WS&ERD Part II Chapter 1 My Life Up to Now by Desmond Budd Webb (1927-2012)

Windsor Street Days

Part II

Chapters 1 ~ 9 Inclusive

Chapter One

My Life Up to Now

by

Desmond Budd Webb

(1927-2012)

 

A Note by me regarding Dad’s Manuscript

[i]

This Chapter was first transcribed by me on 11 May 2020, incorporating with enormous pride our father’s reflections, that enable us to see the family history in total, centred upon the homes of our four Grandparents in Windsor Street and Elmfield Road.

I have left the text as it appears. How we say things today is not always how we said things yesterday. It is important to retain the original record, and it serves a most important role, as testimony to the evolution of our language and dialect. 

I speak not of offensive language. I speak of evolution. I recall expressions used quite correctly fifty years ago, and today I see its evolution. Often the formal gives way to the informal. I have always spoken and written the term an historian. Today, we say a historian.

In formal english we say I want to…

Informally, this has become I wanna…

If you write and speak on the basis that the phrase I’m gonna is correctly pronounced English comprehension and expression, that is fine. I am not being old-fashioned when I think, write and speak I’m gonna as I’m going to.

This is not a criticism. Subtitles automatically write I wanna even when the person - in fact or fiction - is clearly and precisely using the formal phrase I want to…

Kenneth Thomas Webb
March 2026

Ha-ha! Well said, Ken … but be careful! You’ve always been a bit of a hothead!!

Oh. Okay Dad. (sheepish smile)

My Life Up to Now

Prologue

THERE ARE THOSE among the community, who seem never to observe the beauty and wonder of everyday things; but to accept life only as it is offered to them. They strive not for the many pleasures to be found in a little forethought and ambition.

“What is to be - will be”, is a phrase so often heard, and yet, is this really true?

Looking back over the years before me I begin to wonder if any of my earlier ambitions have, or ever will be, realised. Naturally, some events have arisen which had never been anticipated.

From those early and bewildering days of childhood, I remember distinctly the day of all days – the commencement of my schoolhood. 

At five years of age it was my first legal obligation in life; to attend school and prepare myself for the long and learning days ahead.

To some, I suppose, the necessity in life for the ability to learn is appreciated early; to others, alas! It comes too late.

Over the centuries that have passed, how many, I wonder have the disasters of war disillusioned the ambitions of man? On the other hand, however, for many the actual being of war has precipitated men into fame and fortune.

It is peculiar how one’s mind and thoughts are guided into various channels of reminiscence; even by the minutest pause at which one takes to recall the past.

The fun and games, adventures, surprises and disappointments of childhood. They all present themselves so clearly as the mind is allowed to drift.

Those long and dreary days of war; the uncertainty of the future; and the breakup of social homelife, all of which contributed to the path of one’s own life.

With the ending of the “War to end all Wars” (for the second time) with a so-called victory for the Western Powers, it was for a short period, the time for rejoicing. But for many there could be no such festivity.

The wounds inflicted upon individual families had left their scars to be borne forever. The familiar voices of brothers and sisters that one had become accustomed to hearing during those happy days of childhood, prior to war, had gone; replaced by faint images of lost and hasty departures as they left to undertake their commitments, in various forms of active service.

With the passing of years like autumn leaves falling from an avenue of trees, I look back on the decade in quiet solitude and pondering with uncertainty, and wondering what tomorrow will bring forth.

[I wrote My Life up to Now in one of those quiet reflective moments in my study at Pittville. And it seems fitting to insert it here, as, following on from my son Ken, I take up the story of Windsor Street and Elmfield Road Days Part II, and in the full knowledge that Ken will pick up the pen again from me in his own style with Part III, for, unbeknownst to Ken they started in 1983] on my granddaughter Suzie’s request that I may be the subject chosen by her to complete a composition on the aspects of an individual’s life.

So, here goes.

