A Family Archive: Memories and Letters

© 2011 by Roger Legg. 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.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/17/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4678-8605-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-8606-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-8607-9 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

-1-

Memories of an Evacuee

-2-

Evacuation Letters

-3-

Letters from Family, Friends and Colleagues

-4-

Tributes to

Frank and Amy Legg

In loving memory of

Mama and Dada,

Rev and Mrs D.J. Michael

and my parents,

Frank and Amy Legg

We lay aside letters, never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Never write a letter if you can help it, and never destroy one!

John A. MacDonald

Foreword

Before she died, my wife Iris wrote about her family and in particular about the memories of her life in Pembrokeshire, where she was an evacuee during WWII, and where she stayed on for a few years to complete her formal education. However, she was unable to finish the task which she had set herself and though I could have attempted to record all the stories she used to relate, the result would not have done justice to an era which, sadly, has now gone forever. All I have tried to do is to provide an outline of her life from the time she returned to London, together with a pen portrait, as my own mark of respect to a very gifted person.

When Iris and I researched some of my family history in the 1980s we discovered many things of interest including church records, photos, buildings, gravestones and wills—but no personal correspondence or diaries which would have enhanced our understanding of my forebears. The letters published in this volume will, perhaps, redress the balance; they are mostly from and about our family, friends and colleagues, letters which reflect our careers, interests, concerns and holidays, happy times and sad times, misfortunes as well as successes. These letters generated many memories of my own and some of these are recorded in the footnotes.

I have not included any correspondence about our political, social commercial concerns; nor have I included (with the exception of Sian-Elen and Nicholas Fernyhough, Christmas 1994) any of the ubiquitous Christmas epistles that have become popular in recent years.

Because of their number, my daughter’s letters have been published as a separate volume (Letters from a Daughter, 2011).

To bring this family archive to a close, I have added tributes to my parents, people who played such a central role in our family’s life and fortunes.

Roger Legg

Bromley 2011

 -1-

Memories of an Evacuee

Iris Legg

The Bradley Family, c1914

Memories of an Evacuee

•

Beginnings

I was born in Lewisham Hospital on Christmas Eve 1934. The Vicar of St. Mary’s christened me Iris Ruby May, sometime during the ten days or so lying-in period which was current practice in most hospitals in England then. My mother, Jean (Jeannie) Bradley, had come to London from Glasgow supposedly in search of employment,¹ this being a difficult time for finding work especially for women of little education and less enthusiasm! Her only sister, Isabella (Isa), the youngest child, had stayed behind in Scotland (where incidentally she lived all her life), employed in domestic service.

Jean’s parents, John Duncan Bradley and his fiery wife Isabella, had already come to London seeking employment. I suppose my grandfather took whatever work was offered him, for family reminiscences record various occupations, always as a tradesman; he was reputed to be a skilled craftsman at whatever work he undertook.

My mother had two brothers, John (who was always known as Jack) and Robert who was called Bob. Jack was minus a left arm, from the shoulder, but it never seemed to prevent him from doing all the things normally expected of a husband and father of three energetic boys—drying dishes, gardening, cycling. In fact, he and Bob had made their original journey from Glasgow in the 1930’s on bicycles they had cobbled together from spare parts. As a child I had always been inquisitive as to how he had lost this limb and to this day I don’t know the answer. This Uncle Jack featured quite prominently in my young life, even though I was many miles away. He always remembered my birthday, usually sending me edifying books—Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was one I remember. Possibly because of his handicap, but more likely because of the contemporary lack of educational opportunities for Glasgow working boys, he had had only a basic education but he was well read in the better known classics. When I knew him he was working as a messenger in the Bank of England.

Uncle Bob featured hardly at all in my young life, yet in later years when I knew him much better, he used to speak of my early childhood, filling in gaps in my memory, so he must have been around when I was. He had been apprenticed to a cabinet maker, but as I said before, work was scarce. So, on completing his apprenticeship years, he found that he had become too expensive to employ, was given his cards and told that, at twenty, he was too old! Hey ho, nothing changes. The chip on his shoulder increased with his years, when he had to take jobs which were far below his abilities, window fitting, coach-building (for Southern Railway) and finally billposting for London Underground, where he worked until he retired at 65. The job with London Underground he undertook after the death of his wife, Mary, because that was the best paid, especially if it was night work.

Bob had never told me, I just found the photo and asked on what special occasion he would be wearing his best suit. He was rather embarrassed and, somewhat unwillingly, he told me of how he had been on an underground platform when a man had fallen on to the line. Without care for his own safety he had jumped down and held him while the train passed over. This was when he was a man of mature years! For this brave act he had been presented with a medal and commendation—hence the best suit.

