D
Dorothy Dodson
Guest
Ada arrived in Brum at the start of WW1, and there she met Charlie.
She came from a semi rural area, a country girl at heart. On the surface anyway. She wanted to travel, and get beyond her village. Her mother had died, and so had her father, but that was some years before her arrival in Birmingham. She had been living with her eldest sister. Ada was a feisty madam, and objected to being disciplined, I must add that this was only verbally, as at no time did she ever give me the impression that she was physically disciplined.
So she met Charlie, he took her to Jelfs ‘Caff’, in Park Lane Aston, where he bought her (to her disgust) a GLASS of tea. She said that she had never in her life (all 17yrs of it) been offered a glass of tea. It seems that they were not poor. She would relate that her mother, came from quite a well to do family, but her father was some years older, and not a rich man, so her mothers family would ‘help out’ Her father was proud, but probably turned a blind eye, to these ‘benefits’. However they had shoes on their feet, and chinaware to eat and drink from.
Charlie took her to Inkerman Street, yet another Culture shock. She said that she knew she should have turned tail and got away from there as fast as her little legs could carry her. But she didn’t. He was an only child. His mom thought the sun shone out of his every orifice - her words - (but the word orifice was foreign). It seems, that the home was a bug ridden back to back. It had just two bedrooms, and Charlie’s paternal grandfather also lived there, before long Ada found herself pregnant, so had to marry him. Well in those days you could finish up in the workhouse or a mental home; if you had a child outside of wedlock.
She had a daughter, who was the first of five children (all under 5yrs). She had very big babies, and after the first one, she had to go into Loveday Street for each confinement - she said that she remembers the first confinement and the doctor coming in and that he wouldn’t take his hat off because he was afraid of bugs getting on it. What a knockout she was!
She said that the neighbours considered her to be an outsider (she never did overcome her Derbyshire accent up to the day she died), and used to tell her to “goo back ware ya come from”. They would say that she was stuck up, because she fought a constant battle against the bugs, and kept the children tidy. Oh I forgot to say, she was a seamstress who could make the proverbial silk purse out of a sows ear. Consequently the kids were kept clothed. She would take in sewing. She also said that she used to make baby bonnets for Rackhams when it was a small shop in town. But suffice to say she was a survivor.
Later on after the fifth child, she managed to get a council house - in Pype Hayes - one of the first of the municipal estates. She told us how she and the kids, walked all the way from Inkerman Street to Pype Hayes Road, where their first home was. She said that she only took the very bare minimum, mostly her sewing threads etc; said they hadn’t really got any furniture to call their own anyway. They started off with boxes to sit on and I never did find out about their sleeping arrangements. But she started having more babies the final count (including stillbirths) was twelve.
Her joy was soon to end, because after a few months, she realised that they all had spots, these, were flea bites. The houses had been built on ash, consequently it was a haven for fleas, and bugs. Again she was fighting a constant war with the DDT spray.
She was taking in sewing, for the neighbours, she could get plenty of work, the trouble was getting the payment. So she would send the eldest girl round to these people - with the warning, “Don’t let them have the work without the money”, this was usually in the daughters school dinner time (lunch time these days) and it would probably only be about 4d, but then she was under orders to run to the Co-op for a pkt of margerine and a loaf of bread, and that was their dinner that day. Ada would often tell me that they had more mealtimes than meals.
Then Charlie was out of work, in the slump of the thirties, and he walked to town each day (from Pype Hayes) looking for work, but mostly for a bowl of soup from the Salvation Army wagon. But one day he was walking along Steelhouse Lane, and came across a stall giving away ‘chocolate’ . Charlie couldn’t read, but it’s doubtful if he would have understand what laxative meant anyway. Poor Charlie hadn’t eaten chocolate, for ages, so he gobbled up the first couple of squares. And in his naivity, kept going back for a bit more. And he even managed to get a couple of packets to take home for the kids. The walk from Birmingham city centre to Pype Hayes was the soggiest in history for him. But you had to hear Ada tell this story in later years to get the full enjoyment. And it was only the fact that he took chocolate home for the kids that she knew that he had overdosed on Ex-Lax.
