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1930s: Diary records the simple pleasures |
| From the DET: Written by an Old
Centaur, Mr. Lucas - but I do not yet have his full name!
IN an age when we take the benefits of car ownership for granted, and when two and three-car families raise no eyebrows, it might be difficult for some to realise what the acquisition of a motor vehicle meant 70 years ago. When I read my grandfather’s 1933 diary, I can appreciate the liberating influence of the internal combustion engine to his generation. Not that grandad Frank Lucas, a retired railwayman living in Cameron Road, Derby, could afford a car. The first vehicle to enter the Lucas family orbit was acquired by his son-in-law, Joe Fletcher, who had married Frank’s daughter, Olive. Joe opened a butcher’s shop at the corner of Walbrook Road and Brunswick Street. He subsequently became a Derby magistrate and a respected figure in the local meat trade. The new car quickly widened my grandparents’ horizons. Grandad Frank and his wife, Ada, were frequently invited for “a spin”. The 1933 diary records trips to Charnwood Forest, Alton Towers and Chatsworth; to Buxton, with a picnic en route; to the historic towns of Lichfield, Kenilworth and Warwick; to Crich Stand and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. On a run to Rolleston, they spent an idle hour sitting beside the River Dove. Olive and Joe used the car for seaside weekends in Rhyl and Blackpool in 1933. That must have been regarded as somewhat frivolous to my grandparents, staunch Methodists and loyal members of Walbrook Road Chapel, which Frank always referred to as “the mission”. Frank and Ada had two sons and five daughters. One of his daughters, my Auntie Edith, passed on to me a shoebox containing grandad’s pocket diaries from 1915 to 1946, the year of his death at the age of 82. I have drawn on the diaries as source material for previous articles in Bygones. They were written in Pitman’s shorthand and my wife Sheila has devoted much time to transcribing them. She has just completed the task for 1933, which happened to be the year of my birth and that of my Old Bemrosian cousin, David Fletcher, who believes his father’s first car was either a Morris 8 or a Morris 10. The diaries are very much a record of simple pleasures – the life of a close-knit family, chapel activities, gardening at the Sunny Hill allotment where he produced vast quantities of fruit and vegetables, doing practical jobs around the Cameron Road house and at the homes of his married children, walking in the countryside around Derby’s outskirts, areas now covered under bricks and mortar. He took a keen interest in politics and was a voracious reader but the journals are frustrating in that there is never a clue to what books he is reading. No doubt they were obtained from the Peartree Carnegie library. Even in winter, when there are frequent references to frost and snow, Frank and Ada would be out of the house at 9.3Oam for their exploratory walks to places like Sinfin, Alvaston Recreation Ground and to the “new housing” at Homelands, where they peered inside some of the homes under construction. Round the Arty On April 12, the diary records that daughter Doris “had a fine boy” (that was me!) during a stay of a month at the former Florence Nightingale Home. Later in the year, daughter Olive was admitted to Queen Mary’s Home with what Frank describes as kidney trouble. On Nov 22, Joe arrived to say that Olive had produced a son at 10.3Opm. Ada went to see her next day and Frank noted “she says he is a very nice baby and Olive is comfortable”. My Auntie Edith was cook/housekeeper to Derby solicitor Percy Francis and his wife at their delightful home, The Pines, on Burton Road. It had a large garden and panoramic view over the rooftops of the city to the great tower of the cathedral. Frank was often called upon to do painting and maintenance jobs at The Pines and Mrs Francis took a keen interest in the welfare of Edith’s parents. Ada was often invited to tea at The Pines and, in July, she spent a week there. Grandad had to retire from the railway in 1928 following a serious back injury when he fell from a signal box. But, after a lengthy convalescence, he was able to resume his DIY jobs, sweeping the chimney, doing a spot of cobbling, painting the front of his house and that of his son Leonard (who lived next door with wife Annie) and seeing to the installation, in the living room, of a new Trent fire grate supplied by Derby Co-op. Four tons of coal (Denby Colliery best, costing £8.50p) was delivered via a chute into the cellar in July 1933. I remember that cellar and the shelves above the steps containing stores of Ada’s bottled fruit and jams, made from produce grown on grandad’s allotment. As a retired employee of the Midland and later the LMS Railway, grandad had access to privilege tickets and these were used for a holiday in Llandudno in June. Mrs Francis took Frank and Ada to Midland Station and they were joined by several of their family. The diary indicates that Frank gathered roots of rock moss from the Great Orme – but what for? This would have been in contravention of today’s Countryside and Wildlife Act to protect native wild plants. In September, Ada and her daughter-in-law Annie had a day trip to Lowestoft. They were up early to catch the 5.50am train and returned at 3.15am next morning! Earlier that week, Frank brought home the last of 160lbs of onions grown that year on the allotment. He had lifted 6cwt of potatoes the previous month. In June, he returned home one day with 26lbs of gooseberries. No doubt some were made into jam, like the 4lbs of strawberries which Ada purchased (at 2½p a pound) on a shopping trip into town. The Sunny Hill plot produced nearly 20lbs of raspberries in July. Imagine what they would cost at a supermarket today. Why are they now so expensive? As the days shortened into December, there were activities at “the mission”, a concert by the Campion Street Choir, a Band of Hope supper, magic lantern lectures, a carol service, followed by the round of family parties and games at Christmas. It was a different Derby in 1933. Expectations were modest. For the Lucas family, the Christmas get-togethers were cherished. Here is the diary entry for December 25: “About 11.15am went to Olive’s. Had dinner there and enjoyed ourselves with the wireless until 3.30pm, then went with Joe and Olive and the baby to Doris’s and had tea and supper and enjoyed ourselves until 12 midnight. It started to rain about 11.” There speaks the dedicated gardener. Rain was always important, and recorded – even on Christmas Night
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