Songs of Praise

On Sunday afternoons our family congregated round my Grandmother's: Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and family friends. The children (all cousins) used to noisily run riot in the garden and the adults used to smoke in the living room, the air was thick with stale clouds of cheap cigarette fumes and the smell of nicotine clung to our clothes.

The adults in my family loved this.

Then we got out the large table, extended it with the sliding wooden extension in the middle and we had tea: a slice of tinned pork luncheon meat, a lettuce leaf, half a tomato, a slice of cucumber, and to finish off with a KitKat or Penguin. KitKats were my favourite because afterwards my mum would make a silver chalice for me out of the silver wrapping paper.

After tea the telly would go on and we sat round quietly to watch “Songs of Praise” a TV programme where a load of old women in churches would sing hymns. They used to sing in high soprano voices with two part “harmony” and consciously mouth their words so you could see their fillings; they tried to look holy and devotional. There was never any interpretation or emotion in their singing; my dad said that they only went there because they wanted to be on the telly and that on other weeks the church would be deserted. My grandmother never went to church but she loved watching “Songs of Praise”.

The next day would be Monday and I would go to school; I had “school meals”, they cost five shillings a week, we said it was a shilling per meal, sixpence for the main bit and sixpence for the pudding. But the headmaster said

“No, no, no, its a subsidised meal from Hertfordshire County Council, the cost is for the whole meal and includes the cooks that make it in the school kitchen.”

But we still kept on saying sixpence for the main bit and sixpence for the pudding. We liked to do that.

At lunchtime before the dinner we queued up in the main hall, in class groups, girls in one queue and boys in the other. We had to sing a hymn and say a prayer with our palms together and hands pointing up in thanks to God for the dinner to come. Some children didn't have to do this. There were two sisters and a brother that stood apart against a different wall and just watched us. A teacher once told us when they weren't present that they were “the Joe Heave Witness” and that they would not be joining in. Two other girls stood with them. These girls had brown skin, long black thick ponytailed hair and wore trousers. We weren't allowed to wear trousers, we had to wear skirts and white socks, so in cold weather we were quite envious as our bare legs used to freeze. No one told us why they didn't have to join in.

We had to sing a prayer to thank God for our food, we didn't have to thank the dinner ladies that made it, our parents who paid for it or Hertfordshire County Council for subsidising it; just God. It was always the same boring song, always the same boring song; and we had to say “Our men” at the end. None of us had a clue as to why we had to do this: who were these men? and why were they our men?

One day I got so bored with this monotonous routine I thought I would be clever and innovative and be like the adult singers in “Songs of Praise”. I would show that I was mature and so very, very gifted that I was much cleverer and shine out from the other children When we started to sing I sang in much higher angelic louder notes than them, a harmonious blending euphony, over weaving the main theme of the prayer with different more sophisticated words and melody, opening my mouth wider to let the angelic sounds come out so that everyone could hear. I was so great!! The teacher would be amazed.

As we filed in for dinner the teacher pulled me to one side and said

“Was it you making that horrible noise?”. I became very still and meek. “Well, that was a very naughty thing to do, Sarah. Go and have your lunch and then you can stay in the hall all lunchtime as a punishment”. I had to stand in the hall, and people walked by wondering what I had done and why. 

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Desert Island Pints

You have been marooned on a desert island and you are only allowed to take eight pints (a gallon) of cask conditioned ale with you. Each pint is contained in its own mini cask with a tap, hard and soft spile, and there is a linking water jacket over the casks to keep the beer cool, because it is quite hot on the island, and we don't want the beer going off. The casks are magical and each one will re-fill when you have drunk the ale contained therein.

So what ales will you take with you? Here is my top ten:

1 Bateman's Mild

Thus 3% dark beer is the best ever type of its category. It tastes a lot stronger than the ABV (alcohol by volume) suggests and it is thick with an oat taste where the hops shine through. George Bateman & Sons Ltd is based at Salem Bridge, Wainfleet, Lincolnshire and still exists nowadays after a family tussle in the 1980's to sell off the brewery. George Bateman, his wife Pat and their children Stuart and Jaclyn saved enough money to buy out the brewery from the rest of the family to ensure its continuation. I remember George and Jaclyn coming to an early Norwich Beer Festival and giving people a special Victory T Shirt. They specially brewed Victory Ale 6% for us and I bought 24 bottles. I lost my T shirt and I drank the beer. I can't find Bateman's Mild on the Bateman's website; I wonder if they still brew it?