It wasn’t until after he retired, and moved in with Joan, a woman some years younger than him, that he really blossomed, doing odd jobs for neighbours and generally being well known in Forest Hill, where he had lived since about 1941.

I don’t really know when my maternal grandparents came to London, nor indeed much about their lives in Scotland before that, except that my grandfather, John Duncan, was originally from Edinburgh, a qualified plumber and, like his son, he could turn his hand to anything. Grandmother Isabella had relatives at East Kilbride, who were, or had been, farmers and Bob told me more than once of how he had visited them, and of his impressions of a world beyond the Glasgow slums.

They shouldn’t have been living in such poverty—Grandpa had a tradesman’s wage—but his wife was a poor manager, always wanting to be on the move, finding "just a perfect wee place with the sun jus’ streamin’ in." Unfortunately other elements like rain and bigger bills also came streamin’ in, so the family had to be on the move again.

Their children grew up and somehow my grandparents arrived in South East London—all of it! A month here, a year there, still living the same old wandering way, never putting down any roots, nor making friends; on the contrary, often quarrelling with neighbours about washing line space, or prams on communal landings. Grandpa’s efforts at improving their home never really benefited them as they were off again so soon, but maybe the subsequent tenants gained.

Into this haphazard lifestyle I came, an extra burden on an emotionally overburdened household. How my mother, scoring high on IQ but low on common sense and with little sense of responsibility, told her parents that she, unmarried and with no home of her own, was pregnant, I don’t know.

Well, I arrived and was brought up by my grandparents for five years, before being taken to Hastings and palmed off on a foster mother. This is where I was living when World War II was declared, a tragedy for many, but possibly the best thing that happened to me.

Pembrokeshire

•

Evacuation

As I have said, my grandparents took me to Hastings. I was told once that he was employed on essential war work by Hope’s Windows, presumably he job was to replace broken or missing panes when the Germans began to bomb the area. He had, I believe, been in the 1st World War, and possibly in the Boer War too. Reputedly he had been on duty as a guard at Queen Victoria’s funeral in 1901—although how important a duty his had been we shall never know; but by 1940 he was obviously too old to be included in any active or frontline service.

We rented rooms in Old Hastings. Certainly I remember the front railings through which, as a five year old, I peered. The house was almost at the top of a flight of steps leading to a green down. In 1985 Roger and I went down to Hastings to try to identify various places which were in the recesses of my mind. We found this house (Albion House, 11 Coburg Place) exactly as I remembered it from 45 years previously. As I stood and stared at it as an elderly gentleman at an upstairs window obviously wondered why we should be so interested in his house. Later that day we found the house where I had been billeted—or so I believe—with a Miss Hawes at 210 Old Hastings Road. The house was still there but I remembered nothing of it, how the memory tricks one! An elderly lady living opposite confirmed that Miss Hawes at this address had once fostered children; she thought she might still be alive but could not tell me of her whereabouts.

On the 17th June 1940 the Town Clerk sent a circular to all the billets in Hastings, informing the foster parents that early on the following Sunday their evacuees would be required on the platform of the railway station, for relocation to a more suitable part of Great Britain. Each child was to bring gas mask, ration book, identity card, food for the journey and hand luggage. Now, although I hadn’t come from Deptford, two of their schools were down in Hastings and each evacuee had to be attached to a school, so I became an instant pupil of John Evelyn and Creek Road School. That Sunday morning must have been indelibly marked in the minds of every participant, but I remember nothing of it. We were all transported to South Wales—in every sense of the word. The total journey time must have been at least ten hours; I can only conclude that I must have slept through most of the journey. As it was June, the evenings were light. (Was Double Summer Time already in force?) Yet, late that night we stood in a strange village hall surrounded by strangers who spoke a language quite unknown to us. We were in southwest Wales, in what was then North Pembrokeshire where Welsh was spoken as the first language. Whenever I hear criticism of women’s beauty contests, as being like cattle markets, I remember that night. We were an assorted crowd of bewildered, tired children, wanting nothing more than our beds. Yet here we were, presenting a very pitiable sight to all the good folk who had so willingly come along to the hall to offer us a home. Women and men wandered round looking for the child they felt would best suit them, by age, sex or appearance. Perhaps when thinking now about such a procedure, we might feel inclined to criticise, but times were different then and psychology wasn’t as universal.

Anyway, that was how it was and many children were much worse off than we were. Certainly many billets got a raw deal with energetic and emotionally disturbed children (although their problems were barely recognised then) as well as the downright naughty ones. I stood in that hall with them, as part of them, although I knew nobody because I had been an instant recruit to the Deptford schools immediately prior to leaving Hastings. Eventually I was chosen, but my hand luggage, which had been so carefully listed as essential, was missing, however it may have happened. I was now not only pitiable and tired, but without pyjamas! This oversight on someone’s part stayed in my mind for years. The place where we had arrived was Gwastad, not far in miles from anywhere, but a million miles from any experience of mine. I was taken to my new billet in the car of the district nurse, she who later was so negligent in treating my injured left leg.

