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Married Life
In April 1946 we decided that we'd
better get married. Two of our best friends, Tom and
Sheila Wandle, were married with three children, and
these kids were with Mary and me most of the time when
we went out. Also Mary's younger brother Douglas was
upsetting Mary and so she had to leave home and live in
lodgings.
I will explain about Doug: He was
the perfect child until he was five years old, then a
young girl took him out in a pram. The story goes that
the pram ran off down a steep hill, Doug fell out and
knocked his head. From that day he was prone to fits. He
was always backwards in learning, but when he was
fifteen, against what I had told them, they sent him to
a factory. I forgot to say that Mary's father had died
fifteen years earlier and I had never met him. Sending
Doug to a factory was fatal because all the rude
language from the factory came back home, so Mary left.
We were married at St Chad's church
in Coseley. Mary was given away by Mr. Ganley, Sheila's
dad. Tom Preston was best man and the reception was held
at the Kings Arms. We spent our honeymoon in Llandudno.
We also kept our promises to buy our own house.
Going back to the honeymoon, when
we arrived at our digs, I suggested a walk around the
Great Orme as it was a nice day. This is the only time
Mary thought of divorcing me. The walk is five miles and
I did not know this. It was lovely when we started off,
but Mary after one mile kept asking how much further was
it. I said it was only round the next bend. It started
to rain and Mary was only wearing a summer dress. Within
five minutes we were wet through. You could see what she
was wearing underneath. I did offer her my coat, but at
the next bend there was a sign reading 'Rest and be
thankful you have another 2½ miles to go'. The last 2½
miles Mary walked on the other side of the road and
wouldn't speak to me. |
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Party time with myself, Mary, Reg, Tom and
Sheila. |
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Before we got married Mary and I decided on
our future. We said that all being well we would buy a house but
not have any children until we were around 33 or 34 years old.
When we came back from honeymoon we stayed at the Kings Arms
with Mum and Dad and started looking around for a property. Six
months later, we saw in the local paper that eight houses were
being built in Wolverhampton. The prices were £1,200. When I
told my family they said we were putting an anchor around our
necks as new houses before the war were only £300 - £360.
Even Mary's boss told us the same thing,
but we decided to do it anyway. We contacted the builder and put
a deposit down. These were the first houses built and they were
just off the Wolverhampton to Cannock main road, in Balmain
Crescent. On reflection, we should have borrowed more money and
bought two or three more.
At this time, the war was over but I was
still in the mines in Cannock and Mary was still secretary to
Charles Fellows in Tipton, so we both had to travel quite a
distance each morning. I sometimes think of the time when we
moved in and I spoke to the couple next door. When I talked to
Mary that night, I said that I had met the neighbours and they
were old age pensioners about fifty years old. I wonder what my
next door neighbour, Helen, thought when she saw me at 79 years
old! |
Our first house, in Wolverhampton. |
| Now, back to the old times. I came out of the pits in 1948
and went to work in a drawing office in Wolverhampton on jig and
tool design. After being in the pits, I could not settle and
after a year I moved to work for Ever Ready batteries as a sales
rep. The best thing to come out of that job was that they taught
me to drive a van as I had to go to Worcester and my first
experience with the Van was very frightening. The man who taught
me asked if I had ever driven before. I said no. He told me to
get in the driving seat and showed me how to work the clutch
etc. and then we were off. You have to remember that at this
time you did not have to have a driving test. From the centre of
Worcester to Evesham I went off the road quite a bit, but in the
end I got really good. |
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Mary with our first dog. |
After two years of working here, I was still not satisfied
and Mary asked why didn't I go and work at Fellows as transport
manager. This meant going out to other firms and trying to get
some transport off them.
After six months, the first firm I got transport off were
called Cashmore' s in Tipton. After a few years, we had built
the business up from two lorries to eight and we were doing very
well. We were thinking of getting an office in London to back
load the lorries. Mr. Fellows 'Charlie', the boss, said to Mary
and me that he was thinking of us becoming partners, but then
fate stepped in.
