A Hundred Years in the Lives of Two Birmingham Families

A Hundred Years in the Lives of Two Birmingham Families

90000

9 781447 534006

Spencer & Jackson

ISBN 978-1-4475-3400-6

A Hundred YeArS in THe LiveS oF Two BirmingHAm FAmiLieS

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Spencer-Brum-v2:Layout 1 03/03/2011 08:53 Page i

A Hundred YeArs in tHe Lives of two BirmingHAm fAmiLies

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A Hundred Years in the Lives of two Birmingham families by

david spencer and martin Jackson

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Copyright D Spencer & M Jackson Š 2011 Produced in association with

WORDS BY DESIGN 2 South View Lodge, Piggy Lane, Bicester OX26 6HT www.wordsbydesign.co.uk

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CONTENTS Introduction Memories Family Volunteers Two Letters and a Telegram Arras Steven Jackson’s War Into the Cauldron France, and a Date With Destiny A Night Raid The Raid Distinguished Conduct Narrative of Operations Afterwards Peace The Smith and Jukes Family Violet Ada Jack Two Funerals Within a Month Evelyn and Leonard Young Walter’s Story Steve Jackson, Lorry Driver, Chauffeur, Gardener and Fundraiser The Spencers, Basket-Makers The War Years Afterward Along the Dud’ and Down the Green v

1 7 15 19 29 31 35 39 43 45 47 49 51 55 57 61 69 73 75 79 91 97 107 113 123 129 131

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At the Menin Gate Conclusion Certificates

141 145 147

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INTRODUCTION We live in an age where just about everyone seems to have the urge to discover their roots; no doubt influenced by television programmes like ‘Who do you think you are?’ and I’m no exception.

In fact, this is the second version of this story. The first was produced in 1999, sanitised and for family consumption; in other words, with a ‘U’ certificate and therefore suitable for children. You see, I quickly realised, that I couldn’t tell the whole truth as I knew it; because if I had, then I couldn’t possibly have shown it to anyone, which would have been ridiculous. This first version, however, was worthwhile as it’s full of old photographs and documents and of great interest to the young members of the family. The second version is a little darker and tells the story as it really was; but even then, I held back certain uncomfortable truths. In this re-written edition I intend to tell the whole truth; no matter how uncomfortable it may be. You must believe me when I say that I’ve done my research thoroughly and, wherever possible, checked my facts.

There is one other big difference between this edition and the previous editions as I intend to include my partner, Martin’s, family history, too. Martin and I are both more or less the same age, share similar backgrounds both from working class families; we both lived in the same city and, most importantly of all, both had grandfathers 1

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who were killed in the Great War I feel that it’s entirely appropriate to share the memories of the two families. Steven Jackson, Martin’s grandfather, was a highly decorated war hero being awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Military Medal before his death on the Somme in October 1917. His story, and that of his family, will be told in full later on in this book.

From the Jukes’ and Smith’s sides of the family it’s all here: illegitimacy, cohabitation, illegal abortion, and a tragic death. The Jackson family, on the other hand, didn’t have such a dark history but their story of working-class life gives an extra dimension to the social history of those days.

Today in the 21st century, such things as illegitimacy and abortion are so common place that they’re not worth mentioning. We in Britain have the highest rate of unmarried mothers in the whole of Europe; euphemistically called single parent families. Girls as young as fourteen regularly fall pregnant, often seeing it as a quick way of getting a council house or flat and numerous benefits. It’s not at all unusual for the same girl to have multiple children by different, and usually absent, fathers; and as for abortion, that’s almost used as a method of birth control. This has not always been the case. Even in my life time, for a young girl to have a child out of wedlock, as it used to be called, was a matter of shame both for the girl, and her family. Now I’m not suggesting for one moment that we should go back to the days of back-street abortion, something that killed my grandmother, incidentally; or that we should try to turn back the clock, we have to live in the world as it is today. So many columnists, usually writing for papers like ‘The Daily Mail’, go on endlessly about our society’s lack of morals and the breakdown of the family; it has to be said that they have a point, but were the ‘good old days’, really 2

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that good, and anyway, much as you might like to; you can’t turn back the clock.

