A Staffordshire Man: A Tale of Love, Adversity, Fortitude and Fulfilment

By Harry Titley

The story, set in North Staffordshire, follows the life of a young man returning to civilian life from national service, attempting to pick up the threads of his former years and wrestling with mixed emotions generated by the suddenness of change, lifestyle and environment. It describes his induction into a job and the foundation of a career that spanned more than forty years.

It describes the difficulties of adjusting to a new environment, the meeting of his wife and their life together. It tracks his life from the happiness of courtship, the difficulties and struggles of early married life and parenting to one of satisfaction and fulfillment.

From the authors perspective, it illustrates the organizational, technical and business changes he experienced at the English Electric Company at Stafford over more than four decades with a frank, light hearted and sometimes humorous approach.

It is a sensitive and frank portrayal of an ordinary life, similarly experienced by many people, but it is also a work of social and industrial history that helps bring back powerful memories.

The cover picture is called Our Potteries Heritage and is printed by kind permission of the eminent Staffordshire artist Sid Kirkham the Potteries Lowry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504995764

Harry Titley

Harry Titley was born in 1936 in a poor area of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, the county where he has lived for most of his life and about which most of his story is told. The youngest child of a working class couple, both from families with long histories in coal mining, he grew up during the Second World War, where, in spite of lives being on hold, he had a childhood freedom that was not experienced by generations of children before or since. It is a time where so much has been lost and mainly forgotten. His sensitivity and his contentment with his lot helped to consign those times to memory, “a thousand latent joys and half-forgotten sorrows.” After completing his national service in Germany, he went to work at the English Electric company in Stafford, where he remained until his retirement in 1999. He married Ann in 1960, and they had one child, Julie, in 1961. Although “A Staffordshire Lad” is Harry Titley's first book, he has written some poetry and a number of articles for a Canadian magazine and local newspapers. During his working life, he was editor of a company-wide magazine. He now lives in the North Staffordshire countryside with his wife.

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© 2015 Harry Titley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/11/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9577-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9578-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9576-4 (e)

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Contents

Dedication

About The Book

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Chapter 1 Homecoming

Chapter 2 Earning

Chapter 3 Courting

Chapter 4 Marrying

Chapter 5 House Hunting

Chapter 6 Working

Chapter 7 Struggling

Chapter 8 Sharing

Chapter 9 Holidaying

Chapter 10 Flitting

Chapter 11 Grieving

Chapter 12 Changing

Chapter 13 Supervising

Chapter 14 Training

Chapter 15 Hiring And Firing

Chapter 16 Lecturing

Chapter 17 Volunteering

Chapter 18 Writing

Chapter 19 Retiring

Chapter 20 Relaxing

Chapter 21 Reflecting

Glossary

Appendix I

Appendix II

About The Author

list of photographs

My Wife, Ann At Sixteen, Her Age When She And Harry Met

57 Diglake Street, Bignall-End, Audley

Harry At Eighteen

Ann In Longton Cottage Hospital, 1943

Hilda, Ann’s Mother, At Fourteen, Dressed Up In Her Brothers’ Wwi Uniform

Trentham Ballroom

Tom And Dolly Titley, Keith And Christine, Billy And Hilda

Beau Vista, Ann And Harry’s First Home

The Fanny Deakin Maternity Home

Julie And Harry At Julie’s Christening

Ann and Julie with their third car, a Standard Eight

Ann’s Sisters And Their Husbands

Thomas Palmer

Mr Chad

Harry With Julie Aged Four

Ann, Julie And Pepe With Their New Car, And Caravan

Julie With Pepe On Her Seventh Birthday

Julie On Holiday At The Mount Braddon Hotel, Torquay

Ann At Ham Green Farm

The Estaminet At Reument, France

Granddad Sam With His Four Sons At Madeley Cenotaph

The Puffins At Skoma Island

Linda Rowen

Lakeview, Prince Edward Island, Canada

Lake Lucerne From The Pilates Mountain, Switzerland

Cornerways, Ann And Harry’s Second Home At Stafford

St. Mary’s, Ann And Harry’s Third Home At Hilderstone

Selwyn Howle And Harry At St. Mary’s Cottage

Harry, Front Centre At An Annual Awards’ Presentation

Marshall Monks And Harry With The Two Iip Awards

Julie And Harry

3 The Escape Committee’s Tour Of The Manufacturing Facility

Martin Ansell, Md, Presenting A Bouquet To Ann

Ann, Julie And Basil At Loynton Moss

Ann And Harry’s Water Garden

Invitation To Buckingham Palace

Harry’s Old School

Tom And Annie, Ann And Harry’s Grandchildren

Family Party, Ann And Harry’s Golden Wedding

Virginia Mckenna

Harry With His Parents And Sisters, Joan And Mary

Dedication

To Ann, my dear wife, my constant companion for more than fifty seven years. Her love, loyalty, support and remarkable memory for infinite detail have been a shining light throughout my life and, without these qualities, I would have found it impossible to have written this book.

