Adeline
Adeline was born in 1901 and was the fourth child of Walter and Emily Jane. She was known as “Addie” and her birthdate is 19th April. In October 1923 she married Sydney “Sid” Billingham in Kings Norton – they were both 23. Addy died in 1990 aged 88, whilst Syd pre-deceased here in 1970.
It would be fair to say that Addie was a difficult if well meaning person, and one who didn’t get on with all of the family all of the time. Rifts were common place. We must all speak as you find, and when I met her she was especially kind if rather gauche with a rather manly physique and rather a deep voice.
In 1946 she was living in Eddington, and I believe she Lived in Tamworth – I remember visiting her there with my parents. Sid died in 1970 in Lichfield at 69 having been married for 46 years. She died in July 1990 also in Lichfield aged 89.
Hazel writes:
When we were young my sister Cindy (Cynthia) and I (Hazel) used to visit Auntie Addie and stay with her occasionally in the school holidays. She and Uncle Sid Billingham had no children of their own, of course, and in those days she was fun and funny and she was very good to us.
Uncle Sid was a gentle man, always much more quiet and reserved, chewing on his pipe and smoking a wonderfully aromatic brand of pipe tobacco. We never had a telephone in the family home until after my Dad had retired and we had all long since left home. But Auntie Addie had one and I well remember Cindy and myself making our first attempts at using a public phone box. Even after 60 years I believe I still remember her phone number – ERD 3146.
I think her address was 66 Hollydale Road, Erdington. We used to live near Kings Heath so we had to catch a bus into town and then, in the early days, a tram to the Tyburn Road terminus. We’d walk up Holly Lane to Hollydale Road.
At one time Addie had chickens in the back garden and used to treat them like pets, sitting with her favourite one in her lap. She also had a little golden haired dog she called Chips or Chippy that was my favourite.
Addie was a primary school teacher or teaching assistant and confessed that she had, shall we say, ‘enhanced’ her qualifications on her CV to get the job! We went to Sutton Park, the local cinema and various places of interest.
In 1952 we went by train to the Festival of Britain in London. Being only just 9, I confess I don’t remember much about it other than what I was wearing!, being in a station and the ‘Skylon’ – a huge cigar shaped construction.
The following year we stayed with Addie to watch the Coronation on TV and take part in their street party, as there wasn’t one where we lived at home. Once we were of secondary school age we saw her less often, having new interests of our own. But then it seemed that Addie, always somewhat eccentric, had more and more bizarre ideas and was embroiled in, if not the cause of, family discord so we parted company at that stage.
I think that Uncle Sid died in 1970 when I was in New Zealand on a one year teaching exchange. I wrote to express my condolences and to say how much we appreciated all that they had done for us all those years before.
Addie wrote to me some time later asking me to visit and whether I’d be willing to be her executor, but Mum & Dad were still not happy about it so I thanked her again for happier times past and politely declined.
The last photo of her came via Auntie Ivy, I think. It is dated September 1976 and Addie must have died within the next couple of years but I don’t know when.
Oh dear. How sad. I felt so mean – but it was a case of filial loyalty v conscience.
Harry writes:
As far as I remember I had very little to do with Addie in the early years. I remember her as being quite male in her actions – slightly robust and challenging and loud of voice. I guess quite intimidating. Not towards the sensitive end of that scale. Slightly surreal and probably best described as eccentric. I don’t remember Sid at all. They lived in Tamworth but I think moved there from the Erdington* area possibly near Fred. I know we went there when I was driving, so that would be 1963 or after. I think we went to see her before that, through Fred, so again that points to Erdington*.
*I call it Erdington, but from Fred’s funeral, Ian drove us to somewhere not far from Yardley Wood Cemetry. Need Hazel to clarify this.
Graham EspinEdit
Harry mentioned that his mother had issues with aunt Adeline. I remember there was some type of rift which my grandmother appeared to agree with. I do remember visiting her with my family. She was a teacher and gave me a heavy storage box which had lots of colored pastel sticks. I remember thinking this looked more like chalk to me.
Thanks Hazel, that brought back some memories too. Adeline’s photograph was I am sure the time Mom took her on holiday to the New Forest, which was about ’76.
