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On November 10th., 2001, I
had a chat with Dad. He told me about some of his family and here is the gist of
the conversation (which is updated whenever
I discover more incidents):
1. Edith Downing: her mother, a Downing,
and father were unwed. The father, and Edith's elder brother, went to Canada to find a job and never came
back, I understand. This situation was, of course, frowned upon in those days,
and Ernest's mother's attitude towards Edith was tainted by the common failing
of those days of believing that bastards, ahem, illegitimates, were lesser people. Edith's brother was
killed in Europe early in WWI. There is no known record of him at the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
2. Edith was married into a
strict, highly non-conformist (not quite as bad as the Knox variety of
Presbyterianism) religious family: Methodists, who built the
Dickins
Memorial Chapel in Wellingborough, on the Finedon Road, next to which establishment were two
houses where several of the family were raised.
The Chapel is now a part of the
Wesleyan Reform Union.
3. Edith's sister, Ethel, was
born in 1886, and, married Fred Frost and had three children: Bill, Reg and
Margaret.
4. Edith's brother, James,
firstly went to Canada and then returned to England. He subsequently fought and
was killed in France, WWI.
5. Edith had a younger
cousin, Gertie, deceased, who married A. Norman Wood, 1904 - Norman (who is now
blind, but is approaching a century. That previous sentence was written as it
states in 2001, so he must have died in the meantime) had a lady send Mum and Dad a Christmas
card in 2001 and 2002, although Dad had thought him dead, since there wasn't one
for 2000. They had a son, Richard, born in about 1937, who was a car mechanic,
and emigrated to Johannesburg, Suid Afrika. I remember their house in
Wellingborough, and their garden, which led to some allotments, where they had a
couple of plots, and where they also had chickens, and an apple tree that had very
large, very wet, sweet fruit.
These first three satellite images, from Google Maps, show the chapel, and also
Eastfield Street, and No10 is just down it on the left-hand side. The chapel is
adjacent to the roadway passing by the large grey roof. The fourth image shows
the derelict train yards where Hubert worked, and where the Beyer-Garrett steam
engines were shedded before the results of the Beeching Report, for which see a
potted history at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_axe
. It is clear that the houses where my
great-grandmother lived have been demolished, but they were close to the chapel,
and reachable by a lane up from the goods yards.
6. Ernest Frederick, Edith's
husband, had a sister, also named Edith, born 1891-2, with whom he was very
close. She was a lovely lady, but Dad admitted he was frightened of her!! She
married Fred Faulkner, who served in submarines in WWI. They had three children:
Keith, who became a bank manager, Terence, and Sheila. I remember them clearly.
Ernest also had a brother, Hubert, who married Lottie (Charlotte), see above. He
spent four years in the trenches in WWI. He was gassed twice, as well as being
buried alive. He survived, in general ill health, for some time. He was a wheel
tapper, in the Wellingborough train yards.
7. Ernest had an aunt,
Belinda, who married a publican, heavens above! named Tom Millichap. Dad has
inherited Tom's monogrammed walking stick.
8. Now then, my Great-grandfather
was called Arthur, who was an engine driver in the shunting yards at Wellingborough, and his father was named William, and that's all I know at this
time. Except that I have Great-great-grandfather William's sickle (from the Latin secare, to cut). I can
remember Arthur's wife, who I believe was named Martha, my Great-grandmother.
She it was who gave me a Bible for Christmas,
1942: not that I remember the actual event at nine months! I can remember walking up from the
train station, alongside the tracks and then up a slope to her street, to
her house, in a dark terrace, three or four stories high. I was never allowed
higher than the ground floor, for whatever reason. This was when I was fairly young, around
ten to twelve years old.
In the thirties, the time
of the Depression, only my father Raymond, as the youngest, was sent to Grammar School in
Market Harborough. His father, Ernest Frederick, had a chat with Ken and Geoff
about whether they would mind him going, since they had missed out because of expense.
I also discovered that my Dad was given spending money every week by Ernest, and
his two (working) brothers, Ken at Symingtons and Geoff on the railway. Edith
would put the odd penny in, as well, when she sent it off to Loughborough
College, where Raymond Ernest, my father, was becoming a teacher, pre-WWII. He
could not, otherwise, pay his bus fare to go and play in any of the college's
soccer away games. He was generally positioned at left-half, but was able to
play anywhere, a utility player. His team won the 1938-39 UAU Championship, 6-4,
played in Aberystwyth. The college actually paid the fare for the final!!
Lastly, at 42 Caxton
Street, neighbours: on one side the Bennetts, who grew strawberries, and on the
other Mrs Davey. Dad can't remember which one of the ladies was called Belinda,
and which was Melinda. Nevertheless, one of each was.
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