In these pages you’ll read about dreadful poverty and abuse, death in war, and a family almost torn apart by that other no-no of the age, a couple living together without the benefit of marriage, then known as ‘living in sin,’ and if your neighbours were to discover the truth, then you could expect to be socially ostracised. People were forced to live a lie, and as in the case of my family, sometimes with fatal consequences. There are members of the family still living today who remember what happened all of those years ago. There are also family members, who know nothing of the events that I’m about to describe, so well was the dark secret kept.

I’m sure that many people would prefer me not to tell this story at all. ‘Why drag up the past’ they’ll say, or, ‘The past is best left alone.’ Rubbish! Apart from the fact that this story casts a searchlight on a different age, it is, in my opinion at least, an important social history, and highlights the not so ‘good old days.’ Anyway, it all happened many years ago and has now become a part of history. I have to say, though, that this book probably won’t see the light of day for some years yet as many of the people most closely affected are still living. Now, frail, and in great old age, I wouldn’t inflict on them the pain of having their shared trauma put on show for the whole world to see; I love them all to dearly for that. However, there are very many young people in the family, both living in England and Australia, who, when they grow to adulthood, may be interested to know the history of their ancestors, warts and all, not some censored and sanitised version, as was the case in the original book. It is for them, and their children, that I’m recording this story.

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I feel very highly qualified to talk of the past as being something less than ideal, being gay, and a member of a minority that were dreadfully treated by society during my childhood in the 1950s.

Homosexuality was another huge taboo of the time and if you were caught at it, you could expect to serve a couple of years in prison and be for ever more shamed and branded a queer. Better prison than a concentration camp, perhaps: but not much. It’s often forgotten, very conveniently, in my view that only a very few years previously the Nazis were throwing people like me into places like Dachau and very few of those men ever survived to tell the tale. I personally know men who married in a desperate attempt to hide their sexuality from a hostile world, usually with disastrous consequences always living a lie and unable to be their real selves. God only knows how many gay men chose suicide rather than life living in a society that despised them. I myself have experienced the constant nagging fear of discovery that hangs like a dark, black cloud twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, above your head. I’ve often described those days as being as it must have been for a Jew in the early days of Hitler’s Germany. Anyone who has read the diaries of Victor Klemperer, a Jew who lived through those terrible times, will understand what I mean when I talk of constant fear; this is what he and hundreds of thousands of Jews had to endure. It’s often been said to me, ‘How can you compare yourself and your treatment to the plight of the Jews under Hitler?’

I usually answer that question by asking one of my own, ‘When was the last time that someone spat as they walked past you?

That invariably shuts them up. Thankfully, we now live in more enlightened times and have the legal recognition that was so long denied to us; but I’ve been around long enough to know that there 4

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are still very many people out there, and I mean many, who would like to put us all back in the closet, lock the door, and throw away the key – or worse. Martin and I have just celebrated thirty years spent together as a couple and have at last been able to legalise our partnership, something that I would never have thought possible within my life time.

But this book is not about me, although I’m sure to make an appearance from time to time. In fact, my life story has been well documented and is even available on the world-wide-web. Try amazon.co.uk. Look for a book entitled, ‘Message from the Colonel’, and you’ll find it. Incidentally, a copy of this book is lodged in the National Library, the Hall-Carpenter Archives, and the National Army Museum.

Let’s get back to our history now, shall we?

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MEMORIES As I sit here with a gale howling outside, my eye’s drawn towards the telegram. Tattered and yellowing, the pencilled writing barely legible.

It lies, staring at me almost accusingly, as if saying, ‘Come on, you’ve put it off for long enough, it’s time to do something about it.’ So here I am, the decision made at last. That telegram’s always been around; indeed I’ve known about it and the history behind it for years. It was abandoned long ago and lay forgotten in a drawer along with various other pieces of family memorabilia of a time long past. In fact, there’s nothing unusual about it; countless thousands of communications like it were delivered the length and breadth of the country on a daily basis as the fighting raged in France, and young men from many different nations were slaughtering each other on a daily basis. To me, though, the telegram’s always been the focus, and made me want to know more about the lives of my ancestors. All of the stories that I heard as a child are stored in my memory just waiting to be told. I want to breathe some life into these people and put some flesh on to their bones; to bring them to life and tell their story.

But let’s go back to the telegram for a moment. It reads: ‘Regret to report A/2146 Smith K.R.R.C. Gunshot wound face, fractures left humerus; dangerously ill in No 3 stationary hospital, Rouen, regret cannot grant permission to visit.’

