Thomas David Barton - The Life Diaries : Part 1 (1956-1966) - From Bogner to Birmingham

From Bogner to Birmingham – and Back!

Our time in the Caravan was brief. I remember there was a telephone kiosk nearby on what was evidently a caravan park. She had left a forwarding address when we had hastily left the Big White House. Whenever it rang my mother would frantically dash to answer it, hoping that it was my father trying to track us down. But it never was, and she would return despondent and tearful.

She had a job serving in the local Grocers Shop. She would bring home scraps of vegetables that were to be thrown out each day as unsalable – and we lived off stewed greens for weeks. Sue and I continued to go to School – but life was strange – and we knew that something was deeply wrong. When we asked where Daddy was, she simply said she didn't know, but that she was sure he would be back. We were children - and believed this as truth.

And then - later in life my mother told me that at this darkest hour something very strange and inexplicable strange happened. Uncle Len (the old family friend who named me "Butch") sent her a letter. "Dear Dot - had a feeling you may need help - hope this helps." Enclosed a cheque for £100 Pounds..... ??? !!! Whether my Father had a hand in this I will never know....

And then – one day we packed our bags, and caught a train from Bognor Regis. I remember it well, it was a big impressive steam train that rattled and spewed smoke as it hurtled to London.

I was excited, we arrived in Victoria Station, a huge cavern full of smoking wonders and a vast seething crowd of people all hurrying everywhere I could not imagine. Into a Black Taxi, and for the 1^st time I travelled across the heart of London. I remember vividly going down Park Lane and seeing the towering Hilton Hotel – recently built. I had never seen any building so magnificent or huge.

Paddington Station – another steam train – a journey, my mother pensive, introspective.

Birmingham – and we are met by Uncle Dick, husband to my mother’s sister, Auntie May.

My mother had 2 siblings, her sister May, and her brother Jack. Sadly Jack had died in the early 1950s from what I suspect was Leukaemia.

Jack Humphries - 1940s

May had married Dick Brittan, had settled in Birmingham, and had 2 daughters and 1 son, Anita (who had left home), Diane and Richard.

Sarah May Humphries and her Husband Richard - Early 1960s

In desperation, and desperately short of money, my mother had used Uncle Lens extraordinary gift to save the day - and contacted her sister to seek refuge. Auntie May and her family lived in a traditional 1950s new-build semi-detached house, 3 maybe 4 bed rooms depending on how creative you were. Richard, 5 years older than me, slept in a small box room of his own. Auntie May and Uncle Dick had their own bedroom. Anita, Diane, my mother, Sue and I shared the houses biggest bedroom. It was snug – to say the least. My Mother and I slept on a single bed, head to toe. Sue slept on a small mattress of the floor. Diane had a small single bed. There were fractious exchanges!

Auntie Mays House - 33a Lindon Road, Bournville, Birmingham

I think we stayed at Auntie May’s house for about 9 months. I remember how she chain smoked (literally lighting one fag from the other). Trails of ash hung perilously as she cooked food.

Uncle Dick was generous, particularly on a Friday evening when he would return home very jolly with a great mass of greasy Chips in Newspaper that he would liberally handed around.

He kept pigeons in his back garden and was an ardent Pigeon Racer. I remember watching the skies keenly looking for returning birds.

My mother got a job in a local Woolworths and would me little sweets from the penny sweets counter.

I went to School, it was just a walk away, and I remember very little of it but that I didn't really like it, or know anyone. My southern accent rather estranged me from the other children.

Then there was a day, an afternoon – Auntie May rushed excitedly into the living room. “Dot (my mother) – Tom is coming down the road.” My Mother ran from the house, weeping uncontrollably. Minutes later she returned, with my father. He looked drawn, pale, but he smiled and embraced my sister and I.

Out of work and penniless, my father had become destitute and homeless on the streets of London. Unable to call my mother, unable to pay for travel, he lived on the streets, struggling to survive. And then something happened. This I cannot fully articulate, because I do not know what happened. Suffice it to say my father acquired a benefactor, a rich old female benefactor. I realize this sounds bizarre, but this is what I remember being told. She furnished my father with some form of job, and with new found income he tracked his lost family to Birmingham, and we were reunited.

He only stayed in Birmingham a few days, and then returned to London. But we were to return to South Road in Felpham – how this was realised I have no idea. But in no time we found ourselves at Birmingham Station, surrounded by Smoking Steam Trains – Uncle Dick pressed a 10 Shilling note into my and Sues hands (a small fortune) and patted our heads – and we journeyed south.