2 Ma Pardoes Old Swan Bitter

This 3.5% session ale is brewed in house at the brewery and pub the Old Swan, Netherton, Dudley. It gently sits in my memory as one of the best beers of the twentieth century, although when I go to the website now I am not sure as to what it was called then, so I will call it Old Swan Bitter for convenience. Doris Pardoe died in 1984 at the age of 85, so she must have been dead when I visited at the end of the 1980's. Of course I visited by bicycle; I always used a bike. I had to cycle away from the central road of Netherton, a few streets back up a steep hill and eventually pushing the bike, but it was worth it. On this particular trip I was touring the pubs and breweries of the Black Country and I had a wonderful holiday. The Old Swan was myriad of little, unspoilt, historical rooms and it was a joy to visit. It is now listed as being owned by “Star (Heineken)” so that seems a shame.

3 Batham's Bitter

This best bitter comes in at an original gravity (OG) of 1043/1044 (approx.) with an ABV of 4.3%. These things are very important to know. When visiting the Bull and Bladder, I remember it tasting as full bodied and clear with much malt and an explosion of hops on the tongue: not hop extract or pellets, but the real thing, real powerful hops balanced by the strong body of the malt. It was as if I was tasting a fresh clean farmyard there, I could imagine the cows mooing and the pigs running around in it. Oh Look!! There goes a couple of clucking chickens.

The Brewery goes by a long list of names: Daniel Batham & Son Ltd, The Delph Brewery, at the Bull and Bladder, The Vine Inn, Delph Road, Brierly Hill, West Midlands. I visited by bicycle, of course. It was situated in a long line of pubs backing onto a canal, I hope that this is still the case. It is still independently owned. There are twelve tied Bathams pubs. I had a dream of going on a holiday cycling tour with the aim to visit each pub. I still haven't done it. I say to Mr DBA (Arthur) Batham “Blessings of thy art thou brew'st good ale”.

4 Landlord Bitter

This 4.3% award winning pale ale comes from the Timothy Taylor brewery in Keighley, Yorkshire. In Yorkshire cask beer is served through a tight sparkler to give it added natural body, so the brewery makes it very, very hoppy to counteract this. In my opinion this can coat the tongue unnaturally in gas and somewhat masks the flavour. But the advantage of this is that if you can get the beer where it is served by ordinary hand-pump, it can taste very hoppy indeed. Great, wonderful, I love it. Of course on this desert island it is served by gravity; the best way of serving cask conditioned ale.

5 Reepham Rapier IPA

This mid strength 4.2 % IPA was brewed by Ted Willems at the Reepham Brewery in Reepham, Norfolk. It was very popular in its time but is sadly no longer with us as the brewery closed in 2009. But this is a magical island where anything can happen and any beer can appear. Norwich CAMRA sometimes ran beer tents. We ran one at a Mousehold Heath Sunday afternoon fete and we were selling Reepham Rapier. This was before the modern miracle of all day opening for pubs on Sunday. They used to open only in the afternoon between 12 and 2pm; so everyone then used to chuck as much beer down their throats as they could before 2pm. For some strange licencing law reason we were allowed to run our CAMRA beer tent all afternoon. This resulted in the fete being invaded after 2pm with many thirsty drinkers legally taking advantage of the Reepham Rapier on offer. There was much happy, rowdy drinking, and also a few punch-ups. The year after this, the Norwich branch of CAMRA was not allowed to run another beer tent at the Mousehold Heath Fete.

6 Hopback Summer Lightning

A full bodied 5% IPA strongly flavoured with Goldings hops, the best hops in the world. You can keep your new fangled varieties, they can't touch the old originals. I Once visited the brewery and tap in Salisbury one late lunchtime, and sat around near the bar for ages while the bar staff flitted around and ignored me and wouldn't serve me any beer. I later found out from the CAMRA Good Beer Guide that the bar didn't open until 5pm. Wouldn't it have been polite if one of those flitting bar staff members had told me this? I felt a complete fool at the time. And I didn't taste any of the Summer Lightning; I was really looking forward to that!

7 Lees Moonraker

This is a 6.5% strong, fruity, dark ale made with celeia hops, first brewed in 1950 at the Greengate Brewey, Middleton, Manchester. The founder of the Brewery was John Lees who sold his entire portfolio of cotton mills to start building the brewery at Middleton Junction in 1828. Good man! This sixth generation-owned company now employs over 1300 people and has a large tied estate. Moonraker is a perennial beer festival favourite. Who hasn't finished off their festival tastings with a half of this? I remember working at the Great British Beer Festival in Brighton to see many people using this as “one for the road” or “one for the gutter”.

