Ivy Hilda Raybould was born on the 22 February 1908. Her Father Walter was 40 and her Mother Emily Jane was 37. She met Herbert (Bert) Whorwood (born 19th January 1908) in 1924. This photograph is taken at about the time.

and they courted for ten years until they had enough money for a deposit on a house in Pierce Avenue Olton, marrying on the 19th May 1934. She died on her 55th wedding anniversary in 1989 at age 81. Husband Bert died in 1991 age 83.

The earliest “relic” of Ivy. A drawing in Nancy’s autograph book. Aged about 8.

Ivy aged 16

IVY HILDA RAYBOULD b. 22.2.1908 d. 19.5.89
Ivy was the 7th born of the Rayboulds, but I know little of her life before she met my father, and then only sketchy details. She lived with the others at 52 Solihull Road, Sparkhill. She went to school at College Road School, Moseley, leaving 14 which was the norm in those days.

Her leaving certificate says “Standard achieved 6 (Dad was 7). Attendance very good. Punctuality very good. Conduct good. An intelligent girl, sensitive and reliable”.

I may have this wrong, but I thought that her father took the drink and was a delivery driver with a horse and cart. He more than often had too much to drink and the landlord would put him asleep on the wagon and the horse would take him home. My recollection was that she did not like her father, a view which seems to be reinforced by comments made by Ian on the Agnes page. She was very attached to her Mother no doubt because the younger ones were still at home when she needed more looking after. The older ones I guess had homes or families of their own to look after. I am not suggesting they didn’t share this task, but they would be distracted I guess.

On her marriage certificate she is described as an “Engraver”. The manufacturer of messaging lamps, so essential at sea, and during the second world war, was a company called Aldis, based in Sparkhill. Ivy certainly worked there at one point, and I thought probably Edna as well, or perhaps Gertie.

HERBERT WHORWOOD. B. 19.01.1908 d. 24.01.1991
Herbert, or Bert, was the youngest son of Herbert Whorwood (b. 1/2/1877 d.16/12/1924 (aged 47)) and Mary Ann Brown (b. 1877 d. 19/4/65). He went to Moseley Road School which he left in 1922 aged 14. His leaving certificate says of him “Attendance 100%, Punctuality Ex, Conduct Ex. A well conducted and reliable boy, of average ability, especially good at art and manual work”.

He also attended Rea Street Manual Training Centre, of whom the instructor Chas S Revell said “This scholar has done some really excellent work. He has distinct ability, and also very considerable patience. I regards him as a very capable lad and he should make good headway. I recommend him with every confidence”.

I can vouch for both of those references; I am useless at maths, and when I was at secondary school, I used to come home and burst into tears as I could not understand algebra for example. He never studied it, but worked out the answers his way, with considerable ability and patience.

His father died at 76 Digbeth, Birmingham which according to Google is a night club called unplug, which looks like a converted shop front (in which case it was above the tailoring shop which his father ran as a Master Tailor). His father died of Dementia, which probably means by today’s definition of the illness that the end was slow in coming, and maybe that was the cause of the business failing. The wisdom from my parents, was that the house or shop was demolished to make way for Dowding and Mills factory, which in turn was demolished. There is also some uncertainty about the precise role of the brothers, but the business failed. My father and Uncle Harold had to work to pay off the debts, and before the business failed, my father worked as an assistant in the shop. On the marriage certificate he is described as a tool setter, and they lived at 837 Stratford Road, just round the corner from Solihull Road (now a very distinguished tattoo parlour called Tattooz).

Her wedding to Bert on 19th May 1934 at St Christopher’s Church, College Road, Sparkhill.
From left: Harold (Bert’s Brother and best man), Dorothy (Gladys’ daughter and bridesmaid), Bert, Ivy, Edna (Bridesmaid).

I don’t know how they met, but it was at the age of 16. From Sparkbrook, and Sarehole Mill which featured in the Raybould early life, there was a walk called the Nine Styles Walk which ran to near Solihull. All built over now of course. My parents used to call this a “monkey run”, a term which describes a courting area. Along the walk, youngsters would promenade, so maybe this is how or where they met. By a curious co-incidence, at the rear of the house they would ultimately live in, in Kineton Green Road, across the fields behind the house, the walk still exists.

So at 16, my father’s father died, Bert had to work to pay off the debts of the business, and round the corner was the recession, and although it started in the later ’20’s there must have been indications that were emerging, such as unemployment rising. They were members of a cycling club. Cycling was all the rage, not least because it was cheap (relatively) and in fact the only real means of transport for working class people. The years between meeting, and marrying in 1934, were filled with cycling adventures. This is the puzzling bit, because to get the house with a mortgage he had to have a job, but he also was unemployed for a period. So my best guess is that he joined Wilmot Breedon in about 1930 (he received a 25 year service award watch in the mid fifties), and he was unemployed from his father’s death till then.

Deaths occurred frequently as can be seen from the family tree when we get one. Although my Mother and Father met at 16, they could not get married or even think about it until they had secured a house, and absolved themselves of family pressures which they did in 1934 at 127 Pierce Avenue, Olton.

My Father was too old, and in a reserved occupation, to join the war effort, so he, along with other neighbours firewatched. This involved standing in a high location watching for fire outbreaks when bombs were dropping. The local school had such a structure, a watch tower which looked like an aerodrome control tower. When they were detected, the first priority was to put it out; usually by a bucket of water and a hand operated stirrup pump! After the war, I used to play with Dad’s; you could empty a bucket in no time at all.

