Social history – Page 4 – A little bit of this ~ A little bit of that

There’s no place like home

April 3, 2016April 5, 2019 ToniLouisa1 Comment

Going through old family photos, I have come across photos of places my family have lived. Below is a brief history of some of the places my family have called home.

39 Woodbridge Close, Luton

My first home was 39 Leagrave Close, Luton and it was here that I was born. My mum had wanted to give birth to me in hospital as I was her first baby but the doctor felt she was young and healthy, so a home birth it was.

Woodbridge Close was my parents first home after they were married in March 1967 and I came along in May 1971. The house was a mid terrace in a block of three properties and a new build which cost £4,250. Dad told me the heating/hot water came from a coal fired back burner in living room. The house had three radiators, the coal fire had to be refilled two to three times a day and an ash box emptied each morning.

Langport Drive, Vicars Cross

When I was seven months old we moved to Chester. My parents bought a new three bedroom house on Langport Drive in Vicars Cross for just under £5,000, after the first buyers pulled out and we moved in on 9 December 1971. At the time of purchase the house had just a gas fire in living room and my parents had to find a plumber to fit the central heating.

The houses were built by Thomas Warrington Homes Limited and are a mix of bungalows, detached and semi detached properties, most of which have very recogisable windows on the front of the property – one large window divided up into many smaller windows. The bedroom windows overlooking the road had two similar smaller windows, with wooden shutters and mock black iron hinges. Today the windows still remain but the shutters and black hinges have now mostly be taken down.

My friend Ian and his sister Helen lived a few doors up the road in a detached property – their house was the last house on the right of the street. I remember it had a larger back garden than the rest of the houses and to the side of their house, out the front, there was a piece of land on which the children from the street would often play. The land signalled the top of the cul-de-sac, behind which a hedge was planted to separate the road from the busy A41 which ran directly behind it.

The black and white photos below show Ian and me as bables outside of my parents house. The colour photos show Ian and me with our sisters Helen and Rachel.

Poplars Close, Luton

Poplars Close was my grandparents house until I was about 11 when they moved to Chester. I remember visiting my grandparents and also, because it was so close, getting to visit London and go the theatre at the same time which was always a treat.

The property was a large two bedroom bungalow called ‘Robin Hill’. The property was a large two bedroom bungalow, with a large garden out the back. I remember a greenhouse where my grandfather grew tomatoes and looking at the the photos today, I am struck by the size of the garden and how pretty it was. My grandfather must have spent a lot of time out there and I wish I could have talked to him about it, as I have grown to love gardens too and I think he could have taught me a thing or two.

Earls Barton

My great grandfathers Albert Edward William Clarke and my great grandfather Joseph Charles Abram lived about 100 yards away from one another on Earls Barton. More information about both men can be found on this website.

32 Mears Ashby Road, Earls Barton

Mears Ashby Road was the home of my great grandfather, Joseph Charles Abram. Named ‘Rockaway’, it was a three bedroom semi detached house and was one of two houses which we believe he built after he retired from the army.

My dad and granddad lived in this house for around 4 – 5 months in 1952 too because my grandmother was in hospital. Dad remembers the property had a large flower garden but also a large area for growing vegetables. He explained to me that gardens were much bigger than they are today and growing vegetables had been encouraged during the war years as part of the Grow for Victory campaign.

The Limes, Earls Barton

My great grandfather Albert Edward William Clarke lived at The Limes. The house still stands today. Photos of the property can be seen below.

The Limes

The Rag Trade

April 3, 2016February 28, 2021 ToniLouisa2 Comments

My mum has always been good with a needle and thread and when she left school, her first jobs were in the textile industries.

Mum first worked for a company called Kayser Bonder in Biggleswade. The underwear made by the company, was known throughout the world during the 1950’s and 1960’s and Biggleswade was home to one of its factories for 53 years. The letter shown below was sent to my mum prior to her starting work at Kayser Bondor. She was fifteen years old at the time.

Mum also worked as a sewing machinist for Skirtex undertaking piece work (a type of work which pays a fixed rate for each unit produced or action performed regardless of time) and at Electrolux as an armature winder, both in Luton.

The photo below was taken at Skirtex. Mum is stood directly behind Father Christmas, to the right of a woman wearing glasses, who I know was called Connie, because I met her once. Mum tells me the women had a radio and would sing while they worked and I can imagine them singing along loudly and giving hell to any man who walked across their factory floor.

Later, mum made clothes for my sister and I and also for my dolls – I still have a bag full of them, seemingly unable to throw them away, even though I am now much too old for such things.