Police Inspector Desmond Budd Webb

Inspector Desmond B Webb 546, Senior Officer of Police, Bamfurlong Traffic Division, Gloucestershire Constabulary. The patrol car is the Inspector’s Ford Granada Police patrol car, and an absolute beauty. I recall several journeys with my father. Traffic would automatically give way even when traffic had the right of way, and I always remember the brown gloved hand raised smartly in salute, something that I find myself doing, still. In those days, we were taught to always bring the left hand up vertically thin-wise or edge-wise, especially important when a cortege passed by. IBM KTW PC 1104 Rtd

My Life Up to Now

My Introduction, Girls

[i]

I WAS BORN in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire on the 22 March 1927 and was the third and youngest son born of my parents Horace and Isabel Webb. 

My older brothers were Arthur who was born at the beginning of the First World War, 1914. As I write this Part of Windsor Street Days he is now 83 years old but remains in excellent health for his age. My other brother was named Kenneth and he was born on the 30 December 1922. Regrettably, he was killed on active service in the Second World War when piloting a Halifax bomber during a raid on the Skoda ball bearing works, in Czechoslovakia, on the night of 16-17 April, 1943. He was then in 21 years of age.

My parents were born in 1887. My father died in 1961 and my mother in 1966. 

Their lives had both centred around domestic service as was prevalent in their days. They had been privileged to work in high society circles and my father stated that he never knew what it was like to be unemployed.

\/\/

Just after my birth in 1927 there was a world wide economic tragedy which resulted in much unemployment, causing many people to suffer many hardships. But both my wife Nancy and I are able to recall different aspects of how this affected us, for on my side continual employment prevented us from experiencing the cruel hardships as did the less fortunate ancestors on my wife’s side of the family.

Consequently, I recall a very happy and contented childhood, protected by the secure environment associated by the regular employment of my father as a coachman-chauffeur.

During my school days, which commenced in the early 1930s, life to me appeared sweet. There did not seem to be the rush about the family things of life that is so evident today. Motor cars were very limited in their existence. It was only the very wealthy, and also middle classes, that could possibly expect to own them. 

But progress in time would later show to the world a very different story.

My memory of my early school days is that of my attempts to follow my brother Kenneth's achievement on passing his Eleven Plus to gain access to a higher grammar school education. However this was not to be. 

I did manage to have a call for an oral test and examination at a comparable secondary school but had to finally satisfy myself with taking second-best. I have regretted this ever since and now realise that this need not have happened, for everyone has the same chance but many do not accept the importance of all this schooling in early life, until it is too late for them. It is so easy to take the easy way out and enjoy the lighter things in life. Later, this was to be brought home to me when I attempted to secure for myself what I truly wanted. 

Just at the time I was moving from junior to secondary education, the whole world was threatened with the outbreak of a Second World War. History now records that this finally involved Great Britain in September 1939, when Britain declared war on Germany following its failure to reply to an ultimatum which have been given by the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain to Adolf Hitler, Chancellor and dictator of Germany.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to the Nation, its Empire and Commonwealth Sunday 3 September 1939

 

… and I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that, consequently, this Country is at war with Germany.

A last appeal to reason by “that man” before the Reichstag 19 July 1940

 In his infamous speech to the Reichstag ten months later on 19 July 1940, Hitler:

"In this hour I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience to appeal once more to reason and common sense, in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal since I am not the vanquished begging favours, but the victor speaking in the name of reason. I can see no reason why this war must go on.

Possibly Mr Churchill will again brush aside this statement of mine by saying that it is merely of fear and doubt in our final victory. In that case, I shall have relieved my conscience in regards to the things to come.”

\/\/ \/\/

Desmond and Nancy Webb and that wonderful day with their eldest Great Grandson Sam 2002-03

January 2026
All Rights Reserved


Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

© 1983 Desmond Budd Webb

[i] An unsigned document found amongst family papers, the wording in square brackets by DBW’s son so as to ease the flow of the overall text

[ii] Our Grand-daughters Suzanne Louise and Caroline Jayne