He was also a bit of a womaniser, and one day she went home and found the woman next door in bed with him. It was only the fact that it was her bed that she objected, or so she said.. Charlie reckoned he didn’t know how the next door neighbour got there. Yesss that’d be right!!!
She was having a real struggle to feed and clothe the kids, and couldn’t understand how some of the young moms were managing, to put food on the table, even though their men were on the dole, as was Charlie. So she had a chat, and they said to go to the Town Hall and tell them of her difficulties.
So off toddles Ada, and they took her details and said somebody would call. Sure enough within the week, there was a knock on the door, and the man from the Town Hall was on the doorstep. She asked him in, he took particulars, and asked her what she was really in need of. Well had he got 24hrs? She decided not to be cocky, so said mostly that she could clothe the children by make do and mend, from jumble sales etc. But they did need shoes, and so did her husband, and for that matter so did she. So that was OK, off he went and true to his word in the next few days all the kids had decent shoes, Charlie had a couple of pair of boots, and she had shoes.
Next time the chap from Town Hall wanted to know, if she would like food, so the in next few days a food parcel arrived. Then he started giving her stockings and offered to take her for a meal. Uhhh Uhhhh
- Alarm bells started ringing. Ada was quick witted, if nothing else, and decided that she had got enough with Charlie without getting into any more trouble. So she said - “Yes that - would be very nice, I assume that your wife will come along too, incidentally, I met her in town and I told her how good you were to me and my family”, which was a lie. :evil:
Ada said that the food dried up after that, and they never got any more shoes or boots. You couldn’t really make it up though (could you?)
It was about 1936 and the family were on the move again, this time Ada had managed to borrow the deposit for the mortgage on a house in Frederick Road Erdington.
Her youngest son was born in this house in 1937.
She had her rates money, ready to pay, but was persuaded to lend this to somebody, not sure who, but as she never did get it back, decided that she would never lend money to anyone again. In fact she bought furniture for the new house in Erdington, and had it on hire purchase, but was unable to pay the last couple of payments on the due dates. Consequently the furniture was confiscated by the furniture company, this made her, make a further decision never to buy anything that she could not pay for at the point of sale.
It was an old house, that had belonged middle class people. There were servant bells in each room. But this was the house that they all settled into, it was a three story house, with a hall along the length of the house to the back rooms.
She still had itchy feet, and as most of her family were grown up now, she left her youngest child with the oldest daughter. Ada got a job in Borth, Wales, waiting on tables in a boarding house, doing needlework, and nannie work to the children. You would have thought she had enough children at home, but she knew that her extra money would help the home-front.
She came back and resumed her day to day life. They all managed to survive the war, Charlie never would go down the air raid shelter, but would stand outside watching the planes going over, until the night that a bomb was dropped fairly near, not sure how near, but he fell into the shelter, with Ada calling him all the stupid sods etc etc that she could think of. But whenever she related that, we would all finish up in tears of laughter - she was some Story-teller!
Her youngest son, was evacuated along with his elder sister to Ilkeston to stay with their auntie Ethel, not the one who Ada had done a runner from. Auntie Ethel would get very upset because young Billy would come home and tell her that the big kids were hitting him. She assumed it was because he was an outsider. So she followed him to school without his knowledge, and was amazed to see little Billy putting the boot in. No more worries about him being able to take his own part.
He came back to his mom, when the bombing stopped over Brum, and Ada was enlisted to help with the Street party in preparation for the end of hostilities (between us and Germany that is). She made all the buntings, and I believe fancy dress for the kids in the road, she helped with the food, they said that she was used to cooking for a large family so that she would have a better idea of the quantities needed. She said they didn’t know that half the time, they only had bread and marg - but no matter.