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It’s dated Birmingham, 19th of April 1917. In fact by the time that telegram had arrived, A/2146 Smith was already dead from wounds received in action. The message delivered in that telegram was to change the lives of many people and would eventually lead to tragedy. As I said earlier, families all over Britain were receiving messages just like it and I’ve no doubt that their lives were changed forever, too. There were thousands of young women who’d go on to lead long, unmarried lives because their sweethearts had perished; and mothers with young children to bring up alone, often in great poverty and hardship.

So what makes this message so special? Nothing really, except that the Smith mentioned in that particular telegram was my grandfather, Walter Richard Smith; and so it immediately becomes more personnel. But let us also forget the telegram for the moment and go back a little further in time. If you’re interested, I’ll tell you the story as I know it. If not, at least I’m keeping the promise that I made to myself and have been putting off for so long.

When I decided to write these memoirs I made a pact with myself. I said, ‘David, tell it as it was. Don’t fall into the trap of looking at history through rose-coloured spectacles.’ I intend to keep that promise and if I can throw some light on working-class life at that time, as it really was, so much the better. As I said earlier, there are still a few people living who can remember, and knew intimately many of the characters portrayed in this book. In fact, I owe these people great debt, for without their reminiscences, this book could never have been written; and I thank them for the time and trouble that they’ve taken to help me. Many myths have sprung up over the years, so I’m going to try to put right. I believe that my research is accurate and intend to set the record straight on a number of issues.

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It’s not my deliberate intention to upset anyone, but if this story’s worth telling and I believe that it is then it should be told as truthfully as possible without being glossed over in any way.

So here we go. Shall we take a walk down St Mark’s Street in the Ladywood district of Birmingham during the early part of the last century? Imagine, if you can, a long row of back-to-back houses, crowded, unsanitary and teeming with life, the home of the working man. There were 39,000 of these houses in Birmingham at that time.

A jumble thrown together, usually as cheaply as possible, and built in about 1840; by 1900 these houses were already slums but were still being lived in as late as the mid-1960s.

‘What’s a back-to-back?’ you may well ask. Here’s a description given by the Birmingham City Council Development Department in 1989. It reads: ‘Immediately around the centre, many of the dreadful slums of the early 19th century had already been swept away as the civic area was developed but, further out, there was a ring of districts which was built up with rows of back-to back houses, using every available space. These houses were erected quickly and cheaply in a belt stretching from Spring Hill to New Town Row to Nechells in the north, and through Lee Bank, Highgate and Deritend to Bordesley in the south. The back-to-back terraces consisted of a double run of houses built together under a single roof. The smallest type had two storeys with a living room or kitchen and two small bedrooms. There was a three-storey version, which had two larger bedrooms on the first and second floors, and a third type was larger still, with a hall on the ground floor, from which stairs led to the upper storeys. The houses lined the street frontages and entries spaced between groups of dwellings led to more back-to-backs at the rear, erected around a 9

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courtyard. This produced housing at a very high density, although it did have the advantage of being cheap, since most of the inhabitants could only afford 3s to 4s a week rent. People lived in a claustrophobic environment, where privacy was practically nonexistent and many of the basic amenities had to be shared among a whole court. The areas often lacked proper sanitation, ventilation and light, and the houses rubbed shoulders with a jumble of factories and workshops, inflicting on their tenants almost constant noise, smoke and dirt. The back-to-backs formed the focal point for a way of life, which was to continue largely unaltered well into the twentieth century.’

It sounds like something out of Charles Dickens, doesn’t it?

Shall we take a stroll up the entry and into the yard that houses No 7 back of 71 St Mark’s Street? As you entered the yard, No 7 was at the far end on the left-hand side; and was one of the larger types that are mentioned above. There were four communal toilets used by all of the residents of the fifteen houses in the yard. Number seven was bigger than the others and formed in an ‘L’ shape. From the outside as you stood facing the kitchen, just to the left there was an entrance which led in to the parlour; and on the left-hand side, was the ‘best room’, only ever used on high days and holidays. Standing outside the house, if you looked upwards, you could see a bedroom above the parlour, and a large attic above that. There was also another bedroom above the best room. Inside, the kitchen was tiny, with only room for one person. In the parlour there was a table, with four upright chairs and an armchair. This was strictly reserved for the head of the household. There was a small fireplace, and a door that led down to the cellar. The cellar was not only used for storing coal.