Then, almost forty years after mum began work with Kayser Bondor, she took early retirement and began making quilts. Turns out she is pretty amazing at it too and has won awards for her work. Mum’s quilts are displayed on her website below.

Diane Abram Quiltmaker

Up in the air

March 27, 2016November 4, 2022 ToniLouisaLeave a comment

When he was young dad was a member of the London Gliding Club on Dunstable Downs. Bedfordshire. He trained as a glider pilot and was ready to go solo but never saw the training through as he needed the money to buy a home. The photo below was taken at the Scottish Gliding Centre in 1962. The plane is a Slingby T31 trainer.

However, he retained an interest in flying over the years and for four years in the mid 1960s he worked at Luton airport as a duty crewman in the airport fire service which he described as fire, security and any jobs the airport commandant requested to maintain smooth running of the airport.

The airport was opened in 1938 by Sir Kingsley Wood, MP, the Secretary For Air, at which time it was known as the the Luton Aerodome and featured a flying demonstration by Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia in 1930 and who set a string of other records throughout her career.

Newspaper articles from the opening of Luton Aerodrome.

More photos

Read all about it

March 5, 2016March 5, 2016 ToniLouisaLeave a comment

Margaret and my Australian family

February 8, 2016February 8, 2016 ToniLouisaLeave a comment

Putting together these pages, I have felt incredibly fortunate to know so much and have so many photos of my family and I am indebted to Margaret Creighton (nee Abram) for sharing so much of the Abram family history with me.

Margaret is my dads second cousin once removed and the daughter of Reginald Abram, one of the many children of my great great grandparents Charles and Emily. After the first world war ended, Charles and Emily stayed in England and Charlie and Millicent (my great grandparents) settled in England too but many of the family emigrated to Australia, with Reg going in approximately 1922 – 1923.

Below are some photos of my Australian family.

Photo one: Margaret with husband Graham, mother Connie (wife of Reginald Abram, one of the children of my great grandparents Charles and Emily) and sister Joan, 20 March 1093
Photo two: Margaret and Graham with Connie aged 90 1/2 years holding her great grandson Robert, also Robert’s mother Teenga
Photo three: Margaret’s eldest child Rodney with wife Jenny
Photo four: Margaret’s middle child, Greg
Photo five: Margaret’s youngest child Andrea

The pommie mafia

January 23, 2016April 7, 2021 ToniLouisaLeave a comment

The photo below was given to me by my relative Margaret Creighton who lives in Australia. It shows my great great grandparents Charles and Emily Abram (nee Hutchings) pictured front and centre, with their youngest daughter Violet, seated in between and surrounded by many of their children. Margaret’s father was Reginald (Reg) Abram and is pictured on the back row of the photo. When Margaret gave me the photo, she told me her husband used to refer to it as ‘the pommie mafia’.

Back row, from left to right: Will, Frank, Walter, Mabel, Albert, George, Louis, Reg, Will (Millie’s husband), Bet-Martha (Louis’s wife), George (Frank’s son),
Front row, left to right: Gladys (daughter), Alice (Will’s wife), Vera (Will’s daughter), Emily, Violet, Charles, Kit (Albert’s wife) Gwen (Albert’s daughter), Millie, Annie (Frank’s wife)

Further information about Charles and Emily’s children can be found below.

It is believed there were at least two other siblings that died. One was a female named Mary, the other was a male but his name is not known. A newspaper article from 1930 at the time of Charles and Emily’s Golden wedding anniversary records there were fourteen children, with six of these serving in the Great War and all of them returning home.

Golden wedding announcement: Northampton Chronicle and Echo, 24 March 1930

When asked about the photo above in her 100^th year, Violet re-called a number of things. The photo was taken not long after Walter and Mabel’s wedding and one of the brothers, George had come over from America to visit. The dress that Violet wore was blue velvet.

Charlie Abram, my great grandfather, was not in the photo because he was in Africa serving in the war. Violet remembered that Charlie had been married prior to marrying my great grandmother Millicent May Bowers and that his first wife had been a ‘dark skinned lady’. (Records show that Joseph’s first wife was Lucy Thompson, her father was William was a gardener and her mother was called Harriet. Joseph and Lucy married on 16 April 1906).

Violet said she was about the same age as Gladys (Frank’s daughter) but Gladys had died aged 29. She noticed that Theresa, who they called Sis, wasn’t in the picture but she couldn’t remember why and that Kit and Albert’s son Sonny had also died young but was unsure at what age.

