Connie and Zillah at Connie’s house on Conchar Road. 20.2.92. John Tarplett present.
Good quality sound.
The recording begins with Connie saying “Feel the weight of that!” She’s referring to an album of family photographs, which we proceed to look at together. (I’d like to know what happened to that album. Did Jane Howard inherit it?)
We seem to be looking at the formal photograph of the whole family – Pop, Nana and the nine children – taken in the back garden of their house in Rotton Park Road (the photo on the home page of this archive). Zillah says she remembers the photographer with a hood over his head. Connie remembers their garden and a long trestle table, and going to the pantomime to see Robinson Crusoe, how the performers threw Man Friday dolls into the audience and (Zillah?) caught one. Then the discussion moves to their cousins, the Highfields. Billy, Vera, Rene, Dorothy. They recall Tony and Beulah getting married and Connie describes the guests in one of the photos, which included her daughter, Sheila, and Kath’s daughter, Monica. They list their houses in order. Connie introduced Billy Highfield to his future wife, and she was a bridesmaid at their wedding. Then the subject of the Bournemouth holiday comes up again. I’m having a little difficulty keeping Connie on topic. Zillah laughs at Connie’s unstinting praise for their mother. (She was a saint…) We talk about a photo of Kath and Alec’s wedding, which has lots of family members in it, including the old aunts, Pop’s sisters May and Jinny/Ginny, and Alec’s sister, Hazel. Also Henry Ford, Reg Dancer (a close friend of Bernard’s) and Ray West. Connie (referring to her father): “All that to pay for!” (I wonder where that photograph is.) And then another photo of someone Connie identifies as Sam Tinkler, who worked for their father and his wife, who lost two daughters: one died of TB and the other one of a broken heart. Zillah: “Mother was so sorry for them they joined our family”. A holiday photo with inscription Coombe Martin, 1933.
I mention Alec’s article in Autosport about his Sports Clino motor car, which he nicknamed ‘Tallulah Bedstead’. This came up in the recording with Zillah and Kath at Station Road (see Deasington Tapes 5). I am interrupted at this point about 30 minutes in so missed about 3 minutes.
Another photo of where the Martins lived in the US (Auntie Gertie’s family). There is the problem of photographs they can’t identify because there is nothing written on the back.
A photo of a holiday Connie had in Llandudno, with May (and Sheila). I read out signs in the photo “Stout in cask or bottle.” They had to come home because Sheila developed measles.
Then photographs of Frank’s wedding. [Was Alvar Lidel one of the guests?] Connie’s voice drops low sometimes so that you can’t easily hear what she is saying. [Unfortunately, I am not explicit enough about the content of each important photo so it would be difficult to identify a photo from our interaction]. “Frank was a Goodfellow.” Connie finds a letter from Auntie Gertie in the USA to her sister, Florence. I read aloud a little extract. I wonder what happened to that letter? I imagine it was thrown out. Excuse this awful writing… your loving sister, Gertie. They recall how their mother once voted Labour in an election, and ever afterwards, when things were going badly in the country, their father would say to her: “It’s your fault – you voted them in.”
They talk about Ray and May’s wedding (a topic covered in Deasington Tape 8) and then it goes on to Ray’s wounding in the war. How Ted walked miles across the desert to find him. This part of the recording is rather good. C describes how May went berserk when she received the telegram. Connie went to stay with her. No news came through of whether he was alive or dead. Mother tells the story that at one point May suddenly said to them, “I know he’s going to be alright.”
Photos of Aunties Ada and Gertie, taken when Gertie came from the US to visit when she was 74 and stayed with Connie and Ted. “There was a party at our house.”
[This is a hard listen without the photos if you don’t know who is being referred to!] Auntie Ada said of Gertie, “She ought to have more sense, coming in wearing those frilly knickers!” (She was wearing American style ‘elastic top and bottom’.) And Gertie used to spend ages getting dressed and made up, whereas Ada was done and ready in five minutes.
Gertie had her 75th birthday in Sutton Coldfield.
I am struck by a photo of the children (Graham, Pam, Sheila, Monica, David, etc,) in the garden at 127 Green Lanes (see GALLERY).