Standing in the corner was a large boiler that was used to do the 10

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weekly washing, which in this household must have been considerable. The best room was better furnished, but only used on special occasions and kept spotlessly clean. As for the bedrooms, they were just bedrooms really, sparsely furnished and with a large, chamber-pot underneath each bed; just somewhere to sleep, make love, and die. That’s a description of the house where my greatgrandparents, John and Amelia Jukes, lived and bought up their large family; and it is the place that my mother, Millie, and her brother, Walter, were born and spent their early lives.

This inner court was in no way a quiet and tranquil place, of that you can be sure. Mr Jones from down the yard’s just got back from the ‘Shakespeare’ pub, a very handy place as it’s just up the road. He’s drunk as usual. It’s Saturday night and he’s threatening to give his wife a good hiding if she doesn’t shut her gob! On the other side of the yard, a baby’s squalling continuously. There are numerous, ragged urchins chasing around the lines of washing like whirling dervishes; while various mothers stand, arms folded across ample bosoms, having a good gossip: and the drains smell a bit off again as well. The whole area was surrounded by factories, all within easy walking distance of St Mark’s Street and the other streets that made up the Ladywood area. The factories were both large, and small; with many of them belching thick black smoke from their chimneys up into the darkened sky and adding to the general pollution. The Birmingham and Wolverhampton canal passed nearby, with barges carrying huge amounts of materials to the factories; indeed there was a large wharf just off Shakespeare Road and adjacent to a flour mill.

To the north of St Mark’s Street, if you crossed the main thoroughare of Monument road and walked up Cope Street, you came to the huge steel-rolling mills owned by the company Barker 11

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and Allen’s; a very hot, noisy, and dangerous place to work, with numerous fatalities and serious injuries. John Jukes worked at the New Hudson Cycle company in Icknield Street, on the edge of the Jewellery quarter close to the Birmingham Mint, another large employer in the area. In his younger days, he was a very keen cyclist.

Then there was the jewellery quarter itself, with numerous small, dark factories producing mountains of gold and diamond jewellery; a place still famous today. It was here that many of the local woman worked, the workforce being predominantly female. Inside these factories thousands of men and women worked for meagre wages, to put food on the table, feed their kids, with a bit left over for a pint and a ‘Woodbine’. In winter, a thick, brown smog would often descend, reducing the visibility to a few feet; something that I remember from my own childhood over fifty years later. The courts always had a wash-house, somewhere for the women to do the weekly wash and a place for them to gather and gossip about various local news and scandal; and, as I mentioned earlier, a block of four communal toilets shared by the fifteen families who lived in the court.

St Mark’s street, though not a main road, would have had its fair share of mostly horse-drawn traffic, going up and down. A few doors down from number seven was the corner shop; these shops existed in city’s and towns the length and breadth of Britain. They usually sold tobacco, basic foods, and household goods and, if they knew you, and you were really lucky, you might be allowed to buy one or two essentials on the slate just till dad got paid again. It wasn’t at all unusual for a woman to go to the pawn-shop around the corner on a Monday morning and pawn her husband’s best Sunday suit

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retrieving it again on a Friday, just in time for the weekend; and God help her if her husband were to discover what she’d done.

This house, number 7, and its neighbours in the yard are very important. A great deal of the action to follow takes place here, and you should have some idea about the location in your mind. Many of the people that you’ll meet in the pages of this book lived and died here. Number 7 was the centre of their universe: for better or worse.

Anyway, here we are in the district of Ladywood. Surrounded by countless back-to-backs and overflowing with humanity in all its guises; a community of people, some of them good, and some of them bad, but all of them poor. They got by as best they could and as they were all in the same boat, helped each other out if possible.

One thing that can be said of those times is that everyone did help each other out, the neighbourliness was incredible; and many old people living today bemoan the fact that those far off days are gone for ever. Let me now introduce you to the Jukes family.

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FAMILY John Jukes was born on the 22nd July 1870, at Bradford row, Bradford Street, Aston. He was the son of John and Emma Jukes, formerly Pace. His father was a fire-iron forger and Emma informed the registrar of her son’s birth on the 13th August 1870. It seems that they had two other children, Annie and Arthur. By the time of the 1880 census the family was living at number 5, Twisk buildings. It’s interesting to note that there was another family of the same name living at No 3, the head of that household being George Jukes, probably John’s brother. John Jukes married Emma Pace on the 7th February 1870 in the registration district of Aston. I know nothing of John Jukes, the son’s, early childhood, but I guess that it was hard, and full of grinding poverty.