She started work at the GEC, and would start out each morning, the railway station was in the same road, and it was said that it was a sight to behold to see her going out down the steps to the platform followed by the family cat, who would watch her onto the train and then come back to reek havoc in the next door neighbours back garden. He would return at night to meet her off the train. She would get in, and those who hadn’t already helped themselves to food, which wasn’t many, she would feed. Then settle down by the fire (if it was winter) with the cat draped round her neck and shoulders - trying to catch her knitting needles while she was knitting.
She worked at the GEC until she retired at the age of 60, Charlie wanted to know why she was retiring as she wouldn’t able to manage without her wages. Her reply was - “You’re about to start keeping me now, that’s how I’ll mange “. She wished! She was s till dressmaking and putting her money aside, this paid the mortgage and anything over was her nest egg - she was very resourceful, She had to be, she always said that she could have anything off Charlie providing that she went to the Brookvale Pub and drunk it.
However while she still worked at GEC she had started going on the holidays with them, the first time she went to Norway, with Charlie shouting after her that she should have been ashamed of herself - for leaving her family without a by your leave. She said that her workmates on the coach, wanted to know who he was, and she replied “Don’t know - maybe he’s the local nutter” It didn’t stop her though, because she went every year, until she retired. Her workmates looked forward to the annual performance of Charlie. And she didn’t intend to stop travelling after she retired.
They always had parties at their house, well it was a party when the family visited (which was at most weekends) She would put a sheet over a decorators table in the front room, and somehow we all managed to sit round it. Yes by this time I had been recruited into the family via Bill (little Billy). He used to tell me that they never needed an excuse for a party, but he did say that they would even make it an excuse for a party if his dad were to fall down stairs. A prophecy which was to prove, unfortunately, too true.
Ada was recruited once again to make the wedding dress for me and my bridesmaids, I found a pattern in a weekly paper The Reveille, remember that one? It was mildly Elizabethan with the pointed bodice and lace over sleeves pointed over the wrists. Ada got her suitcases out, and got on the train one Saturday and off to Nottingham she went, for the lace and materials for the brides dress and the bridesmaids. That was her wedding gift to us. She also made the posies for the 6 little bridesmaids.
Poor old Charlie started having bad turns, around his 60s and at one time he landed up in Highcroft Hall, but not for long, as he told Ada to get him out before he went mad. He shouldn’t really have been there in the first place. But he seemed to be drinking more and more, and one night he came in covered in blood, said he’d walked into a lamp post, but the sight of him really didn’t make that explanation ring true. But they never knew the truth for sure. He took to his bed, and in his many deliriums would tell her that there were all sorts of demons in the bedroom. Then in one of these hallucinations, he left his bed to come down stairs - and fell from top to bottom. He was taken into the General Hospital - where he died of pneumonia a few days later. There was no party, but that’s how he died, and the police came to investigate the stairs, for signs of foul play, which of course they didn’t find, because it was a pure accident.
However, Ada in the usual way, went about her days, making plans to leave the family home for a smaller place. By this time she was the only inhabitant of the big rambling house, and it held too many memories and ghosts. I use the description ghost in a purely sentimental vein, as there was only ever fun in their family.
“Have you heard that one before?” She’d just come out with another anecdote, that we didn’t remember . We sat in the car smiling, then chuckling, and finally a good old laugh . I said “I just hope that I remember all of this when she’s no longer with us, because somebody really should write a book.”
Ada moved to a bungalow in Shard End in about 1965. We didn’t expect her to retire to her armchair and don a shawl. That wasn’t her style. We were not, however, prepared for her re-emergence as a Globe-trotter..
In 1967 on her 70th birthday she was on a plane en-route for Spain, the stewardess came along and asked if she was well, and was she travelling alone? Ada -“Yes” Stewardess - “Are you going to meet up with anyone when you get to Spain” Ada - “Well I wont be alone, I always make friends” . The conversation continued, and the Air hostess discovered that it was her 70th birthday. Before the end of the flight, Ada had been given a birthday card and perfume, from the flight deck and crew. She was overwhelmed, and kept those birthday items to her dying day.
