STREETLY,
STAFFORDSHIRE MEMORIES
(1936
- 1961)
THURSDAY, 9th APRIL 1944
- ANOTHER BIRTHDAY -
by Chris Myers
|
Thursday 9th April 1944
Well,
I haven't spoken to you since before
last Christmas when we went to the
Home Guard children's party in the
Parish Room. Now I have had another
birthday, the day before yesterday,
my eighth, and I'm still here! Still
in the dining room of our house on
the Chester Road
in
Streetly, still sitting at
the table deciding whether I have
anything interesting to tell you and
sucking the top of my pen while I
think about it.
My birthday?
A great present, this year, a
bike, super to have as my fairy
cycle has got far too small for me.
I've had it a week or two, now.
It's second-hand, of course. You
just can't buy new things like that.
All the factories are making stuff
for the war, as you know. I expect
Dad saw it advertised in the
Birmingham Mail and bought it while
he could, before someone else
snapped it up. Here's a
picture of me on our back lawn,
practising on it before I'm allowed
out on to the road.
It's been repainted in shiny
black. The bell's brand new, though.
They've painted right over the
maker's label on the front. It's not
a Hercules or a Raleigh or a B.S.A.
or something like that. No, I can
just make out that it's a CWS. I
think that means the Co-op. So
that's something new I've just
learnt. I always thought the Co-op
is a shop where you can buy bread
and biscuits and stuff, provided
that it's your mum's registered
grocer. But it looks as though you
can get bikes from them as well.
Anyway, it's great. It's got 24-inch
wheels so that my feet nearly touch
the ground. No gears of course but
it's so much better than my fairy
cycle.
So there'll be no
circus visit, this year, which is a
shame. I expect they are still
having them, in Brum in the
Big Top.
But as grown-ups keep telling me, I
can't have everything.
What I
AM getting, so they tell me, is a
holiday in May. Dad has found a farm
near Tintern. We had a few days
there last autumn. And it sounds as
though we are going there again.
With some friends from
King's
Norton. It's OK and the grub's
wonderful. No rationing there! But
no electric light either and no
running water in the house, so no
wash basin or lavatory. A jug and
bowl on the wash-stand and a
chamber-pot under the bed. Not my
job to empty it, thank goodness!
There's a stream in front of the
farm which I can play in. And we go
and sit outside pubs and I'm allowed
a small glass of cider, if I play my
cards right. Have to be careful at
the farm though. Their dog is
fierce. I tried to pat him last year
and I now have a scar on the side of
my face. I told my mum afterwards
that my face was feeling stiff. She
got into a real panic and started
muttering something about "lockjaw". It doesn't take much to start
them off, does it? Wish I hadn't
said anything. I felt a bit sorry
for the dog. It got a right hiding
from the farmer and I was taken to
look at it afterwards. It looked all
huddled up and afraid. I didn't
really want it punished and seeing
it like that wasn't nice. They told
me it had probably been guarding its
bone. I'm going to keep my distance
this time.
I'm in my parents'
good books at the moment. I've done
quite well in an exam. I'll tell you
a bit about it.
BISHOP VESEY'S AND ME
My parents want me
to go to Bishop Vesey's in Sutton. Don't know
why. And it seems a funny name for a
school. Perhaps it was because my
brother went there. He left
school six years ago and now
he is away. We haven't
seen him for more than a
year. Anyway, they told me that I
was going to take the exam. A few
weeks ago, when I was still seven,
Mum took me on the bus to Sutton, as
usual the 101 from Streetly village.
We got off at the bus stop near
Boswell Road and walked down a
little roadway just at the side of
the main school buildings. And there
she left me, with a lot of other
boys, outside a very tall old
building which, as I soon found out,
had two classrooms in it.
We
went into the first of these and
were told to sit down at a desk. The
man in charge was very old indeed
and had a long, stern face. But he
seemed quite kind. I think he was
called Mr. Gifford. We had to do all
sorts of spelling and dictation and arithmetic
tests and then he told us to sit
still, concentrate and listen very
carefully to a story he was going to
tell us. Because after he had
finished telling us it, we had got
to write it out in our own words.
The story he told us was called a
fable and it was written a long time
ago by a man called Aesop. It was
all about a crow who was very
thirsty and the only water there to
drink was in a big jug called a
pitcher. But the pitcher was far too
narrow at the top to get his head in
very far and the level of the water
was too low for him to reach it.
What was he to do? But then he
noticed a pile of pebbles nearby.
Ah, a solution! They say that crows
are very clever and I think that
story proves it.
So, heads
down, furiously scratching away with
our pens. Dipping them into the
inkwell set into the front of the
desk, then another sentence as we
tried to re-write the story. Finally,
we sat back and found it was all over.