John Jukes, the son, was my great-grandfather. He met and married Amelia Elizabeth Inscoe sometime towards the end of the 19th century. I’m afraid that I can’t be more specific than that.

Amelia was born on the 20th September 1873 to Solomon and Emma Inscoe, formerly Robins. John, was universally known as ‘Pop’ during his lifetime, don’t ask me why, but from now on that’s what we’ll call him.

He wasn’t what you’d call a handsome man, but was certainly attractive. He had brown hair, a wide mouth and was short in stature.

Dressed in his Sunday best, I’ve no doubt that he had many a female 15

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admirer. Pop was without doubt a rough diamond with a thick, working-class, ‘Brummie’ accent.

Amelia, in her young days, was a beauty. She had black, wavy hair, large, dark eyes and a lovely-shaped mouth. Her dark looks and olive complexion gave her a Mediterranean air, as if she’d been born in Italy rather than Birmingham. I have a photograph of the young couple. Amelia’s seated, while Pop, has his left arm protectively placed on her shoulder, both of them staring intently at the camera and dressed in their Sunday best. Pop’s wearing a black, velvet jacket with a flower in the buttonhole, a pair of pin-stripe trousers, and gleaming black shoes. Amelia is attired in a long skirt with tight bodice, a brooch secures the high neck at the throat and a row of buttons descends to the tapered waist. The portrait was taken at ‘Portrait & Co’, Broad Street, Birmingham, at about the turn of the century. They certainly make a handsome couple.

John ‘Pop’ Jukes was a ‘moral man’, and its interesting to note that the so-called working classes in that era were, by and large, very moral people; some would say hypocritically so. For example, it was all right for Fred to come home on a Saturday night from the pub and beat his wife black and blue, (that was no one else’s business); but woe betide any daughter that came home carrying a child out of wedlock, (as we’ll see later). There was another interesting thing about Pop Jukes. He was a staunch and life-long Conservative. I always imagined that if a man were working class, then he would automatically be a socialist.

Pop and Amelia Jukes were both highly thought of within their community, Amelia often being called out to act as midwife in the local area. John and Amelia had five children themselves: four girls and a boy. They were Amelia, named after her mother; she was my 16

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grandmother, and then there was Emma, Violet, Ada and Jack. You’ll learn more about them as we go along.

Pop Jukes was a strict father, and the master in his own home; woe-betide anyone who disturbed him whilst he was having a rest on a Sunday afternoon. He was also a ‘Custodian’, and responsible for the Conservative Party collection boxes that were scattered around the various pubs in the area. Pop was well known for his immaculate dress and when not working, would always walk around with highly polished shoes, sporting a button-hole and wearing a bowler hat; a dapper little man. As I said earlier, he worked for the New Hudson Cycle Company and made a few extra bob working in the snug, that is the best room, of the Shakespeare pub; or ‘The Shake’ as the locals used to call it. Pop could be seen hosing down the front of this drinking emporium before opening time on a Sunday morning, and was often helped by his son, Jack. Apparently the ice cream, hot potato and hot chestnut men all sold their wares from outside the well-lit pub. I can imagine it on a Saturday night, the ragged kids hanging around the doors, whilst their elders and betters supped pints of best bitter, if they could afford it, and, if not, half-pints.

They would sit inside playing darts and dominos until the landlord decided that it was his bedtime, and rang the gleaming, highly polished bell. After the doors had been closed people would stand and gossip before finally staggering home to make love, or, sometimes, half murder each other depending on their various moods.

So now we have it. The scene is set for an interesting story.

Most of the principal players are now in place, with still more to be introduced later as things start to progress. The story proper begins in August of 1914 with a marriage, and the start of a cataclysmic war.

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VOLUNTEERS Monday the 1st August 1914 was a Bank Holiday and the ‘Brummies’ were preparing to go out and enjoy themselves. Those that could afford it were planning to take one of the many day-trip excursions, by train to places like Blackpool, Bournemouth, Great Yarmouth and Weston-super-Mare, to name but a few. Those that hadn’t the money to spare for such luxuries could always visit the Fun Park in Aston reservoir grounds, newly opened that summer; or take a tram down the Bristol road to the Lickey Hills. There was plenty to do on that long, hot, August day.