I think Adeline picked a row, made some disparaging comments to or with the hotel owner. The following morning Mom bundled her into the car and drove them back to Birmingham, and then back to the Forest, to resume their holiday. Mom and Dad stopped at my house in Yateley on the way back home to tell me about the episode, and how she had apologised to the hotel owner. More eccentric and bizarre as you say.
Mom agreed to be her executor, and she made out a will in 1970 naming her.
Harry mentioned that his mother had issues with aunt Adeline. I remember there was some type of rift which my grandmother appeared to agree with. I do remember visiting her with my family. She was a teacher and gave me a heavy storage box which had lots of colored pastel sticks. I remember thinking this looked more like chalk to me.
Thanks Hazel, that brought back some memories too. Adeline’s photograph was I am sure the time Mom took her on holiday to the New Forest, which was about ’76. I think Adeline picked a row, made some disparaging comments to or with the hotel owner. The following morning Mom bundled her into the car and drove them back to Birmingham, and then back to the Forest, to resume their holiday. Mom and Dad stopped at my house in Yateley on the way back home to tell me about the episode, and how she had apologised to the hotel owner. More eccentric and bizarre as you say.
Mom agreed to be her executor, and she made out a will in 1970 naming her.
It came to me – out of the blue – that Addie taught at Paget Road Junior & Infants School as it was then.
My memory of Aunt Adeline was while I was a little older. The one thing that sticks in my mind has not been mentioned above: she claimed to be a medium, in contact with the spirit world. At the time my mother would count herself as a Spiritualist, or at least a sympathiser. She took me to many meetings, where I saw very strange events, which, depending on your point of view, might be regarded as stage conjuring, or as communication with your dead relatives. We had séances at Adeline’s house in Erdington, pushing a Ouija board around to tap out letters, and holding hands around the table.
When my sister Marguerite died in 1942 I was dressed in my father’s black suit, and I was dispatched to her house to tell her. She saw me coming, walking my bike up her front path, when she came out of the house to greet me; when she clocked my black suit, saw my sad face, and before I could say much, she said, “I know.”
Later my mother was Ill with depression. Addie visited one day. I was not with them, so all I remember was Addie, leaving, standing on our back doorstep, raising her right hand, forefinger pointing up and then down, and cursing the house.
It was years after – I was grown-up: while my mother was out – shopping, probably – Addie phoned, which of course I answered. Something I said upset her – I remember I asked a question – and her response shook me to my roots. I was still sitting on the settee, feeling and looking dazed, when mother came home. “What’s the matter?” she said. I simply said something like, “Auntie Addie has just been shouting at me, and I don’t know why.”. Mother was furious, got onto the phone there and then, and as far as I was concerned, that was that.
I have never, ever, heard any reference to her being a teacher. Still, something got to her, poor thing, who had been nice to me when I was small; and poor, patient, sweet-natured Uncle Sid, who used to tell me of his rich uncle in Australia, and how wealthy they would be when he passed away.
Ian
I think the spiritualist thing caused something of a rift with certain siblings. My Mother for one had an intense dislike of it which could only have come with experiencing it, probably with Addie. She used to shudder at the mention of a Ouija board or seance. For those who have not experienced it, it is at one intriguing and yet faintly disturbing. A girl friend living in West London found one in the loft of her new abode, and for a bit of fun we tried it. And that was the point; my Mother’s words were in my head “for a bit of fun, they say, but it’s not fun”.
We invoked the spirit of a twelve year old who died in the house. She named herself and told some facts, saying she died in the War. Further, subsequent, research revealed that this was true. Imagine, if at a session, one provoked a known, shared relative and by this process dragged up forgotten feuds or arguments or resentments. The result could be quite catastrophic.
Years later, my Mother had “found” Fred again, but Addie was in the background, and not mentioned. Mom approached her to “bring her back in” to the family and I remember her rationale being along the lines of “we are all getting older, and we should forget the past, so we will be friends but not have any of that nonsense”. My words, but the sentiment was real and raw.
I did not have experience similar to Ian’s, but I just remember being very wary, and even scared, of her, even though she was friendly, approachable and warm. There certainly was this tinder box trait.
Well. I mow start to understand why there was such a rift.
Graham