8 Sarah Hughes' Mild

This mild with an OG of 1058, 6% ABV is brewed at the Beacon Hotel, Dudley, by John, the grandson of Sarah. The Beacon Hotel was built in 1850 and was granted an alcohol licence in 1852. Sarah bought the hotel in 1921 at auction after inspecting the premises and reading the legal pack. She brewed there until 1957 when the hotel closed. It was opened again by John in 1987. I met John in 1990 when I was on one of my famous cycling tours. Again this excellent mild is a beer festival favourite, sought by beer connoisseurs everywhere.

So there it is, my gallon of cask conditioned ale. As well as this you are allowed to take a book and a luxury item (as well as the current CAMRA Good Beer Guide, which everyone can take). My luxury item would be a brewery, and my book would be “The Big Book of Brewing” by Dave Line, Amateur Winemaker Publications, Argus Books Ltd, ISBN 0 900841 34 6. Oh and don't forget to take some beer mugs!

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it.

The Manic Street Preachers

My first husband was a Public Image fan so when their second album, Metal Box,  was released in 1979 he was one of the first to go and grab it from Robin's Records in Pottergate, Norwich. It was a weird album consisting of three 45 RPMs separated by sheets of paper, encased in two metal casings that clipped together. Although I didn't really like the music on it, it was his pride and joy and I still considered it my record also. Later on when we got divorced and split our possessions he took Metal Box. When you get divorced you can lose a lot of good vinyl: well I didn't mind as I got the house, a much better investment! When my ex did die later on, I thought that all my old possessions that he had taken during our split had died with him. And I never did ask the executor of the estate, my daughter, about what she had done with his stuff.

Just recently my daughter announced that she was moving to live with her new partner Peter. I was pleased for her happiness but knew nothing about Peter. My son informed me that Peter indeed was “famous”: he had written a book about the group, the Manic Street Preachers, he was a journalist with several publications and he had even written for the Guardian. Well, in my eyes anyone who has written for the Guardian is very, very famous indeed: his credentials have been proved! He looked very post-punk with no hair in the middle of his head, and two starched red wings rising up from each side of his head, artistically drawn make up and post gothic clothes with piercings and tattoos to match.

The day came when Peter came to visit us for the first time and I was quite nervous. Would he like me? Would I pass the audition? Would I be able to cater for his veganism, I could do vegetarian quite easily but vegan was something else. I needn't have worried. He walked up the garden path and yes he did have two sticky out bits of red hair on the side of his hair and he looked very post goth, but he was a very positive, erudite, polite and relaxed person; not at all snobby and very, very normal. Really, we were both in audition.

During his stay we toured a lot of the Isle of Wight beauty spots like Culver Down and Bembridge Life Boat Pier and took walks to Seaview Esplanade and St Helens Duver, although at St Helens Duver he got a few frowns; perhaps St Helens isn't ready yet for punk rock, tattoos and piercings. In the evening we spent some pleasant time listening to music and drinking red wine. He did spend a lot of time on Twitter. And he liked my vegan cooking! Well, it wasn't technically vegan, but I did try hard!

A few months later we were watching telly and saw a trailer for a new programme about pop music, and who was on it? Peter! Our Peter was going to be on the telly! So we made sure that we were watching the broadcast as soon as it started. Peter was being filmed in the living room of his flat, the one he shared with my daughter and he was talking about the development of post-punk in popular culture. This was all good stuff. As he talked I had a good look at the décor of the flat, noticed a book shelf behind him and posed on that shelf, obviously for the camera to capture was the LP Metal Box, round and silvery, and from this I could see that Peter was making an artistic statement.

Then I wondered where he got it from. Was it my copy of Metal Box that I lost when I got divorced? I

Everyone has their five minutes of fame.

Peter and the Wolf

When I was at primary school our teachers were not good and not imaginative; they never stretched our imaginations or developed our growing desire to learn. On rainy days we would be left alone in the classroom at lunch time unsupervised and we loved to commit the “crime” of lifting the piano lid and playing it ourselves. Of course none of us - except a couple of very lucky children - had piano lessons; our parents could not afford that sort of unnecessary expense. So when we played the piano it was our own free form expression, and maybe as many as five children could comfortably fit side by side next to each other at the piano and we made an almighty discordant sound.