The Labour party got into power and nationalised the
transport. Mary went to work for the government but I would not
because I was annoyed at what we had lost because of them taking
over. |
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Going back to the house in Wednesfield, the
neighbours who I thought were old at fifty were named Mr. and
Mrs Ledham. He worked in a factory, but his hobby was
photography. I found out from him that his work was shown in
London. On a Sunday we used to see two or three beautiful girls
going to his house. One day he asked Mary and I if we would like
to see his photos. We said yes, not realising that he was a nude
photographer. While we were looking through his collection he
turned to me and said 'you know, I have never photographed a
nude man'. My reply to him was 'well, you're not going to start
with me!' I will say, though, he was very good at what he did.
As the house in Wednesfield was a
controlled price, the only way you got more money was by
building something on, like a garage. After we had been there
for four years, I decided to build one. I had never done work
like this and it was quite a big job, but I had a lot of help
from my brothers, Reg and Frank.
I could not settle at work and Mary was not
very satisfied at Dudley, because she was one of a number, so we
decided that we would look for a business. We were not bothered
what type of business we took over and we found a general store
in Wednesbury. When we took over the grocers they were still
using ration cards even though the war had ended. The people who
we bought the grocers off were going into estate agency. I think
this was one of the first after the war and you did not have to
pass any exams to become one.
I will have to go back a bit, to the time
before we bought the shop. One wedding anniversary my mother
bought a car for the family. As I was the only one who could
drive at the time, they let me have it. This was very useful as
we were quite a distance from them at Tipton, about ten miles.
We were able to go at weekends and help them in the pub. |
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Mary was not very keen to help behind the bar,
but at closing time she would help wash glasses and tidy up. One
Friday night when the customers had gone, Mary was helping Mum when
she asked her if she had done anything to the side of her face. My
mother said no, but that night she had a stroke. This was a week
before bonfire night. She lost her speech and was paralysed all down
one side of her body. She passed away on the 5th November. The night
she passed away, our dog, which I had bought for Mary instead of a
fur coat, started to howl like mad at the door of the pub. No matter
how hard we tried to pull him in, he would not move. They say that
dogs sense death, I believe it now. |
Yet another party! |
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My mother's death left my father and two
brothers at home so taking on the shop was a blessing in disguise as
Wednesbury was only 3 - 4 miles away from them. After a while, Dad
had my cousin and her husband in to help him run the business. This
worked for a time, but on weekends, the busy time in the pub, they
went off to their caravan and left Mary and I to do their work. This
became too much with our shop as well. Mary said that Dad and the
boys would have to come and live at the shop with us. I often wonder
how many wives would do that.
We decided when we got married that we would
not have children until we were 34 or 35 and we kept to that. When
Dad and the boys had settled in, we joined a club called the Forty
Four. This was a private club, and only people such as doctors and
business people used it. There was a committee of six people and
when your name was put forward they had one black and one white
ball. If one member rolled a black ball down you were not allowed to
join. The worst part was that they did not have to tell you why they
disapproved. Don't ask why Mary and I got voted in!
As a private club, it was open all hours and we
spent plenty of time there. We would come home at all hours and on
quite a few occasions Mary said to me that I may have driven over an
island instead of going around it. Mind you, there were not that
many cars on the road in those days. It does feel funny when I have
to tell my boys not to drink and drive. Let's be honest, these days
their jobs depend on the car.
We got on very well in the shop for one reason,
a friend of mine, Tom Wardell, would let me have a hundredweight of
sugar. His family were mineral manufacturers and that's how they
came by it. The Wardells, Sheila and Tom, were our best friends. We
would go nearly everywhere with them and their family of one boy and
two girls. When we went out in the cars they always came with Mary
and me in ours. The children called us auntie and uncle.
I still keep in touch with them. Deirdre, the
little girl, would come with us to try and help in the shop when she
was about four years old. She tells me that she will never forget
the time when I was taking her home and she kept going below the
dashboard in the car. I said 'What are you doing, you little
monkey?' She was hiding something so I told her that we didn't mind
her having sweets. I stopped the car and then found out what she was
doing, she had taken a baby's dummy from the shelf and was enjoying
sucking it.
Tom and I would enjoy going to Blackpool for a
weekend and Mary and Sheila would go to London. |
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On Holiday: Mary and I with Reg, Frank and
others. |
One Easter when in Blackpool, we went into a rather crowded
Marks & Spencer store and they had girls putting words on chocolate
Easter eggs. Tom said he would get one for Sheila. The girl asked
him what he wanted writing on it and he said 'To Sheila, with love
from Tom'. As we walked away the girl shouted 'do you want a kiss on
the bottom?' What an embarrassment! |
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