Miles and Miles
My name is Ron.
Lil, my beloved Mother was one of nine children. This attempt to record my memories of
those nine (The Miles family) is not perfect due to the fact that I`ve not
written anything for years (and then it was a technical proposal for some
obscure aircraft component.) Also my memory is not what it once was, so some
memorabilia have errors
and some are missing altogether.
The reason for writing anything at all is perhaps best
explained by the dictionary definition,
MEMORABILIA Things
worth remembering,
noteworthy
points, objects
associated
with a person or event,
by
which the memory of that
person
or event is kept alive.
You would have to know these people to understand how they
overcame the hardships and heartbreaks suffered by them as they grew up.
Most people reading this are likely to be descendants of, or
closely connected to the Miles family and therefore know the love they had for
each other, and just how special they were.
FRANK
When in Belvedere we moved to Bedonwell Hill
(shortly to be renamed Nuxley Road), I was about 4 (not yet at school). Frank, Maud and Jean lived a couple of
hundred yards away in Harold Avenue, just off Barnfield Road.
My earliest memory of Frank was him smoking
Woodbines, quietly talking to Lil about old times.
One Christmas Eve, Jean, Ken and I shared one
bed in Nuxley Road. Frank, who
liked a pint or two, was in charge of our Christmas stockings. We woke to socks full of apples, lumps
of coal and a couple of pennies.
Jean (lucky devil) got a packet of Symington’s gravy granules. “I love this” she said, licking it from
her wet finger.
I`m pretty sure we got no other presents, but
looking back I can`t remember feeling deprived except there was only one packet
of gravy power.
Frank had a broken nose. This was said to have been caused when
he was a teenager, sledging in Franks Park on a slope with an oak tree hazard
half way down.
He had a small neat moustache and always
looked smart and often wore a suit and tie. Maud probably had some influence on his being dapper, as she
was very house-proud and everything was kept extremely tidy.
Frank and Jim were at our house on the first
occasion that V1`s (Doodlebugs) were used against London.
Lots of them came across Belvedere as we all
dived into the Anderson Shelter in the back garden. Frank said “There`s a hundred flying bombs, all controlled
by one pilot”. The very next day,
The Daily Herald, had a headline saying the very same thing.
Another time, in the same air-raid shelter,
Jim jumped out and put a bucketful of earth onto an incendiary bomb which had
landed in next door`s garden.
Frank`s sense of humour was similar to
Harry`s. Whilst he took the mickey
out of us kids, somehow you knew it was all in fun.
PERCE
Perce was very quiet, never seemed ruffled and
was a very gentle person.
In the early days, he, Doll, Janet and Mrs
Byham (Doll`s mum) lived in Roberts Road, off Brook Street.
Perce worked at Callenders Cables in the
Machine Shop. I guess it wasn`t
highly paid as Doll sometimes borrowed ten bob from Lil (and from me when I was
an apprentice). By modern day
standards they led a simple life.
A meal out was fish and chips from the Village.
Perce was an accomplished DIY man. He did Lil`s (and others) painting and
wall papering, never accepting any form of payment.
Frank, Perce, Albert, Jim and Ron Stringer had
reserved jobs during the war and were not called up. Those who did join the Army, Vic, Harry, Fred Day and my Dad
were away for years on end.
In my mind`s eye, I see Perce in a bib and
brace type overall working in the garden or at DIY. He had swept back hair with a silver strip down the middle.
Sometime in the early 1950`s we had terrible
flooding in Erith and Lower
Belvedere.
as an apprentice at Frasers, I and all able bodied lads were
press-ganged into helping with the floods.
We were transported to Callenders, where I saw
Perce in a rowing boat, paddling from one end of the machine shop to the
other. With him in the boat was an
inspector of some sort and they were trying to locate a drain cover somewhere
in the central walkway. The water
was about three feet deep and very murky.
A few of us Fraser’s apprentices were in another boat, awaiting
instructions.
Perce told the inspector “I think it`s about
here”. The man had thigh high
waders, and decided he would get out and “inspect”. Unfortunately for him, the drain cover had been washed away
and Perce was deadly accurate. As
he slipped over the side, he completely disappeared – straight down the drain.
Perce managed to pull him out without
capsizing the boat. The occupants
of the second boat got a rollicking from Perce for laughing too much. How he kept a straight face himself I
don`t know.
To illustrate how bad the floods were, a gang
of us lads filled sandbags all day and put them into a huge Thames barge. This was at the West Street end of the
Riverside in Erith. When the barge
was full, someone knocked out a bung and the barge, loaded with hundreds of sandbags
slowly sunk, this becoming a pseudo sea wall.
