George's Family
| I lived in Herbert Street and went to St. Mary's school, by St. Mary's
Church. Just down Little's lane was St. Patrick's Church and school,
about 200yards from ours. I went to St. Mary's church until I was 30. I
was in the choir when I was 8 and went to church seven times a day. It
was a lovely church with one of the biggest organs in Wolverhampton. My mom and dad worked to keep our heads above water. If you missed the
rent which was 4s.6d, you were out in the street with all of your
possessions. Furniture was just bare wooden tables and chairs.
My dad was neither Protestant or Catholic, his mother had been married
twice, once to a Protestant and once to a Catholic. He used to go into
the Hibernian occasionally, but his main pub was the Four Ashes, which
was lower down Stafford Street.
We had a set back. My dad lost 3 and a half
fingers at Dews Brothers, in Moseley Street, where he worked. They were
stock-lock manufacturers, and used to make a lot of church door
locks. In those days, church door locks had to be put into wooden
stocks, with big keys. He was planing one of the locks when the stock
broke. His fingers went into the rotating blades in the machine.
|
Looking along Stafford Street towards the
town centre. St. Mary's vicarage is on the right, the church and school are
behind the trees. Photo courtesy of Eardley Lewis. |
There was no transport to get him to hospital, so
he had to sit in the yard with his fingers covered up.
My mother
worked in the same place. She was up in the packing house with the
bosses. She had a job there and could almost go to please herself,
as long as she packed everything that had to go that day. Things
were packed in brown paper and parcelled up.
She sat with him for
two hours, waiting for the cart to come back to take him to the
hospital. He never got over it really. |
| He used to play for the Wolves under Major Addenbrook, and of course
the accident stopped him from playing again. He eventually went back to
work, he had a job for life. He had no compensation, there was no such
thing. Eventually Dews closed and I got him a job at Sunbeam, for the
last few years of his life. Dad also had a part time job at the Grand Theatre, to earn a bit of
extra money, setting the scenery. He started work at about 7 o'clock in
the evening and worked until 11 o'clock. Because both my parents worked,
we were a bit above the ordinary. I got ha'pennies and pennies when
others hadn't, I was a bit better dressed, had better shoes and things
like that.
They all used to be round our place waiting for my shoes.
"Has George finished with his shoes?" they would say. They used to put
thick brown paper in the bottom as they couldn't afford to have them
mended. Kids used to have to go to the offices in North Street to have
their feet attended to, and the boot fund might give them a pair of
shoes. It was hard, I tell you, no wonder they had corns and bunions,
they had terrible feet. But that was it, they were always waiting for my
shoes. "Has George finished with his shoes?, Mrs Peck, has George
finished with his jacket?". People in the street used to be waiting for
them.
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| My grandad used to sell salt around the houses. He
used to have a salt about 18inches square and 2ft long, and saw it
up into different thicknesses and sell pieces for a ha'penny and a
penny a block. He delivered salt on his horse and cart, and I used
to go with him to help. I loved salt, and would often pinch bits and
pieces to eat. He also used to make balls of whitening to whitewash
the walls with, around the yards. He used to put it in a bucket with
something to make it set. You used to whitewash the walls every so
often around the yard. That's what he did for a living. He had a
little blind donkey and a cart, and he used to go all around
Wolverhampton, selling these things. Sometimes he would take me. He
used to enjoy a drink, and was mad on the booze. |
The Elephant & Castle.
Photo courtesy of Eardley Lewis. |
| He used to have a little leather bag, fastened with a bit of string,
and when he earned 100 sovereigns he would not work again until he had
spent it all, and you couldn't get him out of the Britannia pub. Each
day he would go to the pub at opening time and treat everyone that came
in. He wouldn't bother with my gran and us, he would treat everyone
else; strangers.
We used to get Father D'Armady, the Catholic priest to
get him out. Even the police couldn't get him out, but Father D'Armady
could. He just said "Come on Johnny, time you went home". Grandad would
even ask for next weeks rent (4s.6d) for his drink. He would ask my
mother, who was the youngest girl. She would probably be sitting on the
stairs, holding the rent. "Where's our Rosie?, I know she's got the
money". He would want to spend it after he had spent his 100 sovereigns.
We had a gas meter in the cellar. As a matter of fact you used to keep
a bowl of water in the cellar to fill up the trap. They used to come
every so often, I don't know if it was every fortnight or every month
and get the pennies out. They used to put them on the table and count
them. Put them in rows and then put them in little blue bags. There was
5 shillings in each bag and they would give you two or three bob rebate,
depending on how much was in the meter.
Of course that was great because
it was money that you would never have, never get, never realise that
you were going to have. You had to have pennies, you had to put a penny
in the gas each time it started to go down. You had to run down the
cellar and put the penny in. There was a tin on the meter, with a little
lock on it. It was about 10" long and 2" wide, the full length of the
meter.
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