But wasn't this great! Children initiating their own expression and creativity, unsupervised by adults. Any good teacher would have instantly given them all piano lessons, recognising the learning opportunity and the need and enthusiasm of the children to learn. But did the teacher that walked into the classroom on hearing the cacophony from the staffroom do this? Not on your nelly. The keyboard cover would be slammed down on the children's fingers and they would be told to sit down quietly in disgrace.

Music lessons were unimaginative. I remember having to have the music of Prokofiev via Peter and the Wolf thrust down our unwilling throats by more than one teacher over the primary school years. Did we want this? No! We wanted to learn the music of the theme of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds and Batman. This was our enthusiasm, this is what we wanted to learn. But it was bloody Peter and the Wolf that we had to dance round the school hall too.

“Just imagine that you are Peter, children! Jump and skip like Peter would, Children!” the teacher would shout, so we all skipped and bounced around in our black plimsolls, self conscious in the knowledge that we looked stupid, especially the boys.

Then we had to bring in empty plastic containers which we filled with dry white rice, and had to shake them around, like maracas, in time to the beat of Peter gambolling in the meadow. This was so boring. I used to quietly unscrew the lid and nibble some of the dry rice grains; this was much more interesting.

Even now I really, really hate Peter and The Wolf. I even hate Prokofiev. When his music comes on the radio, I imagine the taste of that dry rice in my mouth; as dry as the quality of education I received as a child.

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Norfolk Nips

I was the producer and editor of the monthly news letter of the Norwich and Norfolk branch of the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA), from 1988 to 1996. It was four to six sides of A4 paper in size and had a print run of 6,000 when I took over, which I increased to 9,000 at the time I stopped. In those days there was no internet and the computer I used to produce it came from the Neolithic Age. The computer just ran WordPerfect and not much else; there certainly was no colour screen. To get it to function I had to insert a five and a quarter inch floppy disc into drive A, start the thing up with a crank shaft and then, only then, insert a second five and a quarter inch disc into drive B, and then enter some strange hieroglyphics which made the computer give out some strange whirring and clicking noises, then hey presto! it was ready for use. Sometimes it did not and I spent hours swearing at the bloody thing until the Shining Computer Knight (husband) got home from work to make things better again.

I used to manually enter the text of all the articles that were for publication. These would be written by other CAMRA members, or unknown people posting them in, or landlords, or copies (nicked) from other publications. This could take a long time and had to be edited several times, reworded, deleted and amended; and there had to be more articles than was needed as fail safes in case anything went wrong. When all this was done, the WordPerfect files had to be converted to MSDos.

Then I used to cycle down Sprowston Road and Silver Road to Taveners Square and hand the precious disc over to Rosemary at PTPS Typesetters and sit chatting with her a while about how the publication would look, the font and sizes needed, can you do it in several sizes and can we have some decorative wiggly lines and graphics in case we need them please and it all had to be planned out like this. About two days later she would ring and I would go and pick up some huge scrolls of typesetting on some very stiff and shiny white paper which were carefully stashed into the panniers of my bicycle and I then cycled up Silver Road and Sprowston Road back home.

That evening we (husband and and I) used to sit with scissors, two sheets of A3 and two sheets of A4 and two tubes of Pritt Stick. We cut the typesetting into bite sized chunks and arranged them on the paper into some logical order and then with the glue and a ruler stuck the articles into a logical sense. It took a lot of measuring and sliding and some swearing. Also we used to nick graphics and other things from other publications, old typesetting and anything else we could get our hands on. This could take several days and many arguments.

And there was also the advertising. Nips was supposed to be self funding. Of course it was not; the typesetters and printers had to be paid for and this was not a small sum. We were indemnified by the profits of the annual Norwich Beer Festival, but I had to show willing by selling adverts to local pubs and other associated businesses, and I had to mostly design and produce the advertising myself. I was quite good at this, and was good at communicating with relevant others. I got leads from other CAMRA members who might have been for example beer suppliers or brewery reps who passed on messages from landlords. There were also other businesses who liked the idea of publicising in a niche publication such as Jazz'N'Blues Records which was run out of someone's front room in a house in Taverham by a seventy year old ex-policeman. The adverts had to be fitted in too. One landlord from Brundall wanted his published upside down; this I did not do, as I thought it was too stupid, so he got angry with me when he saw the finished product. The landlord of The Red Herring was not happy with his either, so we didn't charge him. Roger Cawdron of the Black Horse, Norwich was very happy with the slogan I thought up, “A Thoroughbred Amongst Pubs”; I actually nicked this from a Lloyds Bank advert on the telly.

