My Aunt & Uncle:
Ghreta Lilian Hedges (1918-2008) & Douglas Frank Heslop (1919-1981)…
Where they were brought up:
Doug was the son of an Engineering Pattern Maker from Birmingham called Frank Thomas Heslop, who was married to Ethel May Spruzen. Doug was born on 11th October 1919 and his mum hailed from West Ham in Essex. Doug attended Church Road School in Yardley before going on to an art school.
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| CHURCH ROAD SCHOOL (YARDLEY PRIMARY...) |
His maternal grandparents were Henry Spruzen, a grocer/gardener and Edith from Theydon Bois, Essex. His paternal grandparents were Henry Heslop, possibly a tailor and Annie Elizabeth Masefield, who were living at 2 Court 4 Great Russell Street in Birmingham.
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| ANNIE ELIZABETH HESLOP... |
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| HENRY HESLOP... |
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| THEYDON BOIS... |
Ghreta of course was my mum’s sister, a Ward End girl, who attended the same schools as older sister Ivy and her younger sister Marj who became my mother. August 26th 1918 was her birth date, almost at the end of WW1… So, it was Nansen Primary School first and then she became a Cherrywood Road pupil. All three sisters were bright and rather good athletes, all of them became the fastest sprinters at the school in their turn…
GHRETA LEADS THE LINE ON THE RIGHT...
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| CHERRYWOOD NETBALL CHAMPIONS, 1931-32 (GHRETA SEATED, 2ND FROM RIGHT)... |
Ghreta’s living quarters from 1918 had all been around the Ward End area, details of which can be found within the Nan Hedges post on this blog.
How Ghreta & Doug met:
This happened at a dance at the Swan pub in Yardley. Ghreta was working at Typhoo in Bordesley Street, Digbeth, possibly as a packer and she played netball for the works team. Doug was working for Thomas Fattorini, after attending Art School, as a designer and engineering toolmaker but he had also set up a Science Club at school before leaving.
TYPHOO!
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| MORE NETBALL SILVERWARE, THIS TIME FOR NUFFIELD'S. GHRETA IS SEATED, RIGHT... |
THE LEAPING GHRETA...
CHECK OUT THE SPECTATORS!
Doug was a good cricketer and played for Yardley Cricket Club but he loved his fishing, regularly entering angling competitions. He liked bird watching too (collecting eggs, when it was legal to do so…) and in fact one day he was chased by a swan… Odd that, for he met Ghreta at the Swan pub… I wonder who chased who?
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| DOUG WINS A DARTS PRIZE. LOOKS LIKE A LOBSTER IN THAT BAG... |
He was a strong swimmer and indeed saved a girl from drowning in the River Avon at Bidford one day, details for which I am searching. He painted in watercolour and drew really well, so much so that some of his work was exhibited at the Art School.
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| DOUG'S SIGNED WATERCOLOUR OF FILLONGLEY WOOD (1943)... |
He also played darts and won several medals for his team at the Wagon and Horses pub and a local hostelry too, The Chelmsley in Common Lane, later renamed The George.
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| OLD IMAGE OF THE WAGON & HORSES... |
Ghreta was clearly an outdoor person with a great sense of humour but she was good at knitting and had skills in embroidery too, producing many tablecloths, napkins and coasters.
The Fattorini company operate still and manufacture state insignia, currently possessing a Royal Warrant to supply the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood.
During WW2 Ghreta worked for Nuffield’s, which had switched to making Spitfires and she made some of the relevant parts in Castle Bromwich, adjacent to its aerodrome, now Castle Vale Estate of course…
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| THE SPITFIRE FACTORY... |
Doug was designated a ‘key worker’ during WW2 but volunteered for Home Guard duties, then after the hostilities he left Fattorini’s and set up a jewellery business, Henry Showell Ltd, later trading under the name of ‘Excalibur Jewellery’, where he became Technical Director.
FATTORINI'S... 
EXCALIBUR BRACELET...
I am sad that I hadn't known that Doug had been in the Home Guard, for I would have found out about his exploits from Steve and used them in my WW2 role play teaching sessions in Birmingham Museum...
Their marriage:
Ghreta & Doug married on 9th June 1945 at Yardley Old Church and lived with Nan Hedges until Ghreta became pregnant, when they were asked to find somewhere else to live. They bought a property in Barrows Lane, Sheldon, which I remember so well…
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| Yardley Old Church... |
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| WEDDING DAY... |
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| LOOKS LIKE BROTHER CLAL GAVE GHRETA AWAY... |
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| MY MUM IS THE BRIDESMAID... |
I find it mean that they were asked to leave Nan’s house because their son Steve was born only 4 months before me and my parents were living with Nan too, at 63 Bamville Road, Ward End. I am guessing however, that my dad’s window cleaning job didn’t pay as well as Doug’s skilled work and so we were allowed to stay until a council property became available in 1957. The fact that my dad had become an insurance agent just after I was born didn’t help either for he had to build up a clientele before any real profit could be made to support a wife and family.
