My Grandad........more

Grandad continued to live in Hall Green and we visited often, which days I do not know now – maybe I only went with Mam during the school holidays. We would spend the whole day there, or so it seemed at the time. We had to catch two buses, the 11 and the 29A (or no 4 (5) as it is now) and I used to love when we got off the number 11 as I would stand on the railings and watch the river with the ducks. The house next door to the river had large stone pillars either side of the gateway and atop of these there were two stone owls with green glass eyes. They used to fascinate me, even intimidate me a little. When I worked at Druckers I spoke to the present owner asking if he still had the owls and explained about them, but he knew nothing .... shame. I now realise that Mam came to Grandad’s to clean and cook him a meal, there wasn’t anything like ‘meals on wheels’ in those days, we were dependant on family and neighbours. Grandad’s neighbours were very good and had known our family almost from when he first took residence there, most moving in after him. He was also very popular, always cheerful and an accomplished musician – the accordion being his favourite instrument. Mam played the piano, I loved to watch her and listen as she played, the piano stood in the front room and I was always allowed to play on it whenever we went to Grandad’s. Grandad was known as a postman and spent a good deal of his working life delivering mail to houses in the Moseley area, they were big houses and very posh so he did well for tips, especially at Christmas – this is all hearsay from my Mother. He was born in Nottingham and his father’s name was Timothy – this I have managed to trace via the web. Timothy died when Grandad was quite young and his mother married again, to Mr Booth (owner of the walking stick [although it looks more like an opera stick!]). Grandad did work on the Manchester Ship Canal at some point, helping dig it out perhaps. When he married my grandmother, so the story goes, he was given a wedding present of a writing box made from an offcut of one of the beams used to support the walls of the canal. I have the box but not any of the glass bottles or pens etc. I don’t know how he met my Grandmother, she lived in Sparkhill, maybe he had become a postman by then.

When I knew him, he was an old man, an active member of the Darby and Joan club which met on a Wednesday afternoon at Hall Green Baptist Church. He used to go away on holiday with them, mostly to Barry Island as I remember, and had some fun times there. As he became older and couldn’t walk, Mam and I used to push him there in his wheelchair – a big cumbersome thing. We would push the wheelchair up along Blythsford Road, cutting through Sandgate Road into Baldwin’s Lane. We then went along to Robin Hood Island and down the Stratford Road to the Baptist Church, quite a way but then again the sun always shone when I was young! When we arrived I was always made a fuss of and the WVS (Women’s Voluntary Service) ladies always found lots of ‘jobs’ for me to do, serving tea, carrying trays, laying tables for lunch, and of course the dreaded washing up – which was never a chore when it was in somebody else’s kitchen. After the meal and the tables had been put away there was nearly always some form of entertainment ending up with a good old sing along. We then had the return journey home usually with a couple of other ladies for much of the time, everyone chattering away.