When all the pasting was done I would wrap the finished treasure in cardboard, stuff it in my panniers and cycle to Magpie Printers on Magpie Road and choose the colour of the paper, which changed on every bi-monthly print run. After a few days I would get a phone call that it was ready and arrange for a fellow CAMRA member with a car to pick up the print which was transferred to the back bar of the White Lion, Oak Street by permission of Jim and June Kidney, the landlords. Jungle drums were started so that the distributors could start their work, and the posting started also to the postal list.

Circulation of the copies was fun. I had my list of pubs and other places, for example Cinema City, the Library and Tourist Information. I was welcomed and often offered a quick half. I sometimes bravely went to new places to test the water. Sometimes they wanted to be included on the list and sometimes they could get very angry, and chuck me out. I don't know why, regarding that CAMRA was always trying to promote businesses in a positive way and it was free advertising for them. Circulating Nips gave me a reason to go cycling and Norfolk is a great, flat place to cycle; I met some very interesting people on my travels.

Another perk of doing Nips was that I became known to the brewers. At Christmas a huge Adnams Brewery dray used to gingerly inch up narrow Anthony Drive to deliver to me a pin of Tally Ho, along with a tap, soft and hard spiles, and chocks. I used to have great fun in my garage, chocking, tapping and hard spiling it ready for Christmas, and even greater fun drinking it. I was invited by Brian Cowie and Bob Wales to their Year Beer events which started in 1991 after their purchase of the Tolly Cobbold Brewery from Brent Walker. Once a year they would brew a special beer and give out numbered bottles at a party at the Cliff Brewery, Ipswich. I got some numbered bottles of the Year Beer, Cobnut, but I did drink them rather than keep them as a artifact. Well, wouldn't you? I also appeared on Anglia TVs Cross Question when my submitted question was chosen for broadcast about the subject of Tolly Cobbold Brewery being re-opened after Brent Walker tried to close it. This airing pleased Brian Cowie as it was free advertising for him.

Nips started in 1982, so in 1992 we held a special ten year party at the White Lion. By accident I had earlier met Ray Ashworth, managing director of Woodforde's Brewery, at the 1992 Bystanders Beer Festival in Thorpe Road, and asked him to brew for me a reincarnation of Norfolk Nips (8%), a barley wine sold in little bottles, after which the newsletter was named. He said he had the original recipe and could do it in time for the party I was arranging. This was great!! I asked June Kidney to put on a lavish spread, and invited as many people as I could think of, including the past Nips editors Jason Tilyard and Paul Moorhouse. I arranged the production of a special half pint etched commemorative glass, and an anniversary cake. The party at the White Lion was a great success, even though, sadly the Norfolk Nips beer had not cleared in time, and was a little hazy. And so was I when I walked home.

Later on the branch bought me a new computer, via Phillip Tolley who went down to Tottenham Court Road, in London to get it. I also got PageMaker and CorelDraw software. As I did not have to use PTPS Typesetters any more, production became much easier and I could incorporate photographs into the copy. It took me a while to teach myself PageMaker and I never did get the hang of CorelDraw.

In 1996 I finally got a worthwhile job, so it was time to hand over Nips to the fresh editorship of Adrian Hennessey.  I hope that you got as much fun out of it as I did Adrian.

Alan

Alan had a weaselly, pinched up face and a scowl to match. I always tried to avoid him and his scornful glances in the office: his voice was sour and sarcastic. So I was alarmed when I discovered I was moving from my current department to work under his supervision in his. But to do this I was being temporarily upgraded, which meant more salary, so I was half happy to go there.

But he didn't want me there. And he made this obvious. He later told me that he didn't think I was up to the job (which was a very simple and routine one) and was surprised that I could do it. I was sent to London on three day training course, and Alan was nasty about me getting time off to attend and treated me as though I was just skiving for a few days, and when I got back he told me that there were many mistakes in my work, when there obviously wasn't

He ran his department with a rod of iron and made working there difficult and miserable. He was negative and misogynistic. He would make sexist remarks about younger female workers to other male workers in front of female workers, and favour men over women. He set parameters so tightly that all individual initiative was frozen. He would criticise constantly.  I was so scared to do something wrong that I became nervous and therefore did nothing right from fear of making another of my “mistakes”. My colleagues secretly felt the same hindrances, but it was forbidden to talk, let alone openly talk, about his rule of fear. There was a cold war going on and he wrote our yearly assessments. So nobody did. And his rule continued. It came to the point when I felt so hounded and miserable that I bought some smart paper, wrote a new CV and scanned local newspapers to look for a new position elsewhere. It was a miserable place to work.