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| STEVE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A LITTLE TALLER THAN ME... |
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| IN BOURNEMOUTH WITH TWINS DAVE & DEREK... |
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| OLDER BUT STEVE IS THE TALLER... |
Steve feels that his parents were always caring and supportive, real 1950s types, whereby the mother stayed at home and the father went out to do paid work. Ghreta washed, cleaned, ironed, shopped and looked after her son but also managed a little ‘outwork’, which I recall seeing her doing. She was adept at making watch bracelets…
Steve Heslop’s anecdotes:
I was pleased to receive these memories about his parents from Steve…
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| DOUG, STEVE & GHRETA, RATHER OVERDRESSED ON HOLIDAY! |
His dad once bought ‘a pint of maggots’ for a fishing contest but having forgotten his bait box, he popped them into a paper bag and slipped them into the glove box of his car.
Returning home, he thought he’d been short changed at the shop, forgetting where he had deposited the maggots. A few warm weather days later, his car kept filling up with large bluebottles every time he turned on the cold air fan… The problem lasted for weeks apparently and Steve reckoned there was a moral to the story: ‘Don’t put maggots in paper bags…’
His mum, he recalls was a total giggler and would chase her grandchildren about and demonstrate to them how she could touch her toes, well into her seventies…
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| BARROWS LANE 1966: DOUG TOOK THIS PIC OF GHRETA, MY PARENTS, STEVE & ME... |
At Christmas quizzes she couldn’t resist shouting out answers in her excitement, or as I recall, whispering answers to my mum as they sat nudging each other. Those moments were priceless, although my dad, Uncle Jack and other serious quiz participants became a little annoyed by the antics!
My mum and Ghreta usually met in Birmingham’s city centre on Wednesdays, after their mum had died in 1967, catching their relevant buses and finding each other in the Marks & Spencer store in Bull Street. They would shop, have a cup of tea in Lewis’s or Grey’s and usually buy chicken portions to take home and cook, which became one of my favourite dinners of the week at a time when beef and lamb roasts were the traditional Sunday meals and chicken was less popular.
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| GHRETA & MY MUM AGAIN... |
Once, at the Greswolde in Knowle where Ivy and Jack were celebrating their Golden Wedding, Steve was asked to take some photos with his new SLR camera. He merrily mingled and took many pictures but when the film was developed, the results were totally black… He had loaded the film but it hadn’t wound on! Oops… Apologies were offered and Steve never made the same mistake again… Well, that’s what he says…
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| GHRETA & DOUG WITH MY MUM & ME, BUT MEN DRESSED RATHER WELL FOR DAYS OUT IN THOSE DAYS! |
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| DOUG IS FLANKED BY UNCLES JACK & 'BUN'... |
Dave Eastwood reportedly took Steve for a ride in his infamous dirty Jaguar car (taxed or insured at the time, possibly) one evening and it was accelerated to above 100mph… Not on any open highway however but along Streetsbrook Road in Solihull!
Ghreta disturbed a burglar at her home one night. He had got into the house by forcing a lounge window and she bravely yelled at him to get out, which he did, immediately… When reporting the incident to the police, Ghreta described the guy as looking like Aston Villa’s manager John Gregory! Using a tracker dog, the police traced the burglar to a house in Beechmore Road but nothing was proved…
One Christmas, Ghreta was apparently asked by an old lady to carry her heavy bag containing a chicken out of the Co-op supermarket in Sheldon. Ghreta obliged then realised that none of the shopping had been paid for… Oops…
My memories of Ghreta & Doug…
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| MY DAD TRIES TO GET STEVE & ME TO LOOK UP FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHER BY FIRING A TOY GUN... |
My mum reckoned that Ghreta was a bit of a tomboy when she was a kid and of course was quite the sports person. It’s her fault that I’m called Peter however, for I was due to be named Steve until Ghreta called her son Steve four months before I appeared in September 1950.
Mum’s choice had been scuppered, so she decided my name would be Paul.
And so she called me Peter…
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| GHRETA & MY MUM, MAYBE AROUND 1930... |
I was saddled with my dad’s middle name too, which was Steve’s dad’s forename, oddly: Douglas… Strange happenings…
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| I GET A TWIN, STEVE LOSES OUT & GETS MY DAD... |
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| GHRETA, NAN HEDGES & MY MUM... |
Ghreta would always hand my mum greetings cards for my family some four weeks early, making sure she didn’t miss the correct days. She was really sweet, friendly, honest and open. She mithered if ever I offered her a lift home from my mum’s house but she had been good enough to make her own way there and deserved the easy way home. Sometimes she would catch a Midland Red bus, the 175 from the Wheatsheaf to Castle Bromwich, then walk down to mum’s house, or on other occasions she made her way to the 14 bus route and walked past the old Central Grammar School to Shard End.
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| ONLY SIBLING EDDIE IS MISSING AS BUN, CLAL & CLAUDE STAND BEHIND GHRETA, IVY & MY MUM... |
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| DOUG, GHRETA, IVY, MY MUM, MY DAD, IRIS & HER HUSBAND BUN (FRED)... PRESUMABLY JACK TOOK THE PICTURE! |
Those were long journeys and I could only be impressed by her efforts…
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| HATS, CATS & MACS... (GHRETA & MY MUM...) |
One could play both mum and Ghreta up and make them believe anything daft but they loved their gossip too, as well as being somewhat in awe of older sister Ivy…
HOW TIGHT WERE IVY'S GRIPS?