Those people couldn’t have realised then, as they strolled around in the sunshine, that their lives were about to change irrevocably.

On the 2nd August 1914, Pop’s eldest daughter, Amelia, married young Walter Richard Smith at St Matthias’ Church on the corner of Wheeler Street and Farm Street in Hockley, Birmingham.

At the time of the marriage, Millie, as she was known, was living away from the family home in Ladywood. She and Walter were neighbours, Walter living at 1 back of 295 Farm Street and Millie at 296, and, I imagine, that that’s how they got to know each other.

Walter was born on the 29th of March 1895 and was the son of a baker. On the wedding certificate, Walter gives his age as 21, an exaggeration, as in fact he was only 19. Why should he lie about his 19

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age? I have no idea, unless it was something to do with the age of consent at that time being twenty-one. Millie’s profession is given as a press worker, whilst Walter is described as a polisher. By the time of his marriage, Walter’s father, who had been a baker, was deceased.

So, the happy couple tied the knot on that day in August 1914. I suspect that this was what was then called, ‘a shotgun wedding’; as Millie was already 3 months pregnant with my mother. It’s a good job that my mom has no idea that she was conceived out-of-wedlock.

How do I know that my grandmother was in the family way on the day that she got married? Well, I have a copy of my mother’s birthcertificate and as she was born in January 1915; it doesn’t take much working out. Whether or not Walter was a reluctant bridegroom, I have no idea; but I can imagine Pop Jukes standing behind him in the church making sure the he did the ‘right thing’.

My grandmother was a pretty, vivacious girl of twenty-one and certainly as good-looking and attractive as her mother had been in her youth. Walter, who as we now know, was two years younger than had previously been thought, was tall and slim, with light brown hair, and had slightly protruding ears; a very handsome young man. This young couple, and hundreds of thousands like them, could have had no idea of just how little time they were to have together.

All over Europe armies were starting to gather, as the clouds of war approached. In Germany, France, Russia and the AustroHungarian Empire, young men came together, gathering at barracks and depots inside their various countries. It was as if a vast machine had been set in motion by the assassination of an obscure archduke called Franz Ferdinand; obscure at least to most English people, in a place that few had ever heard of: Sarajevo, Bosnia.

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On 28th June 1914, a young Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, fired three shots and mortally wounded the archduke and his wife. By so doing, he set off a chain of events that would plunge Europe into a four-year-long conflict and leave the flower of a whole generation lying dead on the battlefields.

Germany was allied to Austria, and Austria was determined that Serbia would pay for the murder of their archduke. However Serbia wasn’t without friends, and Russia, an old ally, warned the Austrians that they would not sit idly by if that country were to declare war on, and invade, Serbia. Both France and Russia were allied by treaty and if Russia were attacked, she too would declare war. And so we have it: Germany and Austria on the one hand, and France and Russia on the other, all with vast, well-equipped armies.

The British army, by comparison, was tiny.

Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the then Chief of the German General Staff, foreseeing a war between the Central European powers, formulated a plan in the early part of the century. The idea was to knock out the French as quickly as possible, leaving the German army free to turn their attention towards Russia. At the end of July 1914, a great deal of doubt was expressed at the advisability of invading France when the source of the conflict lay in the Balkans. The German General Staff ruthlessly crushed any dissent, arguing that to change the rail schedules would throw the German Army into complete disarray. Once Germany was committed, there could be no going back. Thus, strategy was subordinated to railway timetables. It was envisaged that the German army would defeat the French within six weeks; they could then turn their attention towards the east, and Russia. As the Kaiser said at the time, ‘Paris for lunch: dinner in St Petersburg.’ Incidentally, this same plan was used again 21

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some 26 years later with great success by another German army; that, however, is another story and another history.

What of Great Britain’s role in the events that were rapidly unfolding? There was no formal treaty between Britain and France, nothing in writing so to speak; but Prussia had been a co-signatory to Belgian neutrality, and so had Britain. The British Government warned Germany that if she violated Belgian neutrality, then we would join France and Russia and declare war. It was all a matter of national honour.

The German Army crossed the Belgian frontier near to the town of Verviers in the early hours of the 4th August, thus violating Belgian neutrality, and giving Britain little choice but to keep her promise; and war was declared at 11 pm that same day.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution during the latter part of the 19th century, armies were given new weapons of mass destruction on a scale never seen before. The technical advances of the previous 20 years had enabled weaponry to become highly efficient; something that would very quickly become obvious on the battlefields. Also, (with the exception of Britain), universal conscription was the order of the day throughout Europe; and Nation States were able to field vast armies for long periods of time.

