My paternal grandfather, my step–grandmother (and Dickens & Nelson)

I have recently rediscovered some of the letters that my grandfather sent to my father, and these do have more than family interest. Here first is an insight into London schooling in the late nineteenth century. My grandfather left school in 1899. The family lived in Bermondsey, close to Tower Bridge.

I remember full well, that I left school on my 13th birthday, and the master told my mother, that I was a bright boy, but oh so lazy!  Of course it was very fortunate that I discovered what ignorance meant as soon almost as I stepped out of the school ground.  Of course one can never really make up for lost time.  But then one has to remember that the old London Board School never set out to make scholars.  As long as simple arithmetic and elementary spelling were assimilated, the job was done. Believe it or not though, I did not even get that far.

I have since made attempts amongst other things, to acquire a smattering of Latin, but with no success.  Fortunately I took interest in the French language, and this gave me my chance on the Continental. [Attending Railway Union conferences in Belinzona, Switzerland]

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Joe and his parents. Photograph by
W A Brown, 148 Camberwell Road,
London. The fashion suggests that
the photo was taken around 1889.
Quite clearly, the clothes have been
provided by the photographer, and
the family made smarter than ever
they actually looked in daily life.
They are not smiling because it was
impossible to 'hold' a smile for the
required exposure time

My grandfather did indeed learn French, and I am sure many other things at evening classes. I don’t think that he ever read Samuel Smiles’ Self Help, but he definitely embraced the ethos of Victorian self–improvement. His father was a goods–yard shunter on the railways, and Joe started off as a signal clerk. He worked his way up gradually, and eventually became manager of the Bricklayers Arms Goods Depot in south London. The depot was very extensive and of vital importance during WW2. Consequently it was extensively bombed and at times not too far removed from–war front conditions. Post–war Joe worked in railway offices at Victoria Station.

My grandmother died before I was born, and Joe remarried. He met his second wife as result of involvement with the Labour Party. Joe was a keen unionist, and his second wife (Joy) was what used to be termed a ‘silver spoon socialist’. She was a member of the Cecil family, and her father owned practically all the land around the village of Bletchingley in Surrey – that is until he successfully managed to gamble most of it away . . . Anyway, Joy was a truly committed Labour Party member and was re–elected as Labour candidate for the Rural District of Godstone & Parish of Bletchingley, Surrey – in the very heart of Conservative country – year after year. That was because people knew that she cared – and indeed she would willingly turn out in the middle of the night to help someone. During Neil Kinnock’s leadership of the Labour Party she was given one of two annually awarded Kier Hardy prizes for outstanding local political activity. Their marriage was amazing in a way: Joe from the working class, and Joy from the upper or ‘landed’ classes. Nevertheless, it worked wonderfully. Joe became quite the squire in a way – in Bletchingley – and I remember one Christmas his giving the post–boy a half crown. This was a gesture of genuine kindness, but also I think a demonstration of Joe’s standing in the community! 

Joe and Joy at Little Coldharbour, near Bletchingley, Surrey

This last section of correspondence between Joe and my father gives some of the family history, and this is where Nelson and Dickens come in…

On looking back I think it should be noted with some interest that both grandparents could read and write, which considering that state educational facilities of the early part of the last century, marks them as being a little above the average.  As a child I was very fond of Dickens (and I still am) and when talking with me [sic] to grandma [about a copy of Pickwick Papers which I had just received from a library, she remembered when it came out first, in weekly parts, and how “poor hart” [as grandma Hart always referred to grandfather] purchased a copy on the day of issue, and with what zest they both enjoyed reading it.  One of my boyhood heroes was Nelson, and you can imagine how widely I opened my eyes when grandma told me that she knew and had spoken with a man who had fought in Trafalgar under Nelson.  Another was George Stephenson, the power behind the steam locomotive, and it was a wonder to me how grandma could possibly got [sic] before there were railways!  From this starting point I elicited the information that when she first came to London, it was from the White Hart Inn at Lewes [Sussex], that she started by stage coach from about the year 1839.  Apparently, as was not unusual, she left the village to take service in London as a girl of eleven or twelve, but in what capacity or where, history is silent. 

There are only 245 words in this paragraph, but what wonderment they contain!

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