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| LOVE THIS IMAGE... GHRETA & MUM SEEM BORED WITH IVY'S KNITTING... |
Ghreta would help my mum out with hand-me-down clothes of Steve’s and when I finally climbed out of short grey trousers at King Edward’s Aston, the first long trousers I wore had been Steve’s… I was the last-but-one kid to go into ‘longs’ and I was in Year 8…
Steve went to Exeter University and spent time with cousin Derek’s first wife’s parents down there but he was a fine hockey player and his Pickwick club made it to a national final in 1986, being beaten by Southgate, which included more than half of the GB Olympic squad which won gold at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. I believe Steve was even drug-tested after the match…
He played for Pickwick’s first team for 18 years, before moving on to Olton. Steve’s kids, Claire and sons Matthew and Andrew were all good hockey players too and Steve coached the game for many years.
He coached junior hockey at Olton for 15 years and his teams managed to become Warwickshire champions at every age group. His U19 girls teams were National Champions for 5 consecutive yers from 1995. Over half of the U18 England squad appeared in Steve's teams...
As his sons progressed from County to Midlands teams, Steve helped to coach the U15 and U17 Midlands squads. He continued to play however! He took part in Vets Hockey for the Midlands from the Over 45s to the Over 70s and he played England Vets Hockey at Over 55 to Over 60, playing in two home internationals and in two World Cup competitions, winning the first, in Birmingham and finishing 3rd in the other tournament, played at Oxford in 2012.
He has played for the Warwickshire/Worcestershire Over 60s team more recently, winning the 2019 National Final at Lee Valley Olympic Stadium in London...
His parents would have been so proud of his sporting achievements...
Steve married a girl from his secondary school and she was a regular visitor at family parties during their, er, courtship! They picked me up in his dad’s car one evening after Steve had passed his driving test at 17 and took me out for a faggots and peas meal at the Golden Cross pub in Wixford, despite the fact that I’d already eaten my dinner!
STEVE, KAREN & ME, 1967...
OMG, THEY'RE BOTH TALLER THAN ME...
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| GET YOUR FAGGOTS & PEAS HERE... |
Steve also rang to ask me if I would make up the Co-op’s cricket XI one Sunday afternoon near Yardley Church. I took a couple of catches at cover point but then had to try to stay batting as the team hung on for a tense draw. We did just that and I was left 2 not out…
Ghreta spent a lot of time at home alone after Doug died from a stroke in 1981 but she kept a radio and the TV on all day for company as she went about her chores. Ivy and Jack would collect her and take her to their weekend caravan but Ghreta would take more than her fair share of food each time, making sure that she couldn’t be accused of taking advantage…
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| TYPICAL SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN IVY'S CARAVAN. LOOKS LIKE, ER, FUN... |
Ghreta outlived all of her siblings and lived in a home in a home in Tile Cross when her health and memory deteriorated, where she sadly passed away in 2008…
One of my regrets was that I was unable to make her funeral but my thoughts were very much with her on the day…
Doug was a bit of a radio ham, cousin Derek reminded me and he, like me, remembers Doug’s amazing car: the Jowett Javelin, parked at the top of the back garden, accessed along a right of way… His sister Dorothy lived close by in Beechmore Road, apparently and Derek recalls drinks of Vimto and bags of crisps after a day out during summer weekends, perhaps at the Fleur de Lys in Lowsonford, or the Drum and Monkey near Knowle.
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| DOUG'S BRILLIANT JOWETT JAVELIN. ONLY 23,000 OF THESE EXECUTIVE CARS WERE BUILT BY THE JOWETT COMPANY IN IDLE, BRADFORD, BETWEEN 1947 & 1953. IT WAS DESIGNED DURING WORLD WAR 2 BY GERALD PALMER.  My poem about Ghreta: |
Oystercatcher At Marazion…
Shuffling along the packed, wet Marazion sand,
The Oystercatcher reminded me of my Auntie Ghreta,
Bustling through Marks and Spencer’s,
Woolly hat bobbing between the aisles
As she roved, with my shadowing passive mother in tow,
Both clutching identical canvas bags, slung low,
Both wearing similar M & S styles
And over similar garments they would lean and teeter…
The Oystercatcher hovered too, over a tasty lugworm to spear,
As the incoming tide encircled its bright red feet
But then the spell was broken by a marauding, mindless dog
And the shorebird flew a hasty, unwarranted retreat…
Pete Ray
Auntie Ghreta, like my mum, long dead, was a bustler and my mother followed her about when they met in Birmingham’s city centre on Wednesday mornings.
Watching an Oystercatcher on Marazion beach made me smile and think of the two sisters doing what they did best…
A chap chucked a tennis ball, his ignorance unbounded and his even more ignorant dog chased after the bird, not the ball…
That’s OK then, presumably…
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