Next morning it had gone, sucked out into deep
water by the Thames floodtides.
Later in life, Perce and Doll moved into
Rutland Gate, becoming very welcome neighbours to Lil.
IVY
Everyone reading this is likely to know that
Ivy became “Mother” of the Miles family after their real mum`s death.
Lil`s opinion (no doubt shared by all the
Miles) was that no person on earth could have done a better job.
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| Aunt Ivy |
We lived only a few yards from Myrtle Cottage
in Little Grosvenor Road. I`m not
sure where everyone slept. The house looked large (compared to Nuxley Road) but
filled with unmarried Miles, plus Ivy`s own family which included Fred Day`s
parents, it must have been a tight squeeze. Not that this was apparent in Ivy`s demeanour. She always welcomed visitors such as
Ken and I, and often made us feel important by giving us tasks (shelling peas
was my personal favourite).
Fred Day added to the happy atmosphere, being
so obviously content with his lot.
I don`t suppose that Ivy would be allowed to
take on such a responsibility today.
I`m not sure how old she was when she became responsible for the welfare
of her brothers and sisters. She
had been in service as a cook since leaving school, so at least the family had
good food. Frank and Perce were at
work and were able to contribute cash to help Ivy`s huge task. Lil was in service as a maid, my dad
being the chauffeur. The wages
were minimal but Lil gave Ivy half a crown a week, except, as Lil said, the
weeks when she didn`t have half a crown.
I remember being in Myrtle Cottage when Ivy
was teaching Pat and Pam how to cook pastry. She made the finest pastry in Belvedere and loved to share
it.
As the remaining family got married and moved
to their own homes, Ivy`s house was often the place where everyone met up at
Christmas and such occasions.
LIL
My Mum was beautiful. Not just in appearance, but in her love
and loyalty to her family.
The older members of the Miles family told me
how, as a teenager, she had numerous boyfriends, most of whom lasted about a
month.
Ken was her “baby” and was somewhat sickly as
a child. By comparison I was
extremely fit. So I was allowed to
spend my youth in Lesness and Bostall Woods, climbing any tree that was
climbable and some that weren`t. Lil worried more about Ken and always wanted
to know what he`d been up to.
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| Ron's mum, Lil |
Once, during an air-raid by a Stuka dive
bomber (one bomb landed at the bottom of Dryhill Road, 50 yards from 101 Nuxley
Road), Ken and I were shooting it down with our toy guns whilst standing on top
of the Anderson Shelter in the back garden.
Lil and Nell were out shopping. During the raid they had taken shelter under a horse-drawn
milk float opposite 101. The
milkman had turned the horse round in the shafts to stop it bolting. When Lil found out what her idiot kids
had been doing, we were both given a substantial hiding. It would have been worse if Nell hadn`t
pleaded insanity on our behalf.
We were too young during the war to appreciate
the effect on Lil to have Dad away for years on end. We were made aware that money was very tight. The pay for a Private was 28 shillings
a week, from 1939 to 1945. Dad
must have kept something for beer and fags, so Lil had what was left.
For a year or so Uncle Will stayed with us.
(Cousin Fred`s father). He was a
retired undertaker and presumably paid Lil some rent. Cousin Fred was supposed to be a bit simple. Lil used to say he was as simple as a
cunning fox.
Sometimes, if we`d all been out, we`d find, on
our return, Fred sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, smoking one of Lil`s
cigarettes. Somehow Lil would make
him welcome, but, under her breath, muttering about tea coupons.
We also looked after a little girl for a
couple of months during the war.
She was about 4 or 5 years old and her mother was in hospital having
surgery on a brain tumour.
When she came out of hospital with her head
shaved, she offered Lil some payment for looking after her child. Lil wouldn`t take anything, saying
anyone would have done it. Any one
of the Miles perhaps.
Lil smoked, in common with the majority of the
Miles family, and was never able to quit.
If the shortages during the war had continued she might have had more
success. I was sent out to get 10
Weights most days but often came back with “best substitutes”. Her pet hate was “Turf”, but she still
smoked them. Sometimes tea leaves
were dried out and rolled up. This
was mainly in the company of Doll when they were strapped for cash. Their main complaint was that these “cigarettes”
wouldn`t stay alight.
Lil had an arthritic hip. She never had it done, using
painkillers and Mogodon to make it bearable. Makes you wonder how her mum coped. Lil told me that her mum`s left leg was
one inch shorter than her right.
Lil`s was only half an inch shorter, as was mine before my first hip
replacement.
Vic
Think Vic, think
soldier.
However, Vic was a caring, gentle man, devoted
to Vi. It is strange that I still
see in my mind`s eye, the photo of Vic in army uniform with a picture of Vi, as
if in a cloud, just above his head.
