LEAVING THE TANK HOUSE AT BLISWORTH RAILWAY STATION
AND OUR JOURNEY TO BIRMINGHAM Dec 15, 1930

as recalled 40 years later by Bert Varney, then aged eleven, on the relocation of
his father Herbert Varney (Railway Pump Operator) and family.

Because my father was now working away in Birmingham, on the L.M.S. Railway, at the Aston Railway pumping station, pumping water for the trains, and missed the family while being away from home, and could only travel at a weekend, sometimes every fortnight, by train from Birmingham to see us. He was therefore able through the help of the Railway Company to obtain a house nearer to where he worked; number 25 School Street.   This was on the new council housing estate of Kingstanding, on the North side of Birmingham, and a house was opened for us on the 29th of December, 1930, the rent being at that time, 8s 4p. Rates including water, 34p. Total weekly rental, 11s 8p.

In the beginning of December of that year, we were getting ready to leave the Tank House, and I do remember climbing up into the empty railway van, set up by the Railway Company nearby for all the furniture, to look round inside of it with my brother.   I felt very sad that we were leaving the Tank House. It was in every way a school boy's dream. Watching the changing of the signals, the coming and the going of the trains. The fast express trains, to and from London, like the Royal Scot, with their whistles screaming as they approached Blisworth Station, and at night the sparks flying up from the chimneys. The watching of the boat people, and their horses, going by from the side of the canal, also from the window of the room above. The chugging of the motor boats, and the slowing down to a chug, chug, chug, as they went under the railway bridge, and starting up again on the other side, and at night with their lights reflecting up into the living room of the building, Also to miss was the beautiful country side around Blisworth. The green fields and bird nesting with the boys from school. The listening to the church bells on Sunday of the village of Gayton, a few miles away. I often used to sit on the embankment, listening to the church bells on a Sunday, and think of the church people going to church, and for that last time. Just as there was a contrast of difference between living in 25 School Street, and the living in the Tank House, there was now going to be another contrast in terms of living in the grim black industrial City of Birmingham, with all its noise, smoking chimneys and factories. My mother of course did not see the Tank House as we did. To her, it was a bleak empty house to live in, specially after the pumping engine, and the gas plant had been removed, and she had hardly any one to talk to, except for near by neighbours, Mrs Millar, Mrs Griffith and Mrs Jones. They had no fresh water supply, and was dependent on getting their fresh water from the Tank House and would bring their empty buckets up to us to get their water. I do remember having our last tea in the small room of the Tank House that was facing the station; before my mother collected the cups and saucers together, to go to Birmingham.

So we left the Tank House with the furniture to be followed on behind us, and taking with us, the Van Dyke painting, presented to us by Mr and Mrs Tresham, of the Blisworth Hotel in 1927, for letting my father keep and store their furniture for them, in the top Company's room and the big room below, until they found a place, and take it all away; and as we began walking up the embankment path, Mrs Jones came through the bottom gate, and stood on the path to wave to us, and say: "Goodbye Mrs Varney! Goodbye Mrs Varney! Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!"  Sobbing with tears in her eyes, as she said so. We waved and said goodbye to her, and made our way up the embankment path, towards the station. While sitting in the train as it was about to go off, I remember my mother looking through the window at a porter, going to a small office on the platform, and saying: "He's got on well since he's left school." My memory is very vivid about the journey in the train. The passing of the Blisworth brick factory, and on passing one of the hills past Gayton, and seeing on top of the hill, a box like shelter with a flat over lapping roof, that a workman had made to shelter himself from the rain. And on reaching Hampton-on-Arden station, as we were getting near to Birmingham. My father saying to us, pointing up to the name of the station on the gas lamp: "When you see Hampton-in-Arden up there. You always know that you are getting near to Birmingham" and on approaching the City, and on arriving, on seeing all the bright lights in advertising, my father telling us that it was all done by neon 1ighting.

