven’t got my eye on anyone.”

Norman was a bricklayer and my Dad warned me against him, saying he won’t be well paid. But Dad said he was polite alright, nice and kind. Norman took me to meet his mum the first Sunday. She was the kindest lady. It keeps me going to think about her.

He got called up to do his military service though, so I waited for him to come back from Hong Kong and then we were married. We had a service in a church. I used to go that church with my mother in law, so I knew the vicar.

It was a beautiful day, a lovely wedding. Everything went swimmingly. The trains were on strike, though, so my aunty couldn’t come. We went to Yarmouth on a taxi, and we were happy.

Later we lived in the big house by the side of a river with a field next to it, on the Melford Road. We rented a room, a big room with a little kitchen on one side of it. I took my own furniture.

When I was having my baby the lady of the manor sat up with me from Saturday night to Tuesday morning.  I thought it was marvellous of her.

They were a happy family, a kind family. Her name was Mrs Hatchett, and he was her second husband. He made marvellous things for people, he was an architect and always in his shed in the bottom of the garden. When I had my boy he came in with the first rose of summer for me. His wife said I don’t even get one and I’ve had five children.

When I was going to have the baby I said I’ll have to go to the hospital but she said over my dead body. You’re staying here, in one of the boys’ rooms. The son kept asking has Janet got a baby yet? He looked in Woman’s Own. Danny was the youngest. He was a sour faced boy and one day he tied the bucket to the dog’s tail. One pound a week with gas, and I did a few jobs for them. I wish we could have stopped there.

We came to Corby then, to get a house and for work. We couldn’t afford to buy a house in Sudbury, and we were told we’d get a house quicker if we moved here. We had a happy life. Norman would do anything for anybody. People would always come and ask him for help. “Norman, are you working today?” We were married for fifty years before he died.

-JANET

Beautiful Janet on her wedding day

Childhood

Many of us have fond memories of our childhood and school days, and in this post the Glenmoor residents look back at some of theirs, reminiscing about friends, games and chocolate...

To find out more about Avery Healthcare and their work, have a look here.

At the beginning of the war I was in Walthamstow. The school was only there in the afternoon because we shared the school premises, and every other Saturday. We had two evacuees in our house. Peter Watts, and someone Noble. After the war we had a reunion, in Wood Green in North London. Then we met at Aunt Elsie’s funeral in London. We stayed in touch.

-ALAN

I had the cane for dictation. I always failed.

-KITTY

I got the strap at school for talking going up the stairs. I left school at 15 and went to work in a dry cleaner’s, cleaning overalls. Then I left to work for the admiralty, and later at the munitions sorting out guns.

-HILDA

I had a friend whatever school I went to. We read books under the trees. They were lovely summers. Then when the sirens went off we ran towards the shelters, and all fell over each other. We played old fashioned games, skipping ropes and things. It was a little school but my God they taught you. I left at 14 and stayed at home till I was 18. I loved school. I moaned about leaving, why couldn’t I stay? My brother stayed on but he didn’t like school. He took days off. He’d rather be off driving somebody’s tractor. When the officer checked the registrar he couldn’t answer where he’d been.

I remember the time when me and my friend Christine got an old fashioned wheelchair, a basket chair with one handle, and we went down the hill, next to the church, between two fields with sheep in. We had hilarious fun with that old chair. Christine was in it, she was as light as a feather, and I was pushing it down the hill, going faster and faster, and she was laughing so much she fell out and wet herself! I laughed all the way home but she was cursing me!

Then there was a young chap who was staying at the farm, learning about the dairy. He got a pain in his stomach, appendicitis, poor Ted. He was only eighteen but he looked like a man to me, at that time.

“I’ve got a box of chocolates I’ve finished,” he said. He was getting his pyjamas ready for the ambulance and he was going to throw the empty box on the woodpile, but he thought I might like it. “It’s ever such a pretty box. Do you want it?” Me being a little girl, I loved ribbons and bows so I took it. When I opened it to take the paper out I found there was still a layer of chocolates underneath. I was astonished. I shouted up to his window and told him. “Bring it back then,” he said, but I never did. I ate them myself. He went off to the hospital anyway.

The first bag of crisps I ever had, I remember that. The salt fell on the carpet because I tore the sachet in the wrong place. Mum sent me to the pub to get them. She was pleased I got in the door before the bomb dropped. It would have sent us sky high.

(JANET)