My grandad 1897-1963
THE 1901 Census lists Joseph Bridge aged three living in Eel Street, Oldbury. This was my paternal grandfather. Eel Street has not existed for many years. Leaving the M5 at junction 2 and following the road to Oldbury Eel Street was on the left just as you enter Oldbury.
My great-grandfather also Joseph was a brick maker, as was his eldest son, John Bridge, known to all as Jack. As my grandfather grew, he became very close to Jack his big brother.
Joe (Grandfather) left school at 14 and worked at Langley Forge. This was in Mill Lane, Langley, and was close to the house in Langley where I was brought up. Joe’s career there was short lived. He joined the Great Western Railway after a short period and worked for the railway until retirement at 65 years old in 1962.
Walk down Ashes Road in Causeway Green to the crossroads with Oldbury Road and Throne Road and this was, from ancient times and into my memory, was the site of the annual Whiteheath Fair with its coconut shies, roundabouts, and boxing booths – Joe and his brother Jack would undoubtedly have frequented these, as did my father, another Jack, in later years.
Grandad was a footballer playing in junior leagues at centre forward. My father told me of his coming home on Saturday evenings after matches with bleeding and bruised shins. Hacking the opponent and “getting stuck in” was lawful in those days and shin guards were not yet invented.
Joe was a big and powerful man with a reputation for being a drinker, hard, aggressive, thrifty and scrupulously honest.
The Tiger was a popular pub in Eel Street and a haunt of Joe, his father, and brothers. Joe in his early twenties was enjoying a pint one night when words were exchanged with a youth of similar age, build and reputation. Fists flew and the visitor ended bleeding, bruised and unconscious. Joe finished his pint, had another and went across the road, home.
The following night Joe, back in the Tiger, finds himself squared up to the two elder brothers of his previous night’s opponent. Joe’s words to them were “It is to be ’oped yow’m better’en ’im last night,” only to be told, “Yow gorrus all rung, lad, we’ve cum to buy yo a pint. Ar kid ’as needed a gud’ idin’ for a long time and last night yo gid im a bloody good un.” The ale flowed.
Grandad was 16 in 1914, too young to join up and, in any case, maintaining the permanent way was a reserved occupation. In about 1916, at the age of 18, Joe was a strapping big lad able to more than look after himself in any company.
This was the year he strayed from his usual haunts up the Oldbury Road to Blackheath and fell under the spell of a 16-year-old miner’s daughter, Nellie Adams. Nellie had the striking looks that turned heads, with a forceful personality and the sweetest singing voice that was heard every Sunday morning in Hackett Street Methodist Chapel.
When Joe showed an interest, other heads stopped turning; no one would challenge Joe’s right to have Nellie on his arm.
Pregnancy before marriage was a matter of great shame in those days and for many years after. A hasty wedding was arranged, and my paternal grandfather and grandmother, known to all as Grandma, were married.
Sadly, as it happened, that baby was lost. Happily, the marriage lasted for 50 years.
In 1918 Nellie gave birth to a legitimate daughter, my Aunt Lilly and in January 1920 my father was born. It was inevitable that he was christened Jack, after Grandad’s elder brother, sadly “Missing believed dead” on the Somme. Their family was complete. Not so – after about 14 years of marriage Grandma gave birth to their third child, a boy whom Grandad insisted was to be called Joe. Grandad was a great sportsman and he followed boxing avidly. The 1930s and ’40s was th e great World Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis’s era. My dad would agree with his dad that he would rise very early, typically 2am, to listen to the radio commentary from USA, of Louis’s fights. Dad was not so keen when the hour struck and often as he crawled down the stairs, he would meet Grandad returning to bed, “Yow’m too late, ’e’s knocked ’im out in the fust round.”
Uncle Joe was named Joseph Louis Bridge after the great World Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis.
Years later, my father, then himself a railway worker as young boy of 15, upset an engine driver in the goods yard at Blackheath station. The driver had him pinned to the wall. An onlooker said, “Before yo ’it ’im, dun yo know oo ’is dad is, cos that’s Ganger’s lad that is.”
Dad was immediately released – “Ar well, just be’ave yerself in future lad,” whimpered the engine driver.
Grandad was a ganger on the permanent way in charge of a group of men relaying and repairing the track. Daily for years he “walked his length.” Grandad’s length was the stretch between Langley Station and Blackheath station a distance of about two miles. He would inspect the line as he went with a large steel spanner over his shoulder. The spanner had a dual role in tightening the nuts on the rail connections and as a sledgehammer in replacing the wooden wedge blocks that held the rail wedged in its mounts.
Early one morning in 1940 he met a figure on the track. “Oo am yow?” he asked. Only to be told that the trespasser was a German Spy. “Am ya? Yow’m just the bloke arve bin lookin’ for.” The intruder woke up some time later with a policeman in attendance.
Much later in the 1950s, my father seeking overtime on a Sunday would occasionally find himself working on the permanent way with his father in charge. Grandad was held in the highest esteem by his gang and my father neither received nor expected any ease of working or favours from the Old Man.
My remembrance of Grandad comes from about the age of 3 (1953) when he was in his 50s. He was about six feet tall, somewhat overweight and very powerfully built, a very sharp brain that could answer my boyhood riddles and tricks; it never occurred to me that he had heard and seen them all many years ago. I remember watching the 1954 FA Cup Final with him and Dad on a rare television set with a tiny screen. West Bromwich Albion 3 Preston North End 2!
Still the hard man, I remember after my father had a painful black nail, he and Grandad sitting at the kitchen table for an hour while Grandad scraped a hole in the nail until a small fountain of blood and a loud sigh from my dad showed that the hole was complete and the pain relieved.
I remember Grandad on a Thursday evening completing his pools coupon meticulously studying form. On a Saturday at 5pm, the house remaining silent while he noted the results from Sports Report on the Home Service. I do not remember any wins.
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” was his lifelong motto. In the 1950s, you could have bought a house for about £350. He would not because it meant borrowing £200 from a building society and he would not become a borrower.
I have seen a ten runged ladder fashioned from a split railway sleeper because he needed a ladder and would not borrow from his neighbour. My dad once made a cricket bat for me from a split railway sleeper that I could not lift for years!
In 1962 Grandad retired aged 65 from the Great Western Railway after more than 40 years service. The following year, 1963, Grandad suffered a stroke and died aged 66. He now rests in Blackheath St Paul’s Churchyard, very near the railway that formed part of his length and his life. I would be very surprised if his daily walks did not continue.
I am but one of his four grandchildren. We all agree that our grandad was a genuinely great Black Country Man.
I have seen a ten runged ladder fashioned from a railway sleeper because he would not borrow from his neighbour