I do not remember much about arriving on New Street station; but my memory is quite clear to us walking through St. Philips Cathedral churchyard, and my father, seeing the lights of Snow Hill station, said: "That is Snow Hill station over there, we are going the wrong way; we've got to turn back." We then must have gone back and caught the tram down to Aston Station, because as we were walking up the Litchfield Road, on the right side, as we were going towards the house where my father was lodging, and to where we had to stop for the night, my father stopped show me an electric fan in the shop window, which was more of the armature type of making, and told me it was an electric fan driven by a nelectric motor. I had never seen an electric fan before, there was so much to see in the shops of Birmingham. When we had got to the house where my father had been lodging in Church Lane, Aston the landlady had arranged for us, our supper, the place where we were to sleep, and our breakfast in the morning. My brother Len, however, because there was not enough room for him to sleep, went to sleep in the engine house, with my father, or where he was working that night. This was not very far away, just down Church Lane, to the bottom, turning right into Queens Road, then left into Grosvenor Road, then turning right into Aston Hall Road, and between the two railway bridges, and at the end of the Electric Avenue, were the stone steps that led up to the steam pumping engine, that pumped water from a deep well for the trains. After sleeping the night at the land ladies house, and had our morning breakfast, we set out with our mother, my sister and I, to take us to our new house in the new Kingstanding estate. My father and my brother, was to follow on later with the furniture. I do remember my mother seeing a garage on the other side of the road, saying: "It's a pity Len could not get a job there. He always wanted to get a job in a garage".

She then asked someone, if this was the way to Kingstanding, and was told we were going the wrong way. I cannot remember from there which way we went to; whether we caught the tram to Aston cross, down to Wit ton, and from there by the outer circle bus to Perry Bar, or, whether we walked along Lovers Walk to meet the same tram route, and then the same bus route to Perry Bar that way, except that we finished up on the Midland Red bus that took us to the nearest place to Kingstanding, which was at the bottom of College Road Hill, by Brackenbury Road, and was told that this is the nearest we can get to where we wanted to go. Nearly all the roads in Kingstanding then were mud roads, as the buildings were still being built, and I remember as we were beginning to walk up Ellerton Road, we saw a large bar of Cadbury's chocolate lying in the mud with a small piece broken away from it, and my mother saying somebody has dropped it, it's a shame to waste it. We were so hungry that we took it with us to eat later. Even after that, mother found we were going the wrong way, and we turned back and went about half way up Warren Farm Road, and on asking someone the way to Peckham Road, they directed us to go back and along Oanesbury Cressent, to Hurlingham Road, and then to Sidcup Road, where at the bottom of the road, we saw a Rowlands baker, with his horse and cart, and my mother asked him, if he could tell her where Peckham Road was. He told us to get up into the cart, and he would take us up to about where the Street was we wanted to go, and asking my mother if she wanted to become a customer, which she agreed. Even then, when we went down the Street, and round the corner to look at a house, and my mother saying: "This is not the house, that's 75. We were in Caversham Road. She said: "We have to go back." We then went back up Peckham Road, and eventually found the house we had got to live in.

Later in the afternoon, my father and brother came, from where they had been to collect the furniture, and have it brought in the railway lorry. As for the baker, unfortunately for him, there was another baker serving the estate, Purrus Bakery of Hansworth, and the baker of this bakery came first and took the order.  My mother, at the time, was not thinking about the other baker that brought us up in his cart until he came to the house for us to order his bread. She had to tell him that we had already got a baker. Mother said he seemed annoyed after bringing us up in his cart.

Kingstanding, is the name given to this new housing estate; because of its association of King Charles I, present in the area during the English Civil War, October 1642, according to historic records. King Charles army, was marching away from Shrewsbury to relieve Banbury Castle, and while on his way to Packington, on October 16th, and 17th, the King stayed and slept at Aston Hall, as a guest of Sir Thomas Holte, who was King Charles I chief supporter in the district, and who rallied . . . [further pages are missing]

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Transcribed 1 July 2006 - the family of the author of about 40 years ago could not be contacted.  If they ever see it, I hope they approve of its appearance on this website.

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