Barry, Vi`s younger brother, was my best mate
during our teenage years. (Details of this time of our life have been
censored).
Before Vic and Vi moved to Cheshurst Road in
Belvedere, they lived near St. Nicolas Church at Plumstead Corner. Just shows how times have changed, they
were thought to live in a distant place.
Shortly after they moved back to Belvedere, they had Barry as a
lodger. Because of this I spent a
lot of time in their house and was, so far as I could tell, most welcome. I think Vic had an especially soft spot
for Lil.
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| Vic during WW11 |
Vi was naturally friendly. She always thought I was too thin and
therefore needed something to eat. Vic turned up at Myrtle Cottage after
Dunkirk. He was wearing a pair of
boots taken from a German soldier and needed a bath and shave. He was also carrying some bacteria
which got transferred to some of us kids.
I was sent home from school with scabies. (There`s always a bright side.)
After the war Vic had a job as a coach
painter. He had access to
cellulose paint, which he used to paint up my old bike (10 bob from the Junk
shop in Nuxley Road), and made it look like new.
Sometime later they moved to Basildon New
Town, as it was then called. Barry
and I sometimes cycled there for a weekend. This was before the Dartford Tunnel, so we had to use
Woolwich Ferry or the pedestrian tunnel underneath it.
One weekend Vic and Mr Cole (Vi & Barry`s
Dad) went out for a drink. Well
after closing time, Vi and her mum started to get worried when their spouses
didn`t return home. A search party
(Barry and I) was sent out to explore the then country lanes between Whitmore
Way and the pub. The two comatose
drinkers and their cycles were found in a ditch bordering one of the lanes. Vic was medium size but Mr Cole was
certainly well above average, so we had quite a job pulling them out. (Then quite a job to resist their
trying to cycle home).
ALBERT
Albert was a quiet man, dark eyes and dark
complexion. I`ve been told that in
his youth he was the Belvedere Valentino.
Despite being generally taciturn, you`ll see from some of the following
episodes that he could be exciting company.
I had `learnt` to swim when I was 11 or 12
(see Jim). I must have been at
Frasers when, somehow, I became entangled with Albert`s bet that he could swim
the Thames, from Erith to the other side.
Where Albert was working I`m not certain but it may have been at Fords
in Dagenham. A small workman`s
ferry went daily from the Riverside in Erith to Fords. Albert had told a workmate that if the
ferry didn`t run, he could swim it.
The workmate thought this so unlikely that he was prepared to wager a
pound that it couldn`t be done.
When I (who was naturally big-headed) heard of
this, I said it would be a piece of cake.
Albert agreed, telling me quietly that he`d done it before.
To cut a long story short, an umpire was lent
a rowing boat and a lantern (the only sensible part of the episode). He had to ensure that we reached the
other side. Which, ultimately, we
did, but it was not a piece of cake for me. I had great difficulty keeping up with Albert who swam like
a fish.
Albert insisted that nobody was to be told about
this event, especially Lil and Ivy.
Sounds familiar? – See Jim/swimming.
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| The Miles family: from left, Nell, Vic, Lil, Albert, Perce, Ivy, Frank, Harry, Jim |
At my 21st Birthday Party, held in
the Masonic Hall, there was apparently sufficient beer. Albert had enough to, on the way home,
climb a lamp-post at the junction of Erith Road and Brook Street. He was as good a climber as he was a
swimmer. However, at the very top
the effect of the beer reduced to the point where he became concerned about
getting down. I`m not sure who
helped him, if anyone was capable.
I saw various brothers laughing and joking with him as I staggered
homewards.
(Jimmy:
I was present as Albert did this after a party at the Masonic Hall, but if it
was Ron’s 21st birthday I would only have been 4 or 5. I do remember
the drama though. Albert’s wife Joan lost her temper while Albert was up the
lamp because his smart suit had become green in places from the lamp’s paint
that she claimed was still wet. There is another memory of the end of a party.
We were taken back to Brook Street late at night. I think it was from a Co-op
hall from near Welling. The coach stopped at the bottom of the valley to let
off Pam and Bill and Pat and George – Ivy’s two daughters and their husbands
who all lived in Riverside Road. George never quite got on with Bill and a
punch-up started just outside the coach. Ron Stringer and my dad separated the
pissed two young guys.)
About this time, Albert had joined as a fitter
in M5 1.
Most of the Frasers products were designed and
manufactured in house, but Albert was given the job of building and testing a
huge diesel engine. This engine
had about 20 cylinders and was 20 feet long, 10 feet wide and 10 feet
high. A real monster! The components came from (I think)
Switzerland in hundreds of separate crates and the multitude of detail and
assembly drawings came in large wooden chests of drawers.