Every Winter she made her way to Spain, she went with Saga once, but every other time, she booked her holiday as a single passenger, enjoying the fuss that was made of her, most people were amazed at her energy to go abroad, alone, and not in a party. She didn’t care, saying that she had spent years in parties, (the family ones) and she was now quite happy to just look after herself; but know that her family where there for her if she needed them.
She was fiercely independent, and always vowed that she would never live with any of the family, having had to endure her mother in law when she was young. She said that she had made a promise to herself at that point that she would never interfere in the lives of her adult children. This came to a head, when one night she had intruders in her bungalow. She awoke, and heard her door being smashed down, she calmly picked up her phone and dialled 999. The police told her not to ring off and to stay still until they got there.
She phoned us a couple of days later, we were absolutely appalled, but all she would talk about, was that she had three nice young policemen in her house, at 3am and they made her a cuppa, while waiting until the carpenter came to make her door secure. She was not fazed by the experience. And all she asked of us, was that we put a second door between the outside door, and the living quarters, which she locked each night, so that was double security (as far as she could see).
She was adamant that we should NOT phone her each day. Said that she was quite capable of taking care of herself. And if she needed us she would phone. We were allowed to call on her each Sunday, that was if we couldn’t persuade her to come to us for Sunday lunch and tea.
On one of her holidays, her bungalow was broken into. Her neighbour noticed that the door was open, and phoned one of her grandsons, Ada had brought him up as her own, being not much younger than her youngest son (Bill), they phoned us, to let us know what had happened, and we all met at her home, but it just seemed that it might have been kids, nothing as far as we could make out had gone. We didn’t let her know about the break-in, knowing that she would not thank us for spoiling her holiday. We set to and tidied the place, and had to wait for her return at the end of the Winter. It was quite comical, to see her relief that it had all happened while she was away, and she carried on discovering what had gone for at least the next twelve months (or until she returned to Spain). She’d say things like, “I was going shopping, and thought I’d take the shopping trolley, and be buggered it was missing, so that was what they carted my iron, and bits and pieces away in”
She went to the hairdresser every Friday, and drummed up a bit of business, in toilet roll covers, remember when every self respecting body had a crinoline lady to cover their spare toilet roll?. I swear she started it. Also the milk bottles, covered in a crocheted coat and a stopper with a poodles head crocheted round it and a pompom tail, the bottle filled with bath crystals, again I think that she initiated that - but maybe not. However, I never found anybody else producing them. All the proceeds went towards her holidays. She was now stacking up the years.
We had a phone call one summer night, she had been in her little back garden, and fallen, we only lived 10 minutes away, when we got there the ambulance was already there, and it was obvious that she had done something serious to her hip. Sadly it was broken and she was admitted to the then East Birmingham Hospital. She had a hip replacement, and was back home getting around within a couple of weeks. I’m quite sure that she was in pain, but would never admit it. She still steadfastly refused to live with any of us. By then she was about 85.
But a couple of years later, she phoned us, she had fallen in the bungalow (this was a Saturday night) and she thought she may have broken her other hip, we got there in minutes, and she was sitting by the wall in her living room, she’d managed to drag herself to the phone. Sure enough she had broken her other hip, we called the ambulance, and they took her to hospital where she had a second hip replacement.
She again managed to recover and be back home in about a fortnight. But when she got back, she was persuaded to have a SOS alarm, this was supplied by the Council, and was called (if I remember correctly) the Piper alarm. She had to wear it round her neck and just press it if she needed help. But she rolled over onto it so many times at night, alerting the 24hr service, that in the end she placed it on her bedside table.
The last phone call that we got from her, she had fallen a couple of days before, and decided she had better call us, as she was feeling really poorly. It was a waste of time asking her why she hadn’t pressed her Piper Alarm; but we did; She said that they would have called us, and she didn’t want to worry us. The fact that the 24hr emergency service would have called an ambulance first and then alerted us, had completely escaped her notice. That was in 1992, and she was admitted for the last time to The East Birmingham Hospital, she'd had a heart attack, and sadly we lost her two weeks later she was 95.