Connie recalls how neat and tidy Bernard was and remembers an incident when she was in the breakfast room at Rotton Park Road their maid Clara came in carrying the dirty and mangled clothes that Bernard had been wearing when he was hit by the car and she Connie went hysterical. “She didn’t have any common sense”.
Fred in plus fours.
Henry used to wear them. Zillah: “He’d got them on when I met him.”
Connie’s suspicion that Flo Glover (Nana’s friend) was “sweet on Dad.” C reveals she had evidence of this – came into a room once and saw them kissing. But C says that their father was Insanely jealous when it came to Nana. They each give examples. She danced with Mr Forest and he went into a sulk. Zillah (laughing) says of her father that he kept her (Nana) “Poorly shod and permanently pregnant.”
Mother draws a parallel between them and the affection and regard that developed between Henry and Clare Pyatt (who lived with us at 43 Coleshill Street for nearly two years), which she admits she wasn’t too happy about. Towards the end she began taking over a bit, like Flo Glover did … “sitting in my chair saying ‘Get the cat in….’.” C says that Pop once said to her: “You don’t take orders from Flo Glover, take orders from your mother.”
I wonder at the tolerance of Pop and Nana having these other people living in their family home (or frequent visitors like Zelda and Rem). Zillah says that on the other hand their mother rather enjoyed the company, and “It suited him” because he liked to go out with his male friends and it eased his conscience to know Nana had companionship.
Laughter about the expression (Nana’s or Flo Glover’s?) “something that’s drawn breath” meaning meat (which she regarded as essential to a proper meal). Flo Glover was a Christian Scientist. Zillah reveals that when Frank was very ill with chorea (and not speaking) Nana got in a faith healer from Flo Glover’s church. Connie recalls her daughter Sheila, when she was terminally ill, being offered the chance of a spiritual healer and saying, “he’s not putting his hands on me!”
They’re frustrated that they can’t find a photo of Grandpa Goodfellow. [Since found, see GALLERY].
I’m trying to get Connie to explain why in one photo Nana (?) seems to be wearing a dirndl, but she’s got scones and sandwiches on her mind. It turns out to be a postcard from Nana to Aunt Ada in Bayton with a message from her daughter Rene.
Zillah remembers that their mother travelled to see her daughters, including to Betty in Whitley Bay.
Connie goes out of the room at this point.
Other pictures we look at are Nickie and Bernard, and one of Nana’s 80th birthday party. May, and Connie in a “daring dress.” Nana’s party was in the October (’63 presumably) and she died in December the following year. Zillah comments on a photo of herself looking very thin, a smoker, and with stomach troubles. “You’ve all got cigarettes going.” (Referring to their brothers, who were still alive then.) Zillah laughs at the hats she and her sisters are wearing.
This is a very sweet passage.
We’re looking at a photo of a wartime wedding – presumably Frank and Lisa’s.
“Lisa was very pretty … I don’t like Frank’s hair so short…” Pam is still a child then and grimacing at the camera. Zillah explains how the woman tied up their hair: “You couldn’t get any grips or anything metal during the war so we used to tie a piece of ribbon round our hair and turn our hair … and turn it round a band … d’you see?” The difficulty of getting new clothes then. A black market in clothes. And there were cheap mass-produced utility garments.
Jack on board his ship.
“Oh look at Frank – doesn’t he look handsome!”
I comment on a resemblance between Jack and her son (my brother) Anthony, and Zillah says that considering the difference in their ages it’s funny to think that they (Jack and Anthony) are quite good friends.
Connie arrives with a tray of tea things. And reduced sugar jam.
Zillah: “I’m not supposed to eat strawberry pips.”
I comment on a photo of my father (Henry) saying that I remember the tie he was wearing because when he died I inherited his ties – the only thing I did inherit.
“Doesn’t Mike look young.”
“Look at Ray, looking very sceptical.”
Connie’s husband Ted was 63 when he died, as the result of an aneurysm.
“Two pretty girls together there.”
The last words belong to Zillah. She is presumably looking at an envelope. “‘The lads …nothing in it! Who are the lads, I wonder? Who are the lads?”