Interesting, Kingstanding, my aunt and uncle lived there and I vaguely remember them trying to divorce late 50’s.I'm not sure Pen, I honestly don't know and not very knowledgeable on the subject. Could it have been to do with the 3 year rule, where, only after 3 years of separation/waiting period, a divorce could be filed ? Did they want to get rid of the 3 year rule ?
Perhaps the Society's concerns were being aired because government were in the process of drawing up the Matrimonial Clauses Act of 1950. If so, I'm finding it hard to say if they'd have been for or against it!
The other thing that I was intrigued about, was the Organising Committee was based in Kingstanding. Wonder if it reflected on the rise in breakdown of marriage and/or the effects of post-war strains on marriage in the area. (Although it wouldn't, of course, have been exclusive to the area, but there must have been a catalyst for a committee to emerge from there).
Yes, we and my uncle moved from Aston to Epwell Rd, across the road from each other. The only thing I rember while living there is that my mother went to Amy Harris ladies hairdresser. Later 1958 another aunt and uncle moved to Atlantic Ave in Kingstanding.As did my mum and dad Richard. Don't think my mum particularly wanted to live in Kingstanding having come to it in the 1940s from a small Yorkshire town where everyone knew everybody else.
Along with dealing with the post-war trauma of those who served, many marriages probably suffered additionally by moving to an area with a, largely, rehoused population. It must have added its own strains and a sense of dislocation from the loss of, formerly local, family and friend networks. There was an outcry for community facilities after the housing was built. I know in the part I lived, the Birmingham Settlement played a role in providing this.