For example we were having a meeting about procedure and I made a contribution about something and Alan immediately shouted me down, that I was stupid and wrong and that I shouldn't think like this. The group went quiet, and we all felt low. Then Alan's superior, higher in the chain of command who hadn't heard the previous conversation, came over and said exactly the same thing that I had. Alan went red and nodded enthusiastically in agreement with every word he said. The others in the group inwardly laughed at him, and gave a camouflaged smiled to show some guarded support. But there was a cold fear to show any open solidarity, to criticise him.

I started to keep a diary of his behaviours towards me in case his war of attrition lead to anything more concrete like a final warning. We had a training day and colleagues from other regional offices came over so that we could train together. They laughed when they discovered that Alan was working there as a manager. They had previously worked with him at the same level before he got promoted and told anecdotes about his terrible behaviour. I thought it was just me that he hated; no, he hated everybody. They knew of a woman who had been bullied by him so much she had found the courage to make a formal complaint. This had resulted in her being moved to another department while Alan remained unchanged where he was. This didn't give any encouragement to anyone else thinking of doing the same thing.

After eighteen months I was so thankful to receive permanent promotion to another department away from Alan, with a new and more positive manager. I was so happy and so glad, it was like bright sunshine filtering down from a black sky. Suddenly my depression stopped and work became more meaningful again. It shouldn't have been like this; he should have had more monitoring and I felt that I didn't matter to higher management. Before I left he started to panic as whilst being there, I had worked hard and developed such a comprehensive and encompassing routine that he wasn't sure that my replacement would be able to smoothly carry on from it, so for my last yearly assessment before I left he gave me the job of writing an instruction manual that my replacement could learn from to do my job when I left. I felt flattered, but surely it was his job to monitor my tasks to do re-training? I was a lowly clerk, I shouldn't have had to do this. I got an exceeded mark in my assessment, probably because it saved his bacon as he had lost track of what I actually did do.

A few years later he was moved to a managerial role not involving controlling people. I learnt through the grapevine that there had been several workers on long term sick leave due to depression and stress. A messiah from the head office had quietly assessed why there was so much long term sickness and the result was that the higher management there was warned to monitor more closely the bullying that went on at lower levels, and Alan had been relieved of people managing. What was said behind closed doors I shall never know. All those times I endured this man, he finally got his karma.

My Father, Your Grandfather, My Dad, Your Granddad

For Abigail and Adrian

Frederick Alfred Burns was born on August 21st 1925 in Holborn, Clerkenwell, London. His mother was Eliza nee Chappell, born 1896 in Islington and his father was Alfred William. He had a sister called Lilian Beatrice, born 1923. His father worked as a gas fitter, and his mother worked as a seamstress for women's underwear. During the First World War his father fought in the trenches of Flanders and was the victim of a mustard gas attack which left him with breathing difficulties, character changes and post traumatic stress disorder.

The family lived in Coldbath Buildings which was built by an early housing association owned by the Peabody Trust which was founded in 1862 by a London based American banker called George Peabody. His aim was to relieve poverty through the provision of model dwellings for the capital's poor. Although Peabody's motivations were altruistic, judged by contemporary standards the facilities he provided would not be considered as “model”. Frederick was brought up in accommodation consisting of two rooms, with no bathroom, toilet or kitchen. Each landing in the large block of flats consisted of units of dwellings sharing a communal toilet and sink, with laundry facilities, drying rooms and bathing facilities on the top floor. The roof was accessible and Eliza kept chickens there. She received slops as chicken food from neighbours and gave them some of the eggs in return.

Coldbath Buildings, in Coldbath Square, were situated near Mount Pleasant Post Sorting Office and some of the extended family were employed there. Alfred William was involved in a road traffic accident and there was a successful court case fought in order to win compensation. This involved paying solicitor's fees which reduced the compensation somewhat; and the rest was spent by Eliza on a grand family holiday at the seaside, where the children were dressed in full leisure regalia, resulting in all the compensation money being spent.