DEDICATION%20ANN%20JPG%2001_20150207_0001.jpg

My wife, Ann at sixteen, her age when she and Harry met

About the Book

T he story, set in North Staffordshire, follows the life of a young man returning to civilian life from national service, attempting to pick up the threads of his former years and wrestling with mixed emotions generated by the suddenness of change, lifestyle and environment. It describes his induction into a job and the foundation of a career that spanned more than forty years.

It describes the difficulties of adjusting to a new environment, the meeting of his wife and their life together. It tracks his life from the happiness of courtship, the difficulties and struggles of early married life and parenting to one of satisfaction and fulfilment.

From the author’s perspective, it illustrates the organisational, technical and business changes he experienced at the English Electric Company at Stafford over more than four decades with a frank, light hearted and sometimes humorous approach.

It is a sensitive and frank portrayal of an ordinary life, similarly experienced by many people, but it is also a work of social and industrial history that helps bring back powerful memories.

The cover picture is called ‘Our Potteries Heritage’ and is printed by kind permission of the eminent Staffordshire artist Sid Kirkham ‘the Potteries Lowry’.

Acknowledgements

M y first heartfelt thanks go to my wife, Ann. She has been a patient, supportive and constructive critic and an invaluable proof reader. Without her help and guidance I would still be struggling with my story.

Special thanks also to Paul Hayward of Pesky Computers, who salvaged my half-written manuscript from a corrupted laptop. I was at my lowest ebb when I discovered that the flash drive I used for backing up was also infected.

Thanks also to Sid Kirkham, the eminent artist, who allowed me to use the painting ‘Our Potteries Heritage’ for the cover and also his colleague, Alan Gerrard of The Art Bay, for all his help.

My gratitude is extended to Virginia McKenna for sending me her photograph and for her kind wishes for my book. Many thanks to her photographer, the late Cornel Lucas, who was the resident photographer at Pinewood Studios where the film ‘Carve Her Name With Pride’ was made and who captured a perfect image of Virginia as she was when the film was made.

Thanks for the picture courtesy, Staffordshire Sentinel News and Media, regarding the photograph of Trentham ballroom and, in particular, Colette Warbrook for all her help.

Thank you for the picture courtesy, Louise Elliot of Staffordshire Life for permission to use the photograph of the author on back cover.

I am grateful to the staff of the Staffordshire County Record Office for giving me permission to use the words of ‘The Staffordshire Song’ by E M Rudland, reference D5388/5/48.

Thanks to the Tim Tiley Ltd publishers for advising me on the anonymity of the poem ‘A Good Wedding Cake’.

So many people have contributed to the whole and I thank the following for giving up their time: Ann’s cousin, Don Jones; my school friends, Selwyn Howle and Martin Bailey; my work colleagues, Barry Lowe, Cyril Moore, Bill Crowther, Joanne and John Humble, and to Julie Hesketh of Newcastle-under-Lyme school.

Special thanks to my daughter, Julie Gullick, for her interest, support and proof reading.

The contribution by my granddaughter, Annie Gullick, who captured sixty years of change in her drawing of the five faces of my adult life in the last chapter, deserves a special thank you in spite of the fact that it frightened me to death when I saw my entire grown-up life flash before me in one brief glance.

My grandson, Tom, who listened to me patiently while we worked together in my garden and sometimes, unknowingly, sparked a corner of my memory that otherwise I would not have remembered.

The quotes at the beginning and end of each chapter are my own. The quotes within the text are accompanied by the writers’ names and I am grateful to all of them.

Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my late sister-in-law, Sylvia Thomas who was always interested in what I was doing. Without her support this book would never have been published.

A Staffordshire Song

There are forty shires for the English folk,

But there’s one for Stafford men.

It’s there we’d be with the earth for free

And it’s Oh! for home again.

For Tamworth tower, and Lichfield spire

And Stafford’s merry town,

And it’s Oh! to race on Cannock Chase

‘Midst the golden gorse and brown.

