I have now (23 Aug 2006) added Roland's recollections, which he wrote out for me last year.   See below.   Roland has also provided a relevant cutting from the London Times.

But first, here are my memories.

Moving approximately 100 miles from Gloucestershire to Staffordshire in 1955, at the age of 7, quite obviously affected the rest of my life, as any permanent relocation would do to anyone.   It is by no means a gripping story, but it's enjoyable for me to record it here.

But first of all, here is a picture taken just a couple of months before the move, at the Buffs' Christmas Party at the Onward Hall in Yorkley.   Dad was in Stoke at the time, but Mum was persuaded to have a family group taken as it must have been common knowledge that we were leaving the district.

MOVING DAY  -  18th February 1955


Memory is an amazing thing, yet, as with many other things, we take it for granted.  As events in our lives recede into the past, our memory of them begins to fade.   However, certain things remain there forever :  mostly, perhaps, because they were significant to us at the time yet not necessarily to others also present.   Most memories of childhood are memories of memories ;  and when I look back almost 50 years I am only recalling things I have recalled many times before, in the intervening years.

Memory frequently is aided by association with something else which was happening at the time.   That may have been a holiday, a national or local event, a beautiful or distinct aroma, a melody, or it may just have been something out of the ordinary.   I remember dates and songs and singers, mainly by association with something else.   I am not good at remembering names and faces.   I have a kind of people dyslexia ;  I do not remember facial features or colours ;  I am generally unobservant of things around me.

Memory of my early childhood years is greatly aided by the fact that we moved house soon after my 7th birthday.   (That in itself sparks another dim memory.   Dad was away and posted me a card with a “6” on it.   Oh how I wish I still had that card.   As a father rather more of the Victorian stereotype, it was lovely of him to think of me.   Whether Mum had prompted him (by letter) I shall never know.   As for forgetting my age, that was understandable.   He had six children with ages ranging from 4 to 13 !)   I can clearly categorise anything I remember from before I was seven, as it would have happened in Gloucestershire.

It must have been early in 1955, in our council house at 10 Severn View Road, Yorkley, Gloucestershire, that Mum told me, Allan, Ken and Roland to go into the sitting room as Dad wanted to talk to us.   He told us that we would be moving to Staffordshire.   He had answered an advertisement for “miners wanted” in the North Staffordshire coalfield.   He was then almost 53 and later confided that one of the reasons he believed he was accepted was that he would be bringing with him six potential miners.   It may have been me who asked him then, or subsequently, if they talked a different language in Staffordshire.   No, he said, but it just sounded a bit different, like Wilfred Pickles on the radio who had a Yorkshire (or was it Lancashire?) accent.   Dad had already started work in Staffordshire, and was living in lodgings.

Moving day came around and the one thing I shall always remember is one of my aunties (could it have been Olive, or Doris?) making the biggest pile of sandwiches I had ever seen, for the train journey.   “We’ll never need all of those”, I thought, but of course there were eight of us  -  as Dad had travelled back to accompany us  -  and I seem to recall that we soon demolished them.

Unaccountably, I had accumulated some pocket money, which I duly totted-up while no doubt all sorts of activity was going on all around me.   I found myself on the landing, with Dad just inside his and Mum’s bedroom.   I went in proudly and said, “Dad I’ve got 8s-4d (about 42 pence)”.   (No, I don’t know the exact amount I had, but it was something like that ! )   Untypically, particularly of his later (subsequent) years, he said, “Would you like me to make that up to 10s-0d (ten shillings) which he promptly did.   It’s not that he was mean  -  far from it  -  but he seldom fussed over us.   It was a lovely gesture, and I felt like I owned the world.  (I have subsequently learned that Dad was not there that day and so I can only surmise that this incident took place the previous weekend when he must have returned home). 

The time came to set off for Gloucester Station, something like 20 miles away.   This journey was undertaken in the back of a van driven by a local man called Mr. Ratcliffe.   Few people had cars of any sort, but he had some sort of tumbledown garage on the outskirts of the village.   I think it was a 3-wheeler van.   I have no real memory of the train journey, other than a very vague memory of eating the sandwiches.

I do remember setting foot on Stoke Station.   There was a bookstall there, and I was keen to spend my ten shilling on something I can’t remember (a game of some sort?);  but Mum counselled against this and I made do with a Rupert Annual instead, the stories in which I got to know rather well. 