My mother in law left a lot of happy memories . Unfortunately i have fogotten most of the things she used to tell us. But she had a hard life. And somebody really should write a book about her
She came from a semi rural area, a country girl at heart. On the surface anyway. She wanted to travel, and get beyond her village. Her mother had died, and so had her father, but that was some years before her arrival in Birmingham. She had been living with her eldest sister. Ada was a feisty madam, and objected to being disciplined, I must add that this was only verbally, as at no time did she ever give me the impression that she was physically disciplined.
So she met Charlie, he took her to Jelfs ‘Caff’, in Park Lane Aston, where he bought her (to her disgust) a GLASS of tea. She said that she had never in her life (all 17yrs of it) been offered a glass of tea. It seems that they were not poor. She would relate that her mother, came from quite a well to do family, but her father was some years older, and not a rich man, so her mothers family would ‘help out’ Her father was proud, but probably turned a blind eye, to these ‘benefits’. However they had shoes on their feet, and chinaware to eat and drink from.
Charlie took her to Inkerman Street, yet another Culture shock. She said that she knew she should have turned tail and got away from there as fast as her little legs could carry her. But she didn’t. He was an only child. His mom thought the sun shone out of his every orifice - her words - (but the word orifice was foreign). It seems, that the home was a bug ridden back to back. It had just two bedrooms, and Charlie’s paternal grandfather also lived there, before long Ada found herself pregnant, so had to marry him. Well in those days you could finish up in the workhouse or a mental home; if you had a child outside of wedlock.
She had a daughter, who was the first of five children (all under 5yrs). She had very big babies, and after the first one, she had to go into Loveday Street for each confinement - she said that she remembers the first confinement and the doctor coming in and that he wouldn’t take his hat off because he was afraid of bugs getting on it. What a knockout she was!
She said that the neighbours considered her to be an outsider (she never did overcome her Derbyshire accent up to the day she died), and used to tell her to “goo back ware ya come from”. They would say that she was stuck up, because she fought a constant battle against the bugs, and kept the children tidy. Oh I forgot to say, she was a seamstress who could make the proverbial silk purse out of a sows ear. Consequently the kids were kept clothed. She would take in sewing. She also said that she used to make baby bonnets for Rackhams when it was a small shop in town. But suffice to say she was a survivor.
Later on after the fifth child, she managed to get a council house - in Pype Hayes - one of the first of the municipal estates. She told us how she and the kids, walked all the way from Inkerman Street to Pype Hayes Road, where their first home was. She said that she only took the very bare minimum, mostly her sewing threads etc; said they hadn’t really got any furniture to call their own anyway. They started off with boxes to sit on and I never did find out about their sleeping arrangements. But she started having more babies the final count (including stillbirths) was twelve.
Her joy was soon to end, because after a few months, she realised that they all had spots, these, were flea bites. The houses had been built on ash, consequently it was a haven for fleas, and bugs. Again she was fighting a constant war with the DDT spray.
She was taking in sewing, for the neighbours, she could get plenty of work, the trouble was getting the payment. So she would send the eldest girl round to these people - with the warning, “Don’t let them have the work without the money”, this was usually in the daughters school dinner time (lunch time these days) and it would probably only be about 4d, but then she was under orders to run to the Co-op for a pkt of margerine and a loaf of bread, and that was their dinner that day. Ada would often tell me that they had more mealtimes than meals.
Then Charlie was out of work, in the slump of the thirties, and he walked to town each day (from Pype Hayes) looking for work, but mostly for a bowl of soup from the Salvation Army wagon. But one day he was walking along Steelhouse Lane, and came across a stall giving away ‘chocolate’ . Charlie couldn’t read, but it’s doubtful if he would have understand what laxative meant anyway. Poor Charlie hadn’t eaten chocolate, for ages, so he gobbled up the first couple of squares. And in his naivity, kept going back for a bit more. And he even managed to get a couple of packets to take home for the kids. The walk from Birmingham city centre to Pype Hayes was the soggiest in history for him. But you had to hear Ada tell this story in later years to get the full enjoyment. And it was only the fact that he took chocolate home for the kids that she knew that he had overdosed on Ex-Lax.
