NAN HEDGES: 1884-1967...

 Nan Hedges: 1884-1967...

A LATE IMAGE OF Nan Hedges...

Nan Hedges/Madeley gave birth to the following children:

John Edward Hedges, 11th February 1906, at The Curragh (?). He died in June 1986.

Albert Clarence Hedges, November 1908, Warwick.

Samuel Claude Hedges, 1909, Lichfield.

Ivy Cecily Maud Hedges, 4th October 1911, Lichfield.

Frederick Kitchener Hedges, 1915, Aston.

Ghreta Lilian Hedges, 26th August 1918, Birmingham.

Marjorie May Hedges, 9th May, 1920, Birmingham.

Florence Lillian Potter was born in 1884, her father John Francis Potter was a sign/glass writer and was born in Bristol in 1862. Her mum was Susannah Potter, born in 1864 in Birmingham. It seems that Nan's father had been living at 30 Blucher Street in 1881 with the occupation of lithographic printer…

WE BELIEVE THIS IS AN IMAGE OF HER AS A TEENAGER...

The family moved to 52 Suffolk Street (5 Court 6) in Birmingham and they appear on the census lists from 1891.

In 1901 Florence was a 17 year old ‘ticket shop assistant’, living at 7 Ellis Street.

PROBABLY NAN'S FATHER...

Nan married Albert Edward Hedges of 145 Great Brook Street (aged 26) when she was 21, interestingly of the same address. Maybe she was, as my mum had once suggested to me, ‘in service’ at that time. His father was listed as a ‘labourer’ on the wedding certificate, whereas her father was described as a ‘decorator’.

THE MARRIED COUPLE...

Husband Albert Edward had been born on 17th July, 1878 in Roorkee, India. His father, John had been a Colour Sergeant in the 1st Warwickshire Militia, before being considered a labourer later in life.

The witnesses at the ceremony were Samuel Hodges (?) and Ethel Maud Hedges, with the wedding taking place at St James’ Church, Ashted, on Christmas Day 1904. 

A NEAT IMAGE OF THE COUPLE...

This was part of a double wedding with that of Ada Josephine Hedges and William George Bygeare of the same address… Their witnesses were William Edward Reynolds and Julia Catherine Hedges.

GRANDAD & NAN IN THE GARDEN...

Nan was a military wife, thus lived in Ireland, Lichfield and Warwick, before returning to Birmingham to stay, when her husband retired from the Army.

COME INTO THE GARDEN FLO'...

It appears that Florence’s second husband was Henry Madeley, after Albert died in 1936. Madeley was 21 years old in 1901 and a toolmaker from number 1 Robert Road. His father was then described as an ‘agent’ but he declined to offer further information, having been a police constable in both Wolverhampton and Doncaster, then finally ending up as a caretaker…  

LOOKS LIKE THE ONLY IMAGE OF Henry Madeley & NAN...

Henry Madeley was married three times: first to Bertha Hawkes in 1909, with whom he had 3 children, the last of those being born in January 1917. His wife died in March that year.

He married Amy Cox in 1920, with whom he had 7 children in the 14 years before she died in 1934. Then he married Nan, whose husband Albert had died in 1936, during January 1938, possibly because he needed someone to look after the children… She didn’t stay long though and rather quickly shifted to 72 Sladefield Road, where she lived with my mum, who was then an invoice typist at the Wolesley car-works in Drews Lane, Ward End.

Nan also lived at 113 Alderson Road and 171 Ward End Park Road both addresses in the same area.  

I remember Florence Lillian as ‘Nan’, as opposed to ‘Other Nan’, my father’s mum. Clearly, I knew Nan better, having lived in the same house as her during my formative years but the two women did go out on excursions together, as witnessed by old photographs. When she was living her final years in a home, next door to Solihull Hospital in Lode Lane, most of Nan’s memory had gone and she simply sat, just that… Yet some glimmer of recognition was afforded me: “It’s Peter…” when asked. Presumably this was because my parents and I had spent those years residing at number 63 Bamville Road in Ward End with her.

GHRETA, MUM & NAN AT THE 'HOME' IN SOLIHULL...

Number 63 had been Nan’s escape, following that disastrous second marriage to Henry Madeley in 1938 but my mum, who had gone to live at the fellow’s house too, at 31 Maxstoke Street, in the Bordesley Green area, left almost immediately and went to stay with her brother Albert (known as ‘Clarence’) and sister-in-law Alice in Kendal Rise Road, Rubery, some distance from where she was working. Mum hated Mr Madeley and always maintained that when Nan was going to see the chap before marrying him, she daubed make-up upon her face and behaved in rather a ‘silly’ fashion…

Nan soon left her new husband and moved to 15 Sladefield Road and then to the parallel street of Bamville Road, where my parents were based following their wedding in 1943.