We then walked to the bus stop in Church Street, opposite the supplementary graveyard to the church.   We made our way to Dad’s lodgings at Adderley Green, and all trooped in for a cup of tea.   I’m sure Dad was quite proud to introduce Mum and his six sons to his landlady.   Then it was another walk to a bus stop, catching the bus to the crossroads at Weston Coyney ;  and from there, it was only a short walk to the Coal Board housing estate where we saw our new home at 34 Cross Street  -  a 3-bedroom semi of a rendered and painted concrete construction.   As events turned out, by the summer we were on the move again to a 4-bedroomed house in the next street :  19 Bath Street.   As Mum was pregnant again, this may have helped the case !

With undue haste, or so I thought, Roland and I were enrolled at the Infants’ School on Coalville, just a street or so away from our new house.   It seemed to me that this took place on the morning after we moved and we certainly started there after lunch, whichever day it was.   I remember the remnants of snow on the street leading to the school although I don’t recall seeing snow when we first arrived.

It is always daunting to move to a new school when young.   As I was somewhat more shy than the average 7-year-old, it was even more of a trial.   Luckily, Roland was in the same school and was there for me at playtime.   Even some of the hymns were different at this new school and I particularly remember, “For The Beauty Of The Earth”.   I know the tune of course, but I shall have to find its name because it has been set to at least three different melodies.   But it is the sound emblem to me of those first few weeks in my new school.   Mum, incidentally, said the school had been built especially for me and Roland and I certainly believed it for some time ;  although, come to think of it, they didn’t make THAT much fuss of us on our first day.

Well, those are my memories centred around Moving Day, 1955.   I’m sure Allan, Ken and Roland would remember different things and possibly correct and add to some of the things I’ve written.   But, that is not important ;  the facts are less important than the images, the impressions.   I was just old enough to be able to recognise and remember what was the first watershed in my life.   It’s nice to look back.

The following account appeared shortly after we moved, presumably in the Lydney Observer :

 
SJM / 11th October 2003 / 24th August 2004

Roland's Memories :

“Moving to Stoke  -  18th February 1955”


by Roland Morse, circa February 2005

 
Dad had moved up to Stoke some weeks earlier, and stayed in digs near Mossfield Colliery.   I think he came home once for a weekend.

Among the things that went on the furniture van were several dozen eggs which, in due course, were kept in a bucket of liquid isinglass preservative.   I think we may have brought a plum tree with us as well (it never bore fruit).

We left 10 Severn View Road in a Yorkley man’s 3-wheeled motor-bike-engined homemade van.   There were seven of us plus the driver.   Mum paid him ten shillings to take us to Gloucester station.   Auntie Olive and Auntie Elsie saw us off.   Dad met us at Birmingham station, where we changed trains.   I was unaware that he would be there and was surprised to see him coming towards us, smiling and taking his cap off as he walked.

We must have caught a bus from Stoke station to Adderley Green (changing at Longton?) and then went to Dad’s lodging, where we had a meal.   The landlady’s son kept singing, “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane”.   (Editor :  This was a hit for both Dean Martin and The Ames Brothers in February 1955)

Presumably we caught a bus (Stonier’s?) to Weston Coyney.   The furniture van was from a Crewe company, I think (was it Hunt’s?), but I don’t remember whether it got there before us.   There was snow and ice about.   (Editor :  It always seemed to linger longer at Weston Coyney, which was relatively high up)    I can remember Mum and Dad erecting the beds (it was the first time I’d ever seen him do anything ‘handy’).

Although we (except Mum) had all looked forward to this adventure, I can remember crying in bed that night as realisation set in.   Allan had a septic foot which Mum had been dressing daily with kaolin poultices (seems archaic, now) and, writing this, I recall Stephen having a carbuncle on his bum circa 1954 (Editor :  Quite true, Roland  -  I was so proud that it was a carbuncle and not an ordinary boil)

We started school the following Monday (22nd February).   They were expecting us.   I was in the top class (Mrs. Burndred).   Other teachers were Miss Critchley*, Miss Foster and the Head was Miss Jones.   Ken initially went to school in Caverswall, and Allan to Longton High School (then at Sandon Road, Meir).   (Editor :  * I think Roland is confused on this, as there was a Miss Crutchley at Weston Coyney Junior School, which he, Ken and myself attended from its opening day in September 1955).

Postscript :  Mum died on 19th February 2000  -  45 years and one day later.