WßD ~ Chapter Six | From Eyford Park to Cotswold Grange ~ Episode II (Revised Edition)

Windsor Street Days

Chapter Six

From Eyford Park to Cotswold Grange ~ Part II

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So the rural life in the Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-Wold and Moreton-in-Marsh, the Swells, the Slaughters, Wyck Rissington and all these other names that carried over in family conversation - thirty-two years on - to my sisters’, and my, generation, was set to move aside in place of life in Cheltenham, by then, a very established regency town, splendid parks, walks, wide streets and a promenade that was made even more magical - certainly to me a generation on - by it huge Elms and Horse Chestnuts. 

And we were brought up, very aware that not many towns had so many trees in their high streets or promenades, and we became even more aware that not many towns actually had promenades at all, nor so many parks that seemed to be without railings … and thus a feeling that we had the right to roam free. And we were also vaguely aware that we lived in a Spa town, that our aunt, my grandmother’s sister Lottie, lived in Leamington Spa and that we seemed to be on a footing Bath Spa.

For me, Eyford coming to an end is captured in a photograph I found only recently in the family archive. Isabel’s brother Arthur is visiting, friend in tow, and there is a warmth and freedom that even now shines out of my great uncle’s eyes … he had managed to come through the Great War. Now demobilised, they could begin to build a new life in a very new and exciting world, but one where everything was literally, All Change, All Change…!

I realise now, only in retrospect, that Isabel and Arthur must have been close. Whilst Arthur was Horace’s second christian name - to use the language of that era - it became their eldest son’s first name, and so like me 39 years on acquiring my uncle’s first name - Kenneth or Ken - so too, I now realise did my uncle one day realise that ‘hang on, I’ve got my uncle’s name and dad’s name, for I’m Arthur Horce whereas Dasd is Horace Arthur’.

And, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier chapter, it tends to reinforce why my grandmother made that journey to Coventry on the 12th November 1940 with 13 year old Desmond in tow, in order to check up on Arthur and his family following that night’s Coventry Blitz. On that note, Mum too recalled the 11th December 1940. We knew there was a really big raid on from the glow in the sky. And we stood at the top of Brooklyn Road to see if we could work out who was getting it. Most of us thought it would be Birmingham.

And I remember, as if this morning, the day my parents took us all, with our grandmother to Coventry to see the new Cathedral. I was more interested in the shell of the old cathedral and the cross made up of the charred beams from the raid. That was another occasion when my toes curled up inside my shoes.

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Through the interwar years Arthur and his wife Ethel seemed always to be with Isabel and Horace, and very often at Windsor Street. Countless times I would see this young woman, a lovely smile, always with Grandma, laughing, walking, visiting Boddington … who is this lady who seems always to be in Grandma’s life? I kept asking myself. Which cousin? Names buzzed around in my head. Then one day, I was sitting quietly looking at the photos at the Yew family dining table … hang on … that’s dad (very tiny) … hang on … that must be cousin Arthur (also tiny) … then I caught a glimpse of a young girl … oh my goodness! Well, I’m not ashamed to admit I burst into tears and promptly made a pot of tea.

It’s cousin Dorothy! And so that’s her mum with Grandma, my goodness … it’s Great Aunt Ethel! Why such an impact? Ethel was one of those people who light up a room simply by smiling; all the problems of the world evaporate. And what is more, I remember Aunt Ethel, a bundle of joy, when I spoke with her once on the phone with her very strong Coventry accent … a delight repeated years later when I spoke with her daughter, cousin Dorothy.

