‘Thanks to diphtheria, a pushy Mum and an MP, we got a house ... and I got a future’
I was born in a back-to-back in the slums of Aston in 1946 – one of the ‘boom babies’ conceived when the
men folk who survived the war came home. We’re now called the baby boomer generation’ – and there’s a
lot of us! Mom Edie was proud of having me ‘private’. My sister Susan arrived with the NHS, so she was
free!
Our house, number 1 back-of 114 Clarendon Street had two rooms and was down an entry and in a yard
with five other back-to-backs with communal lavatories. There was no electricity, and even the lighting was
gas. The downstairs room had a fireplace, a stove and a stone sink with cold water. There was a small
room under the stairs for storing coal and food! We boasted a tiny table and a few rickety chairs. As a child
it was my job to climb on the table to light the gas fitting at night to give us light. Upstairs was just one
small bedroom which, once my sister arrived, was shared by all four of us.
Mom had a mangle outside for wringing the sheets and various washing lines were strung across the yard
on pulleys. She had a corrugated iron tub called a Dolly, and a washboard for doing the cuffs of dad’s
shirts. Dad Frank had a radio that ran off ‘accumulators’ and the first song I remember from the radio was
Mona Lisa. We had a tin bath which would take pride of place in front of the fire on Friday nights and, with
hot water from the Brewhouse, we’d take turns in the tub – good clean fun!
I remember having National Dried Egg for breakfast, which was luxury for us, as was a piece of bread with
lard and salt on it. As we could not afford chocolate another treat was a sheet of newspaper with cocoa
and sugar on it.
About this time, my sister and I both contracted diphtheria and were sent to Little Bromwich Isolation
Hospital. Our parents were allowed to visit but only view us through the windows. We were put in a ward
with a steam pipe to help us breath. The upside of hospital life was cornflakes for breakfast – I’d never
tasted them before as they were too expensive for poor folk. Sadly, because diphtheria was contagious,
the downside was all our toys had to be burned. And ‘home’, after all, was a slum – the walls were running
with damp and we had Silverfish in the fireplace. The doctor told Mom that ‘due to the dreadful living
conditions, neither of her children would survive’.
So Mom set about changing things – determined that her family had a future. She wrote dozens of letters
to Woodrow Wyatt, the local MP, demanding that we be moved. Eventually her constant badgering won
through, and we moved when I was 7 to a 3-bed council house in Perry Common. The joy of being able to
flick a switch to turn a light on was mind-blowing!
At age 8, I joined the local Wolf Cubs where I learnt all the chants and won lots of badges – those I
remember were for tying knots, the Highway Code and First Aid. By 1957 I was a Boy Scout and attended
the Jubilee Jamboree in Sutton Park. Boys and girls came from abroad to attend and it was opened by
Prince Phillip and Lady Baden Powell. Even the Queen came one day!
Even though I’d had to change schools, I passed the Grammar School Entrance Exam (11+).
It was at my Comp, aged 13, my fate and future were sealed. The school nurse gave me, along with other
pupils, a skin test prior to the TB injection. My wrist came up in a huge lump and I was sent for a chest
x-ray. The results came through to say ‘I had contracted and survived TB when young and so I now had
natural immunity to TB and diphtheria’ – and all because of the conditions I’d lived in as a small child’.
Phew. Imagine that. Either disease could have killed me. After that, my academic life soared with the
brilliant education I got at Great Barr Comprehensive – one of the first Comps purpose-built in the late
1950’s. One of the attractions was it was mixed sex and it catered for all abilities with 11 specialist science
laboratories.
From a humble start, I’ve had a fascinating career as an industrial chemist and consultant. My time in R&D
has taken me all over the world and I’ve learnt several languages along the way. Thanks Mom, Woodrow
Wyatt, the NHS, and Great Barr School. You have all done me proud!
© John Slatford
November 2019