Anne (Annie) Williams was my new foster mother and like me she had been brought up by other than her unmarried mother. Her aunt had nurtured her in a tiny cottage about two miles distant, in Maenclochog. Annie’s husband, an equally gentle soul who was a few years older than she was, worked as a guard at the Rosebush Dam, and they had a young son, Derrick, about one year old. They lived in a rented bungalow, Disgwylfa, which roughly translated means a resting place or a stopping place on a journey. Both versions are highly appropriate to my story.

On looking back and comparing their home by today’s standards, it was sparsely equipped with material things, but then they were only recently married—and there was a war on. What was missing in furnishings was more than adequately made up by the love that I experienced. I remember sitting on the kitchen table, legs dangling, to be washed from an enamel bowl and, come to think of it, that was a very good way to be washed from the adult’s point of view, no bending, but plenty of control.

The quietness of the place is with me yet. There was no radio, nor of course, television. The passing by of a car was cause for running out to the front to see. However, aeroplanes were more common and we made it our business to ensure that no pilot passed over without a wave from us. In 1940 you could read the numbers on the planes; there were no vapour trails indicating a distant aircraft in those days.

Annie was very handy with knitting needles and sewing machine and was able to supplement the family income by running up little numbers for selected customers. We had sometimes to visit cottages and farmhouses to negotiate these orders and deliver the finished articles. I loved those visits as there was the prospect of pieces of cake, of running round farmyards chasing inoffensive animals and of overhearing grown-ups talk; in all of this my young horizons were extended. One of our visits was to a fairly big farm, Temple Druid, in Maenclochog. I suppose the walk there and back must have been quite a step for my little legs but it was well worth it. Even as I write this I can hear the cawing of the rooks in the big trees around the farm. John Nash, the architect friend of King George IV, designed this house and local tradition has it that Admiral Nelson was able to tryst there with his love Emma Hamilton, by entering the house through an underground tunnel, while his ship was in Milford Haven. Well, it’s a good tale though naturally, at the time of which I’m writing, I didn’t know of the story or the chief characters.

Inside the house was magic; even then I knew that it was special. I was familiar only with the kitchen, with its scrubbed table and treen, simple wooden bowls with wooden hook-over spoons used for supping cawl, the ubiquitous lamb stew that simmered over the fire, having daily additions, which made it last the week—cawl ail-dwmo. We hadn’t heard of botulism poisoning either! Above the table hung the pieces of bacon readily reached with a sharp knife when required. The big fireplace was always welcoming, and there was a timeless flagstone floor. I mention all this, because many years later when I returned to the area with Roger, I went to Temple Druid to show him what I remembered so well. The new young couple didn’t understand my enthusiasm, nor did I when we entered and saw plastic floor covering, a tiny sink unit in a corner and an electric cooker in another. What had happened to my wonderful kitchen? The wife said something to the effect that You had to move with the times.

After Annie’s birth her mother married and three daughters were born; these were her half-sisters. They were very attractive girls with magical names; the name I liked best was Cristobel. At that time they were still living at home with their parents, up the lonely road from Disgwylfa, in a cottage called Parcrobert. This home was less modern than Annie’s and in some ways more interesting. In the front garden was a well, which indeed did have a cover over it, but it was still a dangerous place. They too had an evacuee, Sheila, who was a little older than me, so she and I were not above a little hanky panky with the well cover. Derrick was too young to be engaged with us in those tricks.

Next to Parcrobert was a lane bounded by clod walls, which were once very common in North Pembrokeshire, but have often nowadays been replaced by more modem but less attractive boundaries. Quite often, at the point where this lane met the road, an old witch would appear. She didn’t actually have a broomstick, but in every other respect she satisfied my childish fancy as to how a witch should look and behave. Her long black clothes and Welsh tweed shawl pulled hard round her bent back, together with her lone front tooth and white hair were enough to send me scuttling indoors. Nothing, I repeat nothing, would have induced me to speak to her. Years later when I admitted this childish fear to Hubert (Annie’s husband, a wonderful character), he assured me that she was completely harmless. How I wish now that I had approached her, I wonder what stories she could have told me, what spells she knew and what journeys she might have made on her besom.

Annie had been brought up by an elderly aunt, (Isa) Bel. We often walked up through Maenclochog onto the Llangolman Road, and some yards on there was a gateway through which we passed down two small fields where, behind a hedge, there was a very small, low cottage, Cernydd. I assume that it was a squatter’s cottage, built in the 19th century wherever a site could be found. Provided that by dusk, smoke rose from the hearth, squatter’s rights were established. Obviously