My grandpa Benjamin Thexton and his brother in law Frank Cock started Cock & Thexton in the 1930s. Uncle Frank and Auntie Cissie lived above the shop and Granny and Grandpa Thexton lived at Farleton, 3 Forest Road, a few minutes’ walk up the hill. It was the first house in Forest Road but still No.3. My mother Margery and her brother Ronald went respectively to the King’s High School, Warwick and Solihull School. Margery met Eric Fiddian at Birmingham City Council House and after the war lived in Dorridge, in Temple Road, which was unmade up then with no houses after the Whelocks’ until Avenue Road. We went to school in Solihull.
Cock & Thexton had a bakery (buzzing with terrifying wasps!) across the back yard where cousin Billy would take me when I was little to get a warm Chelsea bun, which I would eat walking up the hill to Forest Road with Grandpa. The Cock Robin Cafe and the sweet shop were added and followed by the off licence. I worked in the sweet shop in summer 1962 before going up to university. The box of chocolate buttons by the till were a constant temptation.
In those days almost everything was delivered, not only groceries but meat, fish and vegetables. Mr Lander the Milkman used to let me ride on the horse sometimes. It was a patient beast and stoically bore this over-excited cowgirl on its back as it plodded along Temple Road on Saturday morning.
My brothers were born at 7 Temple Road and, like me, christened at St Philip’s Church.
Our biggest thrill - leaning over Grove’s Bridge to see the steam trains thundering through between London and Birmingham. Then Mummy de-smutting us with spit and a hanky as we all got black faces from the smoke!