He was also a bit of a womaniser, and one day she went home and found the woman next door in bed with him. It was only the fact that it was her bed that she objected, or so she said.. Charlie reckoned he didn’t know how the next door neighbour got there. Yesss that’d be right!!!
She was having a real struggle to feed and clothe the kids, and couldn’t understand how some of the young moms were managing, to put food on the table, even though their men were on the dole, as was Charlie. So she had a chat, and they said to go to the Town Hall and tell them of her difficulties.
So off toddles Ada, and they took her details and said somebody would call. Sure enough within the week, there was a knock on the door, and the man from the Town Hall was on the doorstep. She asked him in, he took particulars, and asked her what she was really in need of. Well had he got 24hrs? She decided not to be cocky, so said mostly that she could clothe the children by make do and mend, from jumble sales etc. But they did need shoes, and so did her husband, and for that matter so did she. So that was OK, off he went and true to his word in the next few days all the kids had decent shoes, Charlie had a couple of pair of boots, and she had shoes.
Next time the chap from Town Hall wanted to know, if she would like food, so the in next few days a food parcel arrived. Then he started giving her stockings and offered to take her for a meal. Uhhh Uhhhh
- Alarm bells started ringing. Ada was quick witted, if nothing else, and decided that she had got enough with Charlie without getting into any more trouble. So she said - “Yes that - would be very nice, I assume that your wife will come along too, incidentally, I met her in town and I told her how good you were to me and my family”, which was a lie. :evil: Ada said that the food dried up after that, and they never got any more shoes or boots. You couldn’t really make it up though (could you?)
It was about 1936 and the family were on the move again, this time Ada had managed to borrow the deposit for the mortgage on a house in Frederick Road Erdington.
Her youngest son was born in this house in 1937.
She had her rates money, ready to pay, but was persuaded to lend this to somebody, not sure who, but as she never did get it back, decided that she would never lend money to anyone again. In fact she bought furniture for the new house in Erdington, and had it on hire purchase, but was unable to pay the last couple of payments on the due dates. Consequently the furniture was confiscated by the furniture company, this made her, make a further decision never to buy anything that she could not pay for at the point of sale.
It was an old house, that had belonged middle class people. There were servant bells in each room. But this was the house that they all settled into, it was a three story house, with a hall along the length of the house to the back rooms.
She still had itchy feet, and as most of her family were grown up now, she left her youngest child with the oldest daughter. Ada got a job in Borth, Wales, waiting on tables in a boarding house, doing needlework, and nannie work to the children. You would have thought she had enough children at home, but she knew that her extra money would help the home-front.
She came back and resumed her day to day life. They all managed to survive the war, Charlie never would go down the air raid shelter, but would stand outside watching the planes going over, until the night that a bomb was dropped fairly near, not sure how near, but he fell into the shelter, with Ada calling him all the stupid sods etc etc that she could think of. But whenever she related that, we would all finish up in tears of laughter - she was some Story-teller!
Her youngest son, was evacuated along with his elder sister to Ilkeston to stay with their auntie Ethel, not the one who Ada had done a runner from. Auntie Ethel would get very upset because young Billy would come home and tell her that the big kids were hitting him. She assumed it was because he was an outsider. So she followed him to school without his knowledge, and was amazed to see little Billy putting the boot in. No more worries about him being able to take his own part.
He came back to his mom, when the bombing stopped over Brum, and Ada was enlisted to help with the Street party in preparation for the end of hostilities (between us and Germany that is). She made all the buntings, and I believe fancy dress for the kids in the road, she helped with the food, they said that she was used to cooking for a large family so that she would have a better idea of the quantities needed. She said they didn’t know that half the time, they only had bread and marg - but no matter.
She started work at the GEC, and would start out each morning, the railway station was in the same road, and it was said that it was a sight to behold to see her going out down the steps to the platform followed by the family cat, who would watch her onto the train and then come back to reek havoc in the next door neighbours back garden. He would return at night to meet her off the train. She would get in, and those who hadn’t already helped themselves to food, which wasn’t many, she would feed. Then settle down by the fire (if it was winter) with the cat draped round her neck and shoulders - trying to catch her knitting needles while she was knitting.