BAMVILLE ROAD, WHERE I WAS LEFT OUTSIDE TO TAKE THE AIR, I GUESS...

Nan was only mid-to-late sixties when we lived with her but she seemed so old, as did my Other Nan and I recall she read the ‘Woman’s Own’ and ‘Woman’ magazines. As I reached five years old or so, I remember looking at the ‘Just William’ strip cartoons in her Woman’s Own periodical…

I shared a front bedroom with my parents, Nan slept in a rear room but there was no bathroom, meaning a tin bath wash-down in front of a coal fire for me. My parents and I ‘lived’ in the ‘front room’ but as far as I recall, we ate with Nan.

NAN & ME...

The kitchen was a step down from the main living area, from which the stairs were accessed through a closed door. The kitchen became the scene of two memorable incidents involving my Nan and me. The first concerned the coal fire and the second a piece of string…

Nan used to ‘draw’ the fire when it was first lit, by holding an opened out section of a broadsheet newspaper in front of the lit coal, then pull it away, thus drawing in air, so that the flames would more quickly begin to show. This seemed a good idea to me and so whilst Nan was outside hanging washing, I ‘drew the fire’…

Nan caught me. She was rightly concerned that I might have set fire to myself and uttered the frightening words: “Just wait until your dad gets home…”

He bellowed at me, before taking my hand and holding it towards the kitchen fireplace, until my hand became rather hot as it neared the flames, at which point he smacked it to the same rhythm as he yelled “Don’t-put-your-hand-near-the fire…” I never did and even today, I shy away from getting too near candle flames. Sad, really…

READY FOR A DAY AT SLADEFIELD ROAD SCHOOL...

On our small black and white TV, I was drawn to ‘Westerns', such as ‘The Range Rider’, or more famously, ‘The Lone Ranger’ and in one ‘cowboy’ adventure, I saw the ‘hero’ being chased by some ‘baddies’ on horseback. The trail was dusty and there was a bend in the road with bushes to each side. The prey negotiated this bend, dismounted with guile, tied the reins of his horse between the jumble of bushes and grabbed his lasso. He then quickly rushed across the trail to tie one end of the rope firmly to the solid trunk of a bush, before stretching it across the dust, with which he then camouflaged it.

NO MASK, SO NOT A BANDIT.
NOTE THE LEFT-HAND GUN...

This was all done swiftly and as the guy heard the predatory riders approaching, he hid with his horse in the brush and as the pursuers rounded the bend, he simply yanked his end of the rope, which of course lifted the lasso and tripped the chasing horses, sending the posse sprawling to a man. The prey then began shooting…

ON MY TRIKE IN BAMVILLE ROAD...

I liked that. I liked that a lot.

So, dressed in my cowboy outfit, I attempted to recreate the scene in the kitchen, using the step down into it as an ideal place to hide a piece of string, which I had already tied to a chair leg to one side of the doorway. I crouched on the other side of the step, ready to trip up my Nan, gun at the ready in my left hand…

I called her and as she approached from another room, the tension was palpable and suddenly her shadow filled the door space. I tugged the string…

However, she had stopped, unable to see me in the kitchen and then she saw the string, taut in front of her… 

“Just wait until your dad gets home…”

I suffered another smack for that attempted ambush of grandma… Deservedly, I must admit.

MY MUM, IVY & GHRETA...

On a weekly basis Nan collected money from folks in Ward End, something to do with the Ward End store of Hunt’s, perhaps and she took me with her on occasional Saturday mornings. This was a kind of saving of cash until Christmas, so that the money would be paid back to the folks in time for them to purchase seasonal food and gifts. I am not certain whether Nan profited from the work but I suppose she must have.

One house we visited, after walking through Ward End Park and past the boating lake, was grim inside and the chap there was usually chewing cooked bacon rind with the few teeth remaining in his grimacing mouth… A budgerigar was always loose in the room too and would often land on the guy’s head but the constant fluttering about my hair was discomforting and I found the house with its cooked-fat odour a bit scary…

BATH-TIME WITH MUM...

My parents were eventually offered a council house in Shard End. I was around six years old and when the time to leave Nan’s house arrived, tears were produced by her, my mum and myself. However, I was to have my own bedroom for the first time but of course my parents would have the only other sleeping quarters. Shard End was almost in the countryside in those days, as indicated by a herd of cattle being ushered along our road on one occasion. The estate was supplied by temporary prefabricated shops for some while. 