There’s many a task for the English folk

And a man’s a man always,

Who delves the coal and the iron ore

And shapes the potter’s clay.

There are forty shires that light their fires

And bless the iron strong

And the china bake that the potters make

As they sing the Stafford song.

It’s Penkridge pile, Wulfruna’s bower

And Burton’s foaming ale

And it’s oh! to race on Cannock Chase

With hearts that never fail.

It’s there we braid’ twixt man and maid

In links of loving fire.

The Stafford Knot that binds us all

In love of Staffordshire.

In Trentham Vale and many a glade

And Walsall where they ply

The leather stout, they shout it out

And in many a town that’s by.

It’s oh! to race on Cannock Chase

‘Midst the golden gorse and brown

And it’s oh! to be with the boys that glee

In merry Stafford town.

E. M. Rudland

Author’s Note

I n my previous book A Staffordshire Lad , when writing about my early life and formative years, it caused me to step back, reflect and oddly, share with myself those times and experiences. Often memory tries to misinform; it works better when unasked. I find that casting a bird’s-eye view over my past can sometimes generate thought processes that unlock experiences and images buried in the darkest corners of my memory. It is almost as though I am actually living rather than re-living them. Yet not so much living them, more like being present, as an observer. As the fog of distant events evaporates and the light of memory spreads throughout my being, I am at first filled with the warmth of recognition and then with the pleasure of being reunited with some long lost place or person. When fully emerging from my retrospective reveries, I often feel a strange sadness, a kind of grief for my lost self.

The second part of my story sees me returned from national service to civilian life, attempting to pick up the threads of my former years and wrestling with mixed emotions generated by the suddenness of change, lifestyle and environment. It describes my induction into a job and the foundation of a career that spanned more than forty years. But most importantly it covers the wonderful life that I have had with my dear wife Ann, our meeting, courtship and marriage, our daughter and grandchildren and finally our retirement years.

In writing this second part I have been able to share life’s experiences with Ann. I’ve used her ability to retain infinite detail of events long past and thus, have not experienced as much the loneliness of my half-forgotten life that I felt in writing about my earlier years. It covers a life of small beginnings, the struggles of early married life in making a home for my family with little else other than lots of energy and determination, the steady climb from having little money and little opportunity to improve my lot and concludes with one of fulfilment, contentment, and utter satisfaction. As a young man I had no grandiose schemes and clear objectives to make something of myself. I had underachieved at school and was aware that no-one was going to hand anything to me on a plate. Yet I was filled with enthusiasm, had a strong desire to pursue happiness, had self-confidence beyond my years and a willingness and energy to work and earn through my own endeavours. It is a story of an ordinary life that I like to think is similar to those lived by the majority of people and it is because of this very ordinariness and appropriateness to many others that has driven me to tell it.

Descriptions and opinions expressed of persons within the main text, living or dead, are my own personal views. They are as I see them and are not intended to offend in any way. If they do I apologise profusely. Similarly, descriptions and opinions expressed regarding my place of work, its structure and systems are entirely my own and may not conform to actuality. If they do not, once again I apologise for any offence caused.

My writing style is unusual in that some of my story is written reflectively and some retrospectively, ignoring the traditional rules of tense. As often as I can, I like to write as though events are happening in the present; I enjoy it this way as I feel I am re-living the event or experience. However, because the narrative covers a period of sixty years, it has often been necessary for me to slip back into the past tense and reflect on many aspects of my life. I sincerely hope that the book will not be judged on my literary style, or my lack of knowledge of traditional grammar. I have forgotten much of what I learnt at school, but it is an honest account of what happened throughout my adult life. No part of it has been embroidered, but I have to confess to dropping the odd stitch or two. I hope that this will not cause too much difficulty in reading it and, should it do so, I apologise. Also, because my career involved a lot of technical information, I have tried, wherever possible, to use the Glossary and Appendices rather than the main text so as to make the story less complicated. However, where it is included, it is used to amplify a particular passage. Although this book is a sequel to A Staffordshire Lad, I have tried to retain the two separate phases of my life as much as stand alone stories as I can. If I have done this, and you find it enjoyable, then I have succeeded in what I set out to achieve.

While I have made every effort to trace the owners of copyright, any errors or omissions can be rectified in further editions.