And so the scene was set for a war the like of which had never been seen before; the only remotely comparable conflict being the American Civil war of 1861-1865. To get an idea, even in the very early days of the war in August 1914, the casualties mounted quickly.

When the French army first met the German army in the field, within four days, 40,000 men were killed. On the 22nd August alone, France had 27,000 men killed in action; this was the bloodiest day in French military history and a portent of things to come. Men quickly 22

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realised that faced with the barrage of steel that was been thrown at them, the only way to survive was to dig down into the earth; thus, the trench system came into being, quickly stretching from the North sea to Switzerland, the two armies only separated by a short stretch of ground known by all as, ‘no-man’s-land’.

Great Britain had never had a large army; that is in comparison to the armies of continental Europe and the reason for this was simple. The continental armies had very long, landlocked borders to defend while Britain was an island nation. The Royal Navy was the senior service, and was, at that time, the most powerful navy in the world much to the chagrin of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. The Navy’s roll was to defend the British coastline and our vast, overseas empire; something that it did very effectively. The Royal Navy was envied and feared the world over. It was for that reason, that Britain had no need for a large, standing army. It was, however, highly professional and extremely well trained.

The Secretary of State for war, Lord Kitchener, took over his new duties on the 5th August and asked the British Parliament to sanction a further 500,000 men for the Army. On the 11th August, in his ‘Call to Arms’, Kitchener asked for the first 100,000 volunteers for the new army to come forward. He wasn’t disappointed. All over the country posters appeared saying, ‘Your King and Country need you,’ and Birmingham was no exception. A wave of patriotic fervour swept all before it, as young men in there thousands volunteered to do their ‘bit’. Many argued, ‘Get in quickly, because it will all be over

by Christmas, won’t it?’ If only they’d known what they were about to face, and that they would spend the next four years living a subterranean existence haunted by the spectre of death. Many of these young men had never been far from their towns and villages, 23

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let alone ‘abroad to foreign parts’. They worked for low pay in often back-breaking conditions; to them, this was a chance to escape: an adventure.

In Birmingham, the army recruiting centre in James Watt Street was swamped and completely unable to cope with the huge influx of young, and, it has to be said, not so young men, who came forward to volunteer. First, the Town Hall was opened as a recruitment centre closely followed by the Technical School in Suffolk Street. The whole process of recruitment was speeded up, and extra doctors were called in to help the overworked military medical officer. Many ‘Brummie’ lads chose to join the county regiment, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment. However many were keen to join such regiments as The King’s Royal Rifle Corps, (my grandfather’s regiment), the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry or the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. At the end of August, the Birmingham Daily Mail proudly claimed: ‘No other town of the size in Great Britain can bear comparison with the results achieved here, not even London, which taking its vast population into consideration, has hardly done so well as the midland metropolis.’

The horrors of trench warfare on the Western Front are well documented, and very highly qualified and respected historians have covered the ground in numerous books. I don’t pretend to be a military historian but will endeavour to be as accurate as I possibly can whilst telling my grandfather’s, and Martin’s grandfather’s military history, both out of respect for their memories, and that of their old and distinguished regiments.

The tiny 160,000 strong British expeditionary Force, (as I’ve said, tiny in comparison to the other armies massing in the field), 24

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slipped quietly across the English Channel and was in France by the 17th August. In an Order of the Day issued on the 4th August, the German Kaiser, Wilhelm, said, ‘Exterminate the treacherous England; walk over General French’s contemptibly small army’. This has often been misquoted, as, ‘Contemptible little army’. In years to come, the survivors of the BEF would proudly call themselves, ‘The Old Contemptibles’.

Walter Smith also wanted to do his ‘bit’ and enlisted on the 24th of August in the 9th Service Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

I’m sure that the Jukes family turned out to see Walter and the other lads off at the station as they embarked on what most, thought was to be the greatest adventure of their lives. As the troop train slowly pulled out of the station, I expect that Pop stood with a gleam of pride in his eye, and my grandmother, Amelia, with a cloud of fear in her heart. In the months that followed, Walter’s battalion went to Aldershot with the 42nd Brigade, 14th Division, for training and in November moved to Petworth; returning to Aldershot in February of 1915. In January, Millie gave birth to their first child, a daughter, my mother, also called Amelia, but generally known as ‘Millie’; and I’m sure that my grandfather had the chance to see his daughter, before, on the 20th of May, he and his regiment landed in Boulogne. For Walter and his comrades in the battalion, the war had started in earnest.