A few years later a third child was born, Leslie. Lilian suffered from rheumatic fever which caused her to develop heart disease and she died on November 2^nd 1938 when she was 15. She was buried in Islington Cemetery, East Finchley in grave 22970, section L. Lesley, who was born prematurely, developed asthma and was sent to The Royal National Hospital of Diseases of the Chest at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. Nothing of this place can be found nowadays, the main building was demolished in 1969 and the grounds became in 1972 the Ventnor Botanical Gardens.

Not long after this the marriage broke down. Leslie was unlike the first two children and it was rumoured that he did not share the same father as Frederick and Lilian. Maybe Alfred was suspicious about this; in any case he became violent and Eliza had to hide from him. She had two sisters, Isabel and Sophia who lived close by and they shared domestic duties and childcare. The three cousins on the sisters. Frederick, Marjorie, daughter of Isabel, and Sophie, daughter of Sophia would often share the same bed. They would often make alibis and hiding places for Eliza when Alfred was on the hunt for her. After the marriage breakdown, Eliza and her children embarked on a chequered course trying to secure accommodation. My father talked of short stays in rented rooms, moon light flights to avoid rent payments and insecure living. Eliza never remarried, but Alfred did remarry and have further children.

Before the Second World War started the family secured secure council accommodation in the north of Greater London. Frederick reached the age of 14 when the war was starting and left school to start an apprenticeship as a machine fitter with a local engineering company. This apprenticeship finished in 1941 and he wanted to train in the Royal Air Force as a pilot, so at the age of 16 he enrolled on 28^th September 1941 in the Air Training Corps No 259 (Kenton) Squadron with the aim of joining either the Royal Air Force, the Fleet Air Arm or the Royal Navy. In 1942 he had a girlfriend called Peggy Lister who lived at 13 Blundell Rod, Burnt Oak, Edgware.

It was then discovered that Frederick was colour blind and was at a disadvantage for night flying and instrument reading. Because of this disability he was discharged. On 20^th January 1944 he was informed that his application to join the Royal Navy through the Naval Recruiting Office had been refused. On 27^th January 1944 he was called up for National War Service to be a coal miner. He immediately put in an appeal against this as going down a mine was the last thing he wanted to do. His grounds for appeal were that his mother was a single parent, blind in one eye, living on a very low income and that he, Frederick, was the main form of support for his younger brother who had bronchial asthma. The appeal was heard on 15^th February 1944 and was rejected. It stated that his grounds for appeal would not have been enough to gain him discharge from the armed forces, and these were comparable occupations during the war. Reluctantly he started work as a Bevin Boy at Thrislington Colliery, owned by H Stobart & Co, West Cornforth on 11^th April 1944.

The pit in 1935 worked two seams, Busty and Harvey, but by 1950 worked eight seams: Brockwell, Busty, Five Quarter, Harvey, Hutton, Low Main, Main and Top Bunty. In 1945 it employed 1090 workers, 822 below ground and 269 on the surface. It produced coal for cooking, gas, household use, manufacturing and steam; In 1947 it produced in total 304,066 tons of coal.

In West Cornforth he was billeted with Margaret and John Briscoe, a couple whose own young son, William, had recently died. Here he integrated into local life and being 19 years old met and fell in love with a local girl called Elsie and proposed to her. He naturally wanted to introduce her to his mother but this meeting went totally not to plan. His mother was very bad tempered and rude to Elsie and when they got back to West Cornforth Elsie broke off the engagement. In her community family was very important and the mother's blessing to a union was especially needed. She was also reluctant to make a new life in London and was worried that Frederick would want to start their married life there. During this time he wrote a short piece that described working practices and conditions in the mines which is now exhibited in a Welsh mining museum.

He earned between two to five pounds a week, the amount dependant on the shifts and hours worked. From this amount deductions were made for tax and unemployment insurance, hospital fund, nurse fees, doctor's insurance, lost tokens and bus fees. These would average around four shillings. He also paid into the Durham Miners Association and Benefit Society (Thrislington Lodge) a weekly amount of 1 shilling and 4 pence, which included death in service benefit and sick benefit.

He later would talk of conditions in the mine and the treatment he received there. It was a dangerous, haphazard place to work. Officially there were no large disasters where five or more workers were killed, but the deaths from single accidents were prolific and consistent from the records from 1835 when the pit opened until 1959, the last record of known death before the pit closed in 1967. Around the ten years surrounding Frederick's employment, there were 19 deaths from in-pit accidents. The main reasons cited in a report of these times were “killed by a fall of stone” , “caught by tipper” ,“caught by tub” and “fall of cable”. It was a dangerous place to work.