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Arthur Budd, Isabel’s brother, visiting Eyford Lodge 1919 after Demobilisation - I love the running water in this image … it brings the portrait to life

Eliza Ann Budd neé Wimbush, her eldest daughter Isabel Alice Webb neé Budd and her eldest Grandson Arthur Horace James Webb at Eyford Lodge, Eyford Park on the Cheetham Estate circa 1918. Grannie 1851-1948

Only recently come to light to the author, Grannie Budd’s spectacles that my father had held in safe-keeping. A poignant moment, for I now realise why it was so important when I decided to place my mother’s spectacles back in her handbag along with the purse and the ever revolving five pound note. Oh, how often did that £5 note help my sisters and I to manage that dreadness illness - Alzheimer’s & Dementia. © KTW (IBM)

Great Uncle Arthur James Henry Budd - World War I

Postcard (below) from Arthur Budd to his eldest sister Isabel at Eyford Lodge and postmarked 12 Sep 1915 Salisbury.

An amazing postcard. Its caption says it all.

Mrs Isabel Alice Webb, Eyford Lodge, Lower Swell, Gloucestershire circa 1917

Life in Windsor Street took on a much different aspect as the boys grew up in the Thirties. By 1938 - at the time of the Munich Crisis - Ken write a letter on the Imperial typewriter to his parents, on holiday with ‘darling Desmond’ in Burnham-on-Sea - that he was going to join the Royal Air Force and that “no amount of newspaper cuttings Mum, will change my mind.”

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Though Grandma never discussed politics, in fact I recall her distress at the strident arguments of my ‘red-hot labour’ uncle, Arthur, and my ‘conservative’ father; I remember too his view. The police force always did better with conservative governments. But I vividly recall Saturday 19 January 1963. My father dropped me of at Grandma’s for the day and I walked in the front door of 25 to see Grandma sitting on the first turn of the twisting staircase, crying.’Way are you crying Grandma?’ ‘Oh Ken, Isn’t it sad. Poor Mister Gaitskell has died …’

Now, that confused me. And I remember looking up the staircase and saying ‘but he was Labour, Grandma …’ and then grandma gave a sort of lopsided smile, straightened up, gave me that wonderful beam, and decided that we ought to both have a cup of coffee. Camp Coffee. And that’s why I always have Camp Coffee in the larder!

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Isabel was also known for her pedal cycle. Well, not so much the actual cycle, but her method of riding. Single geared, upright and as mum put it one day, “your Grandma did not hang about, but would push with all her might to get going, bearing down on the pedals, and then … your grandmother was off with a wave and, ‘Bye Dear!’”

In Cheltenham Isabel cycled everywhere. But it was five decades before I joined up the  jigsaw of history, when reading about the Suffragette Movement. The Penny dropped when Carol reminded me that, in a way, our grandmother was demonstrating her hard-won fight to vote in 1918. Universal Suffrage arrived in 1928 and I love to imagine the tut-tutters of Cheltenham shaking their heads at that woman flagrantly riding her bike! It should not be allowed! Keep in mind that Cheltenham was a very conservative town, steep in the Establishment, from the days when royalty came to take the spa waters and thus laid the town’s foundation stone for its growth, popularity and prosperity, and also in the Raj, as the climate was regarded as similar to the Hills of Simla where the government and military retired their families in India during the height of the Indian summer months.

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At the time, bike-riding by women was seen as daring, rebellious, unseemly, and demonstrating the sort of crass defiance and independence those insufferable suffragettes demonstrate. Erm … thank goodness they did!

Isabel would have been thirty on August 30, 1917, and, thus enfranchised on November 21, 2018 under the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918. But it was to be ten more years before the Parliament Act 1928 lowered the age of women to vote to 21, in line with men.

Why mention this? Because i believe passionately in universal suffrage. I also believe in gender equality. I am impatient of religious views (all religions) that prefer male predominance, or worse, that women must walk behind men, always remain silent, hold no opinions, let alone, voice them. I am intolerant of any view in any religion that says that women will never be in a better position to understand some point that, bluntly, tests their male counterparts! And as for religious practises such as female genital mutilation, honour-killings, beatings carried out at the instance of medieval religious laws that have no place, I repeat no place anywhere, let alone within the United Kingdom, I simply will not tolerate.

