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Born 5/1/1924 at 121 Hutton Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, Maurice Bassett recalls some fond memories from his early years.
When I turned eleven years old I got a job at the local grocer's shop: all day Saturdays. I used to take the orders out on a large barrow, which was not easy to push.
In my spare time I had to sweep the floors of the shop and the outside footpath, for which I was paid the grand sum of two shillings and sixpence (25 cents) for eight hours work.
I had started at the Birchfields Road Senior School by this time, and my father had started up a small business making fishing rods and reels. Every night after school I had to help in the workshop cutting up the materials for the reels, and also turning some of the components up on a small treadle lathe.
We worked till nine each night, and for this I was paid ten shillings a week, but I never saw the money as it was given to my mother for my keep. I did get to keep six pence from my Saturday job, and this used to pay for a Saturday night at the pictures and an ice cream.
My Grandmother died in 1937 at the age of 85: she fell down and broke her wrist while walking in the snow to collect her pension, was taken to Dudley Road Hospital, and while there, slipped on the polished floor of the ward and broke her pelvis; she died from pneumonia brought on by shock. In those days ward floors were always highly polished, supposedly for hygiene, but dangerous to walk on.
It was quite a long walk to Birchfield Road School, and when it rained, all the kids used to put their wet clothes on the radiators to get them dry.
I liked collecting train numbers at that time and spent some time after school at Perry Barr railway station, where the Royal Scotsman came through quite often, as did many other well known engines.
Stamp collecting was also common among the kids, as was collecting the cards from cigarette packets: there was always a new series, like famous footballers, cricketers, boxers, and flags of all nations. We used to swap them with each other to try to get the set. I believe they are quite valuable these days to collectors. Today's kids collect phone cards.
I had my first bicycle when I was eleven years old, made by Hercules, and cost 3 pounds 19 shillings and six pence ($7.95), equal to a week's wages in those days.
May 12th 1937 saw the coronation of King George V1, and parties were held in every street in all the cities. I remember going out with my father fishing on this day so missed out on the partying, where all the children received a Coronation mug, filled with chocolates and bearing a portrait of the king and Queen, from the government.
Sundays we used to go fishing, leaving early in the morning and cycling miles to a river and then getting back late at night. It was nothing for us to cycle to Tewksbury, about 50 miles, to fish for the day and then return late at night. It generally took us four hours to get there, and of course the same time to get back, but my legs used to ache at the end of the ride.
Tewksbury was one of my favourite fishing spots, there was a meadow called the Big Ham, it was by Ealings Flour Mill, and we caught many a good bag of bream at that spot. Perhaps the mill has long since gone as this was over sixty years ago (1937).
Other places we fished were Biddeford on Avon, Stourbridge, Broome, Stratford on Avon, Evesham, Bewdley, most of the canals, and also Brookvale Park, Salford waterworks, and of course the Earlswood Reservoirs.
People living in the Birmingham area would know these places. I caught my first pike at Earlswood.
Maurice Bassett, Queensland, Australia, 2001
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