After the war, Charles and Emily and my great grandparents Charlie and Millicent settled in England but many of the family emigrated to Australia. Violet re-called that Rose (Kathleen) was not in the photo as she was already in Australia – she had left with her husband, an Australian soldier, around 1919. Reg followed in approximately 1922 – 1923 and Louis, Bet-Martha and Violet left around Christmas 1924, arriving in Australia on 9 February 1925. George didn’t want them to go and had tried to convince them along with Charles, Emily and other family members to go to America.

More photos

Mum and dad

January 23, 2016June 27, 2016 ToniLouisaLeave a comment

My mum and was born in Biggleswade (sometimes referred to as Giggleswade in our family) in 1948. Biggleswade is the home of Jordans cereals and at one time it was recorded that it had 52 pubs. (Mum has told me on several occasions that her Uncle Arthur once saw a ghost skating on Biggleswade pond … there may be a connection between the ghost and the number of pubs).

Mums parents were Ellen Brooker and Frederick Charles William Payne. Mum had two sisters who were twins – Pamela Ann and Freda, seven years older than herself but Freda died when she was only three days.

Mum spells her name Diane but on her birth and baptism certificates, her name is spelt Dianne. The house she grew up in was known as a pre-fab and was one of more than 150,000 prefabricated buildings built all over the UK between 1946 and 1948 to rehouse ex-servicemen and their families or bombed-out people. They were only supposed to last 10 to 15 years but many are still standing.

Mums first job was working for a company called Kayser Bonder in Biggleswade as a sewing machinist, she also worked for Skirtex as a sewing machinist and Electrolux as an amateur winder, both in Luton. As a sewing machinist she did piece work, a type of work which pays a fixed rate for each unit produced or action performed regardless of time. After having my sister and me, she worked as a childminder and later worked for Tesco and Mothercare. On retiring, she took up quilt making, something she had always wanted to do and it turns out she is amazing at it.

Dad was born in August 1944, the only child of my grandparents Louis Bowers Abram and Delia Eileen Clarke. When he was young dad spent a lot of time at airfields watching aircraft and was a member of The London Gliding Club in Dunstable. In his late teens he became an airport fire security officer, which was the starting point for 35 years as a fire/security officer protecting people, fine arts (including works by Leonardo da Vinci), power stations and research facilities. The roles were very active and often involved climbing vertical ladders of 90 – 100 feet.

Dad told me his earliest memory is aged three – four years old sitting on the tailboard of a removal lorry with a wire haired fox terrier, moving from a city side street house in Northampton to a bungalow in the Northamptonshire countryside, two miles from the nearest small town with open country side front and back. When he was younger he also enjoyed CB radio and later progressed to ham radio, studying with City and Guilds to obtain the required licence and becoming involved with local scout group who had a radio jamboree once a year.

More photos

Louis and Delia

January 16, 2016January 24, 2016 ToniLouisaLeave a comment

Louis Bowers Abram and Delia Eileen Clarke were my grandparents on my fathers side of the family.

Delia was the daughter of Northamptonshire Police Sergeant Albert Edward William Clarke and was one of five children. Louis was the second son of Joseph Charles Abram, an Army Sergeant and Millicent May Bowers.

During the 1930’s Louis passed exams set by the East Midland Educational Union in Motor in Practical Mathematics, Workshop Science and Principles of Engineering and Engineering (Mechanical). He later worked at S and W Motors Limited where he was indentured as an apprentice from May 1931 to May 1933, as a Motor Engineer at York Ward and Rowlatt from May 1933 to May 1934 and at Gilmour and Vale a company that manufactured engineering components. He also worked at Vauxhall Motors in Luton, retiring in 1970 after 25 years service having established ‘an excellent reputation in respect of loyalty, conscientiousness and timekeeping’. He was a Corporal in the Royal Air Force and learnt to fly in a Tiger Moth at Sywell but war broke out on the day he was due to take his test, so he never saw active combat.

I remember visiting my grandparents at their homes in Luton and Chester. My grandad grew tomatoes in a greenhouse and to this day, I can’t smell tomatoes without thinking about him. My nan I remember would wear more than one pair of glasses at a time and also, back when we had paper money, would use the money as writing paper to work out how much she owed someone or who much they owed her. In writing this, I am surprised at how many photos of my nan I have found where she is standing, as I only really ever remember her with mobility issues – firstly using sticks to get around and later being confined to a wheelchair. Nan’s condition went un-diagnosed during her lifetime but today it seems likely that she could have had centronuclear myopathy like dad and I.