I believe in self-determination and I live in the knowledge that my family name ends with me because my paternal uncle was killed in playing his part in defeating the ugliest apparition of totalitarianism that had, up to then, been seen in human history. Fortunately, the maternal family name carries on because even though my maternal uncle, likewise, made the same ultimate sacrifice, his younger brother lived and that family name carries on with great confidence.

We must keep an eye on the cement that hold together the bricks in the wall. Don’t forget to repoint, otherwise our wall will fall down when the next great storms unleash, whether they be by war, famine or pandemic.

This analogy reminds the young reader, if there are any at all - and on this, to be honest, I doubt it - to always keep a watchful eye on history; for history determines our present and greatly influences our perspective on the future.

So, yes, I suspect my grandmother was a socialist but by no means a far-left rebel. We were all brought up to respect the institutions of government, or monarchy, and so forth. And my grandmother was tough, independent and not one to give in, qualities I see in abundance to this day in my two sisters.

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This point comes home in my parents’ wedding photograph (in chapter four) outside St Peter’s Church, Tewkesbury Road in Cheltenham. This was six years after Ken’s death. To the left of Isabel, sitting on the left of the picture, is Horace, and to his right is a young man, Charles Pearce - Uncle Charles - their foster son. And I now realise that my grandmother’s lovely smile is not just for the camera, but also in response to her husband’s sense of humour, which never let my Grandfather down! And i love this photograph because it captures the moment in so many ways. I often wonder just what it is that Horace has said to Isabel that caused Charles to so openly giggle,, and clearly overheard by his foster-mum. 

For me, this speaks volumes of that day, of that hour, of that moment.

Indeed, i could write a chapter just on this photograph alone, for the family history, maternal and paternal, is amazing, tragic and uplifting too. Each determined not to buckle. And out of that awful time for both families, two young people find love and give me and my sisters the family I am so proud to be a part of.

A hint of the steel - the hallmark of the British People at that time - is caught sight of in recalling  the morning after the Coventry Blitz inNovember 1940. 

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I mentioned ‘Downton Abbey Days’, but it is very important that I place this in proper perspective. Number 25 was owned by the Bellhouse Family. But when Miss Bellhouse dies, my grandparents discovered that by her Will, Miss Bellhouse had devised the freehold of their home to them. 

Even though Miss Bellhouse had required my mother “to be presented” to her so that Miss bellhouse could be sure that my mum measured up; even though, upon learning that my father had bought a car (after marriage), her reaction … Desmond’s got a car?!? Horace! Desmond must get rid of it! … and which fell upon deaf ears, and so on. 

Yes, Miss Bellhouse bequeathed to my grandfather the Vauxhall motor car that Grandad had chauffeured Lord Ismay in … oh, and me and my sisters, and mum and so on, and unlike Eyford, with Miss Bellhouse’s blessing! 

As if yesterday, I remember the plush leather seats. On one occasion, i sat in the front, fascinated to watch my grandfather driving the car, fixing his prosthetic hand onto the steering wheel and on another occasion, riding in the very plush back, sitting in the middle, and watching the wings of the Vauxhall pendant way ahead of me on the bonnet, sweeping aside all before it … and on the Lansdown Road passing the police headquarters and suddenly seeing my father, in police uniform, leaning out of an upstairs window of the force information (operations room) … Goodness, I was proud, and all of this was happening at such a pace my little head could hardly process any of it. But process it, it did, and I still have them, vivid as ever. And of course, Grandad’s huge gauntlet gloves and his cap with the very shiny peak.

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The post card opposite reveals so much in the tenderness within family. Here, Isabel’s brother Arthur, like her husband Horace, serving in the British Army, writes:

No 2 Camp
Larkhill
Salisbury Plain
Wilts

Dear I just a p/c hoping you are well. Have just
arrived this after’, a long heavy march will
write again soon
best loving Arthur
X X

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26 May 26 2022
All Rights Reserved

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022

First Written 12 April 2020