She worked at the GEC until she retired at the age of 60, Charlie wanted to know why she was retiring as she wouldn’t able to manage without her wages. Her reply was - “You’re about to start keeping me now, that’s how I’ll mange “. She wished! She was s till dressmaking and putting her money aside, this paid the mortgage and anything over was her nest egg - she was very resourceful, She had to be, she always said that she could have anything off Charlie providing that she went to the Brookvale Pub and drunk it.
However while she still worked at GEC she had started going on the holidays with them, the first time she went to Norway, with Charlie shouting after her that she should have been ashamed of herself - for leaving her family without a by your leave. She said that her workmates on the coach, wanted to know who he was, and she replied “Don’t know - maybe he’s the local nutter” It didn’t stop her though, because she went every year, until she retired. Her workmates looked forward to the annual performance of Charlie. And she didn’t intend to stop travelling after she retired.
They always had parties at their house, well it was a party when the family visited (which was at most weekends) She would put a sheet over a decorators table in the front room, and somehow we all managed to sit round it. Yes by this time I had been recruited into the family via Bill (little Billy). He used to tell me that they never needed an excuse for a party, but he did say that they would even make it an excuse for a party if his dad were to fall down stairs. A prophecy which was to prove, unfortunately, too true.
Ada was recruited once again to make the wedding dress for me and my bridesmaids, I found a pattern in a weekly paper The Reveille, remember that one? It was mildly Elizabethan with the pointed bodice and lace over sleeves pointed over the wrists. Ada got her suitcases out, and got on the train one Saturday and off to Nottingham she went, for the lace and materials for the brides dress and the bridesmaids. That was her wedding gift to us. She also made the posies for the 6 little bridesmaids.
Poor old Charlie started having bad turns, around his 60s and at one time he landed up in Highcroft Hall, but not for long, as he told Ada to get him out before he went mad. He shouldn’t really have been there in the first place. But he seemed to be drinking more and more, and one night he came in covered in blood, said he’d walked into a lamp post, but the sight of him really didn’t make that explanation ring true. But they never knew the truth for sure. He took to his bed, and in his many deliriums would tell her that there were all sorts of demons in the bedroom. Then in one of these hallucinations, he left his bed to come down stairs - and fell from top to bottom. He was taken into the General Hospital - where he died of pneumonia a few days later. There was no party, but that’s how he died, and the police came to investigate the stairs, for signs of foul play, which of course they didn’t find, because it was a pure accident.
However, Ada in the usual way, went about her days, making plans to leave the family home for a smaller place. By this time she was the only inhabitant of the big rambling house, and it held too many memories and ghosts. I use the description ghost in a purely sentimental vein, as there was only ever fun in their family.
“Have you heard that one before?” She’d just come out with another anecdote, that we didn’t remember . We sat in the car smiling, then chuckling, and finally a good old laugh . I said “I just hope that I remember all of this when she’s no longer with us, because somebody really should write a book.”
Ada moved to a bungalow in Shard End in about 1965. We didn’t expect her to retire to her armchair and don a shawl. That wasn’t her style. We were not, however, prepared for her re-emergence as a Globe-trotter..
In 1967 on her 70th birthday she was on a plane en-route for Spain, the stewardess came along and asked if she was well, and was she travelling alone? Ada -“Yes” Stewardess - “Are you going to meet up with anyone when you get to Spain” Ada - “Well I wont be alone, I always make friends” . The conversation continued, and the Air hostess discovered that it was her 70th birthday. Before the end of the flight, Ada had been given a birthday card and perfume, from the flight deck and crew. She was overwhelmed, and kept those birthday items to her dying day.
Every Winter she made her way to Spain, she went with Saga once, but every other time, she booked her holiday as a single passenger, enjoying the fuss that was made of her, most people were amazed at her energy to go abroad, alone, and not in a party. She didn’t care, saying that she had spent years in parties, (the family ones) and she was now quite happy to just look after herself; but know that her family where there for her if she needed them.