W H Titley

Chapter 1

Homecoming

Homesickness, in an extreme form, can affect us equally when we are at home as when we are away

F or the last twelve months I have promised myself I will celebrate my demob from the Royal Air Force by dragging my kit bag down the full length of Diglake Street in total defiance of RAF rules and discipline instilled in me at West Kirby during the eight weeks of square bashing, indoctrination and depersonalisation. I have just stepped off the PMT* bus at the top of the street after travelling from Innsworth in Gloucestershire and am lugging the old, rather sullied, white kit bag behind me as planned. I should be euphoric; I expected I would be, but I’m not. I’ve thought of little else having spent almost three years doing something and being somewhere I least wanted to do and to be. On the train up, I read in today’s paper that the United States president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had just announced a two years’ suspension of nuclear testing and I have just about as much interest in that as, it seems to me, the entire population of Diglake Street has in my return home. Everywhere is deserted; there’s not a soul in sight; not even a twitch of a curtain; it’s like a ghost town. I don’t feel euphoric. I don’t feel excited and, to tell the truth, I can’t ever remember feeling anything positive about

57 Diglake Street since the day I first set eyes on the place. I can’t call it home; it’s never felt like home; it never will be home.

SAM_0383.JPG

57 Diglake Street, Bignall-End, Audley

It is half past three in the afternoon, Wednesday, 21 August 1957 and I am walking up the entry. My boots clatter hollowly on the Staffordshire blue brick floor in the narrow, lofty and musty damp passage between the two houses. Watch out for that noisy loose brick. Here it is; blabbermouth of many a late night. Through habit, I step over it. In spite of the warm, late summer day, the whitewashed walls and ceiling give off a familiar, damp, fusty smell. I lift the latch of the porch door; as always the fifty year old hinges herald my arrival and squeal in disapproval. They know me. I’m always the last one in at night when all inside are bedded down and fast asleep. There is no one at home.

scan0001.jpg

Harry at eighteen

Mum and Dad are at work and Granddad Arthur is feeding his chickens at his Delph Lane smallholding. I know where I stand in the pecking order, at least as far as he is concerned. I sling my greatcoat on top of the kit bag in the porch. I notice the dulling brass buttons and feel a tinge of arrogance as I realise that there is no-one to tell me to ‘get ’em polished’. Bizarrely, it almost feels like another posting; that strange, unsettled feeling of not belonging. I poke some life into the dull fire backed up with slack to keep it going, push the kettle into the reddening embers and settle down into Dad’s armchair to consider my position. I seem to be in a sort of vacuum. Outwardly I don’t think I’ve changed that much, but mentally I have become a different person. Yes, it is true, I’m not quite as green as I was at eighteen. I suppose national service released me from the steadying influence and demands of teenage life, but it has given me an independence not experienced by boys entangled in the network of domestic relationships, and higher education. I’m bound to have changed. At eighteen, too young to vote and old enough to serve, as they say, I was thrown into a new world of young men, all of similar age; what a culture shock? When I think of the extraordinary comradeship, the ability to eat, live and sleep with all types from a variety of backgrounds and from every corner of the country I have experienced, it’s no wonder I am different. I am sure I will miss it in spite of the bad times.

The sooty, old black kettle settles in the ash – some things never change except it seems to have swapped its habit of boiling for singing. Dad used to say ‘perhaps there’s a brick in it’ and mum would reply by saying ‘a watched pot never boils!’ These old family myths have some truth in them. I poke some life into the fire and decide to make that long-awaited cup of tea. It tastes good. At least I don’t have to put up with that foreign rubbish anymore – Scot’s Pine we used to call it in Germany. It was not only the cheapest; it was the only brand available.

As I sip my tea, I sink back into my comfort zone and a reflective mood. I recall, just a few days ago, waiting for my train to the Hook of Holland on the platform at Cologne station. A long train pulls in and the open carriage windows are full of pitiful faces. An army of volunteers pass pieces of bread and cups of hot soup to them. I ask one of them who they are. She replies, ‘sie sind Flüchtlinge aus den kommunistischen Ländern’, (they are displaced persons; refugees from communist countries). I am face to face with victims of the Cold War; I can’t get their faces out of my mind. Here I am with all the comforts of home and all those people not knowing where the next slice of bread will be coming from. In spite of spending two and a half years on a front line flying station, for the first time since coming to Germany I am shocked at what I am seeing.