The Germans were relentlessly bombing the industrial heartland, and Coventry was targeted on 14th November 1940. The tension must have been intense, and on the 19th November, he was on duty when he and “Bricky” Clark spotted an incendiary device dropping by parachute. “Bricky” raced off to alert the Fire service, and Dad did the putting it out bit. So to recap, you have steel encased quantity of magnesium ready to fire off, and when it does, the heat is white hot, and the magnesium sticks to whatever it discovers, and a man with a bucket of water to douse it. Not working for me!

It landed behind a dustbin in a front garden of Pierce Avenue. Dad’s immediate reaction was to remove the dustbin to gain access to the bomb. As he lifted the bin, the device exploded; probably saving his life, or at least saving him from severe disfiguration. The white heat hit his head (poking up from the bin) and his feet (again, beneath the bin). He could not see, and made his way to the garden gate and waited until someone came by. It was Mr Lucas, an ambulance driver, so Dad asked for help and gradually he was whisked off to the Accident Hospital in Birmingham.

In the meantime, Mother was merely told a while later that this had happened so she had to make her way during the bombardment, with no buses running, to find him. I can imagine the chaos of a hospital crowded with many other wounded people, all of whom had relatives trying to locate them, with more wounded arriving all the time. She eventually found him and he was (obviously) kept in for treatment, and numerous skin grafts to rebuild his eye socket (he lost his left eye).

The pressure on the hospital was intense, so after the initial operations, he was moved on 20/3/1941 to Barnsley Hall Hospital at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, fifteen miles south of Birmingham. So again, Mother had to visit him in wartime, with public transport virtually non-existent.

One evening a knock on the door of 127 was answered by Mother, who was faced with a policeman, who enquired if she had seen Bert Whorwood. Obviously not she replied, to be told that he had gone missing. A couple of days later he turned up! He had walked all the way to Birmingham, and then to Olton; the best part of 20 miles! They discharged him on 9/5/1941.

At this point, they allowed him to stay at home, and a period of further grafts, and convalescence continued. He suffered psychologically with a depression descending, he was an attractive man and the disfigurement (not huge thanks to Doctor Quinnet), would have affected him.

The circularity was that when, age 4, I broke my leg playing in the front garden, mother asked Mr Lucas who was walking past, for help, and summoned an ambulance; the same Dr Quinnet treated me and put me in a plaster cast at the Children’s Hospital!

There were other family pressures such as looking after older relatives, and these ties were strong to break when money was tight as it was in the depression. These times formed some of my Mother’s most trenchant views about how I should treat them, and them me, not being a burden to anyone.

My Father was out of work, so he made stools from kits to sell on street corners. He finally secured work at Wilmot Breedon in Amington Road, Tyesley. He would come home smelling of the press shop which was largely a burnt oil smell. Cycling with one eye through pea soupers; on one occasion he stopped to take breath and a whole queue passed him using his rear light as a guide.

They courted on bicycles, belonging to a CTC cycle club. They specialised in tandem riding which I think I vaguely remember. All my youth was spent either walking or cycling everywhere.

I recall older family members, Uncle Jo from whom we had a legacy. Uncle George (Field) and Auntie Annie who lived round the corner from Aunty Agnes and Uncle Charles. George had an enormous long case clock which ticked ominously. He died and the sisters had the task of looking after Annie and they took it in turns having her to stay. This put enormous pressures on each individual family. She died at Agnes’s and was laid out in the dining room. I think Gladys, Agnes and Ivy cleaned and prepared the body which was a natural funtion in those days. Agnes too I think died there and was prepared.

I recall Christmases with piles of presents, and one in particular I had two enormous pillow cases of gifts; aged about 9 I think, about 1954, so the economic post war situation was easing and bringing more disposable income.

Many Christmases were spent with the Espins, with either us travelling to Branston on Christmas Eve once Dad had finished work, and leaving on Boxing Day lunch time to get home. Or Branston would visit us; always one to look forward to.

In September 1959 we moved to 166 Kineton Green Road, Olton, Solihull. In 1962 I learned to drive, just as Auntie Agnes had her first stroke. The winter of ’62/3 was the worst for years, and I drove regularly to take mother to see her.

Mother died on their 55th Wedding anniversary on 19th May 1989, aged 81. I chose to visit them on that day, and took the slow road for reasons that were not apparent, but she did always claim the be a witch being the 13th Child. I was passed by an ambulance going in the opposite direction as I got closer to the house; she was in there and had suffered a heart attack brought on by a mistake made by a locum doctor treating her for a tummy bug.

I put father into a nursing home in the July and he died there in January 1991.

Adults standing from left:
Harry, Ian, Fred, Wilma, Geoff Hill, Ivy, Edna, Bert, Michael Whorwood (nephew), Linda Espin, David Espin, Tom Whorwood (Michael’s son), Sandie, Tim, Edna’s friend, Hilda, Edna’s other friend, Laurance.

Children and sitting:
Nanette W (Michael’s Daughter), ?, Morgan W(Michael’s Son), Lisa Espin, ? Espin, Tanya W (Michael’s Wife, ? Espin, Penny Otton with ?.