She was fiercely independent, and always vowed that she would never live with any of the family, having had to endure her mother in law when she was young. She said that she had made a promise to herself at that point that she would never interfere in the lives of her adult children. This came to a head, when one night she had intruders in her bungalow. She awoke, and heard her door being smashed down, she calmly picked up her phone and dialled 999. The police told her not to ring off and to stay still until they got there.
She phoned us a couple of days later, we were absolutely appalled, but all she would talk about, was that she had three nice young policemen in her house, at 3am and they made her a cuppa, while waiting until the carpenter came to make her door secure. She was not fazed by the experience. And all she asked of us, was that we put a second door between the outside door, and the living quarters, which she locked each night, so that was double security (as far as she could see).
She was adamant that we should NOT phone her each day. Said that she was quite capable of taking care of herself. And if she needed us she would phone. We were allowed to call on her each Sunday, that was if we couldn’t persuade her to come to us for Sunday lunch and tea.
On one of her holidays, her bungalow was broken into. Her neighbour noticed that the door was open, and phoned one of her grandsons, Ada had brought him up as her own, being not much younger than her youngest son (Bill), they phoned us, to let us know what had happened, and we all met at her home, but it just seemed that it might have been kids, nothing as far as we could make out had gone. We didn’t let her know about the break-in, knowing that she would not thank us for spoiling her holiday. We set to and tidied the place, and had to wait for her return at the end of the Winter. It was quite comical, to see her relief that it had all happened while she was away, and she carried on discovering what had gone for at least the next twelve months (or until she returned to Spain). She’d say things like, “I was going shopping, and thought I’d take the shopping trolley, and be buggered it was missing, so that was what they carted my iron, and bits and pieces away in”
She went to the hairdresser every Friday, and drummed up a bit of business, in toilet roll covers, remember when every self respecting body had a crinoline lady to cover their spare toilet roll?. I swear she started it. Also the milk bottles, covered in a crocheted coat and a stopper with a poodles head crocheted round it and a pompom tail, the bottle filled with bath crystals, again I think that she initiated that - but maybe not. However, I never found anybody else producing them. All the proceeds went towards her holidays. She was now stacking up the years.
We had a phone call one summer night, she had been in her little back garden, and fallen, we only lived 10 minutes away, when we got there the ambulance was already there, and it was obvious that she had done something serious to her hip. Sadly it was broken and she was admitted to the then East Birmingham Hospital. She had a hip replacement, and was back home getting around within a couple of weeks. I’m quite sure that she was in pain, but would never admit it. She still steadfastly refused to live with any of us. By then she was about 85.
But a couple of years later, she phoned us, she had fallen in the bungalow (this was a Saturday night) and she thought she may have broken her other hip, we got there in minutes, and she was sitting by the wall in her living room, she’d managed to drag herself to the phone. Sure enough she had broken her other hip, we called the ambulance, and they took her to hospital where she had a second hip replacement.
She again managed to recover and be back home in about a fortnight. But when she got back, she was persuaded to have a SOS alarm, this was supplied by the Council, and was called (if I remember correctly) the Piper alarm. She had to wear it round her neck and just press it if she needed help. But she rolled over onto it so many times at night, alerting the 24hr service, that in the end she placed it on her bedside table.
The last phone call that we got from her, she had fallen a couple of days before, and decided she had better call us, as she was feeling really poorly. It was a waste of time asking her why she hadn’t pressed her Piper Alarm; but we did; She said that they would have called us, and she didn’t want to worry us. The fact that the 24hr emergency service would have called an ambulance first and then alerted us, had completely escaped her notice. That was in 1992, and she was admitted for the last time to The East Birmingham Hospital, she'd had a heart attack, and sadly we lost her two weeks later she was 95.
My mother in law left a lot of happy memories . Unfortunately i have fogotten most of the things she used to tell us. But she had a hard life. And somebody really should write a book about her