I wonder if it’s the changes to our family life that cause me to feel so misplaced. My sisters have flown the coop and the house is strangely quiet with the exception of the creaks and groans of the iron guttering and ancient timbers as they heat up under the early afternoon sun and the increasing sound of the water simmering in the back boiler. I can’t decide whether life in the RAF has somehow taken away my peace of mind, or that my chemical and biological processes are still bubbling away and affecting my development into a mature male. I only know that I am emotionally unsettled. I’m homesick for the life I’ve left.

*

A week has gone by since I came home; it seems more like a month, but I still can’t seem to shake off this feeling of being misplaced; just as though I am on leave and have to go back sometime. It’s an empty, slothful, indolent, inactive time.

I know that Mum and Dad have looked forward to my demob and have arranged a special homecoming, a sort of late twenty first birthday party, for next Sunday. They’ve bought our first television. I must make an effort, but daytime is lonely; I miss the company of boys my own age. Daytime television is boring; Mick and Montmorency and Listen with Mother just don’t do anything for me. I’ve helped Granddad with a few jobs at Delph Lane and it led me to thinking about his dedication. He trudges up there in a flat hat and his old army greatcoat almost dragging on the floor, twice a day and every day, in all sorts of weather, conditions or health without question. He is programmed; there is no consideration as to whether he should or shouldn’t, he is obligated. In the mornings he makes a hash of boiled peelings and meal for the chickens and in the afternoons he scatters a few bowlfuls of wheat for them. His commitment and devotion to his chickens set me thinking the other day about his life since he retired.

When Granddad had this house built in 1904, the small community of Diglake Street, Albert Street and Edward Street, which forms a U-shape with Edward Street at its base, consisted mainly of miners and their families. Centrally was the brick-bank, an old marl hole that had been filled in with spoil and unwanted building materials. Because it was unsuitable for building purposes, it became the kids’ playground, I played there myself; a handful of stones and a tin can kept me entertained for hours. Davies’ held a small wakes there each year. Opposite, in Albert Street, Mrs Harrison sold gas mantles, soap, candles, Beecham’s pills, sweets and everyday oddments from her converted parlour. Directly opposite, in Diglake Street lived Carrie who brought ‘em in and laid ‘em out. Their customers were a mixture of all generations; some were related; others just good friends and neighbours. Most were pious souls and formed the basis of the congregation at the local Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Chapel Street at the top of the road.

Granddad has worn a meandering track across the brick-bank as the shortest route to Delph Lane. In the 1950’s a number of council houses were built on the Diglake Street side and later the rest was used for garages. Granddad is a simple man with simple needs. Other than his chickens, he has been a regular member of the chapel congregation until quite recently; he listens to the Sunday evening service on the Light Programme and smokes an ounce of strong Twist each week. I can’t help comparing my own life and the way it is tending to lead. I ask myself whether such an unpretentious and humble existence will be my lot in fifty years or so; will I look back on my life and feel I should have done more with it?

*

It is nearly two months since I came home and I have slipped into the easy routine of leave. In the evenings I pick up life where I left off during my last leave from Germany and everything is just dandy. My youngest sister, Mary and her husband, flitted to a new house before I came home and I was able to move back into the box room. I haven’t enjoyed the independence and freedom of my own room since I was sixteen. Not that it is anything special; it’s just a box room; a room for boxes and unwanted furniture, but most importantly, it’s mine; my old Utility bed bought for me during the war is still there. I love my bed; it is very special to me. In it I have experienced fear and courage, sadness and happiness, cold and warmth, illness and good health. It became my refuge from hurt, my shelter from life and my study for homework.

I feel an unspoken pressure from Mum and Dad to get a job. For myself, I am happy to put such thoughts as work to the back of my mind. I admit to incurring a severe bout of laziness. I am not afraid of work, no matter how hard, as I have proved in the past, but my meagre supply of funds has started to run dry. I have to face the inevitable. The country is experiencing a period of high unemployment; there are very few jobs about and the local military careers officers are less than helpful. For some reason they want me to become a warehouseman in a pot bank. I can’t seem to get through to them that my experience in that field was as a school boy wanting to earn a few quid and not as a career move!

I recall a conversation I had earlier this year with Roy Fox, a boy I met in Germany who had secured a job with the English Electric Company (EEC)* at Stafford; I ask Dad to run me over to see if there is anything available. He jumps at the chance of getting my backside of his best chair.

*

It is Thursday afternoon 3 October, Dad’s half day. After a few enquiries I find myself in the office of Mr Palmer, the EEC personnel officer. Following my disastrous interview at Alsager College*, I’ve given some serious thought to the sort of questions I might