‘The lights are going out all over Europe, and they will not be lit again in our day.’ Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary

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It was about the time that Walter landed in France that the famous war poem, ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow,’ was written.

The regiment first saw action at Hooge; and it was in this action that the division was the first in the war to be attacked by the Germans using flame-throwers; one of the many horrors faced daily by the men serving at the front. They took part in the third and sixth phases of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and so it goes on, battle after battle, the slaughter never ending.

At home, sitting in the parlour at 7 back of 71, I’m sure that Pop, along with the rest of the British population, devoured the war news and read the mounting casualty figures with dread. During this time, Millie sent a card and photograph to Walter at the front. The photo is of baby Millie, and on the back she wrote: ‘Dear Hubbie, Do you think that this is like our little daughter and what do you think of her? She is a little dream. Baby, at 5 months, from your loving wife, Millie.’

The postcard that she sent is a patriotic one, with a union jack and flowers. A picture of a soldier facing a mother and child, with a verse, which goes: ‘Daddy Dear, I miss you badly, especially when ’tis time for bed, for you told such lovely stories, while the fire burned bright and red. And my toys all need much mending, but I want the most of all, just to see my dear old daddy, who’s a soldier brave and tall.’

On the back of the card, Millie had written: ‘Lots of love from home, Wal, I love you. Dad has received your letter and says that he will write to you soon. Mother and all wish to be remembered to you, and we all hope you are well. Dear Wal, I hope the next letter you send will say that you’re coming home to me soon. I must say that I miss you so much and more every day.

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Well, I am thinking of you always, and am sending this with love from all of the family. I remain your true and loving wife, Millie, and baby, xx Come home soon, xx for my daddy, xx.’ On the right-hand side of the postcard is written: ‘To my Daddy, from your little daughter, Millie, with love, xx.’

I have a copy of Walter’s personnel military service record, and so can give you the details of his army service. On the 1st October 1915, he was promoted to lance-corporal, but then, on the 31st May 1916, he ‘reverted, at his own request whilst in the field’; to use the army jargon. Why did he hand his stripe back in? I’ve no idea. Walter was also ‘mentioned in despatches’, sadly there’s no date given, and all that’s written on his record in pencil is, ‘Brought in Wounded’; obviously a brave young man. He must have gone over the top and rescued a wounded comrade, or comrades. On January 23rd 1916, Walter caught influenza and came home on leave. His second child, a son, also called Walter, was conceived during those few days of peace and quiet away from the front.

The dreadful scenes that he must have witnessed in France can only be imagined, with violent and often horrible death ever present surrounded by mud and corpses, the din of exploding shells and machine-gun fire constant and unceasing. The young officers blowing their whistles, giving their men the order to go ‘over the top’, seeing your mates being mown down like so many ears of corn wondering if the next bullet or shell had your number on it, and young men being slaughtered on a mass scale.

Walter had a premonition of what was to come. On the evening before he was due to return to the front after recovering from the flu, Pop took him up to the ‘Shakespeare’ pub for a drink.

Walter got thoroughly drunk: smashed out of his mind.

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The two men returned to the house, and Walter said that he wasn’t going back; he was going to desert. In a violent rage, he took out his bayonet and pushed it with full force through the parlour door, knowing in his heart that he had no choice but to go back; as the alternative would have been a dawn appointment: death by firing squad. After a while he calmed down and turned to Pop, saying very quietly, ‘Promise me one thing, dad. Promise me that you’ll look after Millie and the children. Will you do that?’ Pop nodded his head, murmuring, ‘Of course, son’. The next day, Walter walked away, escorted by Pop, just in case, and caught the train that was to take him back to France and, ultimately, his death. He arrived back at his unit on the 8th February 1916.

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Spencer-Brum-v2:Layout 1 03/03/2011 08:53 Page ii

A Hundred Years in the Lives of Two Birmingham Families

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9 781447 534006

Spencer & Jackson

ISBN 978-1-4475-3400-6

A Hundred YeArS in THe LiveS oF Two BirmingHAm FAmiLieS