In 1937 a pony keeper Frank Midgley aged 53 had been killed in the pit by a falling cable. Frederick was employed after a short training period as a pony keeper. Ponies were used to haul the hewn coal in waggons along tracks to lifting gear going to the surface. The foreman used to encourage the pony keepers to put too much coal into the waggons for efficiency but this made it difficult for the ponies to pull them and they suffered dreadfully. After a while he refused to fill the waggons any more and told the foreman so. There was an argument, and he threatened to inform outside animal welfare agencies of this practice. Then the foreman backed down. A few weeks later Frederick was working with the same pony when it refused to go down a by-road (tunnel) neighing and digging in its hooves to a stationery position. He couldn't get it to move. Suddenly there was a rumble from the tunnel, and a cave-in occurred where the roof hadn't been adequately propped. The whole roof fell bringing down rock and dust; he would have been killed if he had gone in with the pony.

He often went without leave back down to London to visit his mother and brother and an example was made of him with official sanctions being made for unauthorised absences on 27^th, 28^th and 29^th December 1944. He was fined £6.00 which was more than a week's wages. He made another appeal for discharge which was heard on 27^th June 1945 and rejected on 27^th August 1945. He was finally released in 1946 after being given notice on 9^th February that he was to be released on 27th May, being put into release group 59. He continued to have a friendly relationship with Margaret and John Briscoe up until their deaths in the 1980's, visiting them for holidays and them coming down to the London area many times. They became the godparents of his daughter.

He then went back to live with his mother and brother in Kenton, North London. He got a job firstly with J Laing and Thompson, and then Zenith Carburettors where in 1947 he became friendly with one of the secretaries of the managers, her name was Sylvia Pattison; she was 16 and he was 22 years old. They went out together for five years and married in 1952. They had problems getting accommodation as there was a post-war housing shortage. In January 1952 he wrote in his diary about the frustration that they felt over not being able to find somewhere to live and how he wished that they were married. There were some new flats being built at Hackney and they visited these on 13^th January, but nothing came from it. He noted that the King died on Wednesday 6^th February

They put a postcard in a shop window offering a reward of £25 to anyone supplying information to securing accommodation and this got a result. They were offered a room in a man's house as he was looking for money to support a court case he was fighting to win compensation for a road traffic accident that caused damage that was not his fault. So on Saturday 9^th February they put a deposit down on a room at 28 Culver Grove, Stanmore and arranged for the start of the banns to be called in church. He made a note in his diary that the church would cost £3.10/6d, the cars £2.10/0d and the photos £2.10/0d. On Friday 22^nd February they were very busy moving their stuff around to Culver Grove, they had a rehearsal at the church on 28^th February and on 1^st March they were married at 11am in St Lawrence's Church, Whitchurch, Little Stanmore and their honeymoon was spent in Lynton and Lynmouth, North Devon.

There were still a lot of problems for them to move up the accommodation ladder from the one room but there was a period of post war new growth with the development of new towns. In Hemel Hempstead rented houses were being allocated by the New Towns Commission to people who had employment there. Frederick heard of vacancies there with a firm called Addressograph Multigraph which specialised in addressing duplicating machines, and he was successful in his job application so they were allocated a house, 17 Ritcroft Close, in the area of Leverstock Green in 1954. Sylvia got a clerical job at the children's office. Their daughter was born in 1958 and she attended Merryhill Nursery School from the age of two years. In 1960 Sylvia got a new job as a secretary at Apsley Grammar School, and in 1963 they moved to a larger house at 32 Woolmer Drive, still in Leverstock Green.

Towards the end of the 1960's Frederick grew tired of factory work and switched jobs to become an insurance agent with the United Friendly Insurance Company. His daughter married and moved out of their home in 1976, and he was presented with two grandchildren, Abigail in 1981 and Adrian in 1983. He was made redundant from United Friendly in 1980, then took a small succession of temporary jobs, resulting in a permanent post as a Medical Records Officer at St Albans Hospital in 1985. He retired in 1991, and then moved to a bungalow in Connor Downs, Cornwall. Old-age retirement happened then when men reached the age of 65 and women the age of 60. He died on the 18^th May 2002 at the Royal Cornwall Hospital (Treliske) Truro.