Off outside where all our anxious
mums were waiting for us. Back to the
bus stop and home.
All this seemed
to matter a lot to my mum and dad.
Probably rather more than it did to
me. The letter came through a few
days ago. I have passed! So this
summer I shall be leaving
Sandwell
School in Streetly and after the
holidays I'll start at
Bishop
Vesey's Junior School. I'll
try and remember to let you
know how I get on. Mum and Dad
seem overjoyed. It's funny what
pleases some grown-ups. But I'm not
complaining – Dad came home with a
shiny new fountain pen for me as a
reward. It's a Conway Stewart. I was
quite overwhelmed - it's such a
shiny, beautiful thing. Black, with
a gold nib. I don't know where he
got it from because they always say
that there is nothing in the shops.
And I have been told I've got to be
very careful with it, not lose it,
and especially, not let it fall onto
the floor as that will ruin the nib.
I wonder whether you will believe me
if I tell you I'm using it to write
all this. |
Just going back to the picture
of me on my new bike. It's a shame
but Dad doesn't take many
photographs these days. So I'm glad
he took this one. But I think film
is difficult to get, and also it's
very expensive, and so the camera
doesn't come out of its little
leather case very often. Not like
prewar, when he took lots. Of
holidays and the garden and things
like that. He's always been very
proud of the garden. He did it all
himself and made it from a ploughed
field which the new house had been
built on. I've told you bits about
all that before. In that picture you
can see all the interesting things
in the garden. Interesting to me,
that is. Probably not to other
people. Just boring for them. (I'm
quite good at being boring. And
irritating. Just ask my big sister!
I think that by the time I'm grown
up, I might be very good indeed.
That's if I keep practising).
 But
this second picture shows me how
some things have changed, even in
the time when I have been around.
(I'm learning that everything
changes. Nothing stays the same for
long). It's a picture of the same
bit of garden eight years ago. The
year I was born. 1936. Dad had got
hold of some colour film which was
very new, then. And used all of it
on photographing his garden. It's my
sister sitting on the log. Then it
was where it was supposed to be,
flat on the ground, and not turned
up on end to use as a bird table.
There's nothing behind her, except
flowers. But now, in the bike
picture from a couple of weeks ago,
behind the log is a cherry tree and,
the other side of that, you can just
see our air raid shelter. Very
difficult to pick out. Because its
underground. I can just remember Dad
building it, in the winter of
1938/1939. I was looking down into
the big hole where he was standing
and building the walls. We've spent
many nights down in it. Like when
they bombed Sutton Park and set it
all on fire. And many nights when
you could hear the thumps and see
the fires as Birmingham was being
bombed. Not for a long time, though.
Thank goodness. If Dad thinks there
is any danger these days, my sister
and I sleep on the floor in the
dining room, in sleeping bags. But
even that hasn't happened for
months. The picture reminds me that
summer is coming and the garden will
be full of colour again, even though
Dad and Mum spend most of their time
growing vegetables.
 My brother's in
Italy,
now. He's been away for over a year,
since February of last year. Dad
took a photograph of us both then,
at the top of our garden. This was
during what they call his
Embarkation Leave. Soldiers get that
just before they are sent away, for
years and years. I look very
proud of him. That's because I
am!
Since I last told you about
him he has been part of the invasion
of Sicily and in August he spent the
day of his 21st birthday near Mount
Etna (I've shown you
the card we sent him).
Then he crossed over into Italy. For many
months he has been moving north with
his gun battery. Letters come and go
regularly. Mum and Dad worry about
him, I know, but it is nothing like
the time I've told you about before
when we didn't hear from him for
weeks when he was on his way to
North Africa. Because of their
secret system, Dad usually knows
roughly where he is, even though
Graham isn't allowed to write home
with any information like that.
Every letter he sends is read by the
censor and, if there is anything in
it they don't like, it gets snipped
out before they send it off to us.
We've had one or two letters like
that, with a hole where a sentence
or word had been. Another letter
came only a few days ago. We knew it
was a special one because it started
with "Hello Mother and Dad" - with
the ordinary ones it's always just
the normal "Dear....."
Dad
went to his leather armchair in the
dining room, put the flimsy airmail
letter down on the arm and looked at
it very carefully. Mum and I watched
him as he jotted something down on
it, letter by letter and ever so
slowly:
M..O..N..T..E..C..A..S..S..I..N..O...
Didn't mean anything to me.
|
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and local history
page is hosted by
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(The Home Guard of Great Britain, 1940-1944)
Please see INDEX page for main acknowledgements.
All text and images are,
unless otherwise stated, © The Myers Family 2022
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INDEX
Streetly and Family Memories
1936-61
|
L8Z - April
2024
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