However, Nan’s situation was awkward and some hostility was afforded my parents by mum’s siblings, for actually being churlish enough to leave her mum in Bamville Road… I guess they felt that Nan had taken my parents in to live with her and therefore were responsible for her well being.

RON FROM NEXT DOOR & ME IN BAMVILLE ROAD WITH SO FEW CARS...

IN MY RED SECOND-HAND CAR.
IT HAD BELONGED TO BOB CAROLGEES OF SPIT THE DOG FAME, BEFORE IT WAS MINE...

(So, when her husband had died, Nan soon moved to 20 Elmore Road, where Eddie’s wife Ivy was caring for her own mother, Sarah Jane Chiles, who was from Webster St in Aston. From there, Nan went to live with Henry Madeley, quickly moved out to reside at 72 Sladefield Rd and then 63 Bamville Rd. When urged to give up that house, it seems she moved in with Jack Eastwood’s mum at 52 Woodwells Road, after which she was passed around the family... 

BACK ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: FRED (BUN) WITH CAT; ALBERT (CLAL); IVY; SAMUEL CLAUDE (WE THINK).
FRONT ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: MUM (MARJORIE); GRANDAD; NAN & GHRETA.

Claude and Edith May Hedges lived at 66 Church Road in Aston, before, amazingly, also living at 20 Elmore Rd in 1945... Then the couple moved into 25 Pitfield Rd, a prefab, which of course Eddie chose as his preferred type of dwelling too... )

Eventually, the siblings decided that Nan should give up 63 Bamville Road, which I presume she was renting and then live for a time with each of her children in turn. She stayed with us in Nearmoor Road for a time, whereupon I was forced to sleep in my parents’ bed but trouble resurfaced when other siblings became less keen to look after Nan. I am uncertain which of those families took their turns and I know nothing of the discussions held, but Nan was eventually placed in a ‘home’ on Lode Lane, adjoining Solihull Hospital, where in time she would suffer from dementia (described as ‘senility’ on her death certificate…) and pass away.

IVY &  NAN WITH THE CLEARLY BAWLING TWINS, DAVE & DEREK...

I spent several Wednesday afternoons visiting Nan with my mum, along with my cousin Steve during school holidays. Mum’s sister Ghreta (Steve’s mum) lived in Barrows Lane, Sheldon and she and mum visited Nan most Wednesday afternoons, I believe. My mum had a twenty minute walk from our house to the Chester Road in Castle Bromwich to catch the 175 ‘Midland Red’ bus to Solihull and I believe Ghreta would catch the same bus as it passed near her house. My father bought his first car in 1965 but mum continued to catch that bus to see her mum… 

My cousin Lindsey, Fred’s daughter, recalls visiting Nan at the home and seeing her sitting at a table wearing her big, black, shiny shoes. Nan gave Lindsey a threepenny coin…  

MUM, MY TWO NANS & ME...

Nan died on 18th December, 1967 but weirdly, Other Nan had died on the previous day, resulting in both ladies being buried on the same morning a few days before Christmas. However, whereas Nan’s burial was at Witton Cemetery, Other Nan’s was at Yardley, so that the two funerals could have crossed along the Outer Circle bus route taken by the hired vehicles. In fact, I travelled with my mum to Nan’s funeral and the cortege passed Other Nan’s house in Bromford Lane, Ward End, where dad’s family rushed to the then wide grass verge with heads bowed to pay their respects.

Within days it was Christmas and then cousin Derek got married in Exeter, completing a very strange Yuletide in my life…   

LEFT TO RIGHT: IVY; HER HUSBAND JACK; GHRETA; MY DAD (VIC); MUM; IRIS & HER HUSBAND FRED (BUN)...

Nan was quiet, meek even. 

BOURNEMOUTH, NEAR ALUM CHINE.
BACK ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: DAVE (ONE OF IVY'S TWINS); MY DAD; DEREK, THE OTHER TWIN; IVY; STEVE HESLOP (GHRETA'S SON); JACK & DOUG (GHRETA'S HUSBAND).
FRONT FOUR: ME; GHRETA; NAN & MUM. 

That is basically how I remember her… 

UNUSUAL SHOT OF NAN...

MANY THANKS TO JAN PICK, MY EX-COLLEAGUE FROM BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM FOR THE RESEARCH SHE HAS DONE FOR ME RECENTLY!

THANKS TO COUSIN DEREK EASTWOOD TOO, FOR THREE OF THE IMAGES USED ABOVE...