As luck would have it, we in the D.O. were
just learning to use American (Third Angle Projection) instead of English
(First Angle Projection). The
Swiss drawings were all done in American Projection and were the first such
drawings that Albert had seen.
Without going into technical details, if you didn`t understand the
difference (and constantly keep it in mind) you were stymied and certainly
couldn`t build Albert`s engine. My
boss gave me a few days to explain the drawings to Albert. He picked it up quicker than some of
the draughtsmen, helped by my grudging acceptance that American Projection was
much more logical than English.
After building and successfully testing the
monster, Albert was then requested to strip it down, relocate all the parts and
himself to China, where he had to build and test it all over again.
Sometime after he came back, he transferred to
M5 2, the Turbine Shop, which was the area I worked in. We spent quite a lot of time dealing
with minor problems on turbines.
He never moaned, even if the problem was caused by a drawing error, so I
guess he was grateful for the teach-in.
(I
[Jimmy] bought Albert’s motorbike in 1966. I used to go to his house and in the
shed paint this 325cc Panther with a twin two-stroke Villiers engine. Making it
black and white all over made it look unusual, not very superb, but unusual. I
rode this Panther to school each day and on one holiday with someone called
Terry Gordon, I went to Scotland, Wales and Polzeath in Cornwall. On another
holiday I took a girlfriend down to Polzeath and only had one minor accident.
The Panther was not a great road holder, especially on bends.
Albert frequently won some money at the
Social Club in Nuxley Road which earned him the title Golden Balls. He was
famous for his money winning and his care with spending any of it. For all of
that I enjoyed his company and his impressive looks. Some of the apparent
Spanish blood in the Miles’ veins was obvious mostly in Perce and Albert.
Albert looked like a cross between Valentino and George Raft.)
HARRY
Unlike some of the other Miles family, Harry
was not a quiet person. I don`t have
to think about him very long before I remember his wicked sense of humour.
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| Ron Cassidy and Edie's tall grandson |
As a teenager I had a number of girlfriends, some of whom
lived in Belvedere. Whenever
I was with a girl and saw Harry in the village, my heart sank.
With a cheerful smile he`d say, (or shout if
you were on the other side of the street trying to avoid him) “Hello Ron, Hello
Brenda”. How he knew to always
deliberately get the girl`s name wrong I`ll never know. What a bugger! Although this sometimes caused a minor
problem, most of the young ladies liked Harry because he was always cheerful.
If I took him to task at a later date, Harry
would plead innocence. But as
Barry Cole could testify, we knew the truth.
Later on, when I played football for Abbey
Wood, Harry would sometimes be one of a dozen or so supporters. He would offer praise and criticism with
the same cherry smile, even if he said “You were useless”.
Harry was very fond of Lil and often did odd
jobs around the house. His payment
was always a cup of tea.
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| Harry (left) holding up his daughter, Linda and Ron with his son Roger |
I think it was Nell and Ron`s Golden Wedding
party at Hayley House when I was sitting chatting to Harry. He suddenly became very serious and
said “Some of us have been very lucky to have been blessed with a beautiful
marriage”. Harry was proud of Edie
and the fact that she and her sisters had a relationship which was as close as
the Miles`s.
When, somehow or other, I passed the entry
exam for the Technical College, Jim said that if any of the Miles had had the
opportunity, Harry would have been the one who would have sailed through. I`d only been at the Tech for a couple
of weeks when I knew that I wanted to be a Draughtsman. All of the Miles brothers were pleased
saying “Now, that is a really good job”. They were right. I did progress a bit to become a design
engineer and to Harry`s delight had some components, on the Concorde. That aircraft was one of Harry`s loves,
and he was over the moon to have had a flight on it.
Unlike my Dad, who rarely, if ever, would talk
about his time in the army, Harry liked to recall his army days. He also wanted to hear my stories about
National Service in Kenya. For all
the counting the days when you are in the mob, it is very common to look back
on them as good times.
(Jimmy: Uncle
Harry was someone who visited us in Elmhurst, it seemed, every Saturday morning
on his moped. I think it was made in Holland and was admired for a rubber drive
chain. He was often dressed in his camel-coloured canvas mackintosh, a peaked
cap and RAF goggles. He would stay standing up in the kitchen, drink tea and
always have a chat with my dad and mum about bowel habits and then punctuate
the odd sentence with a fart or two. I was always embarrassed by this whether
demonstrated by Harry, my parents or the entire Miles family as it seemed. At
the end of the conversations and wind releases Harry would give me a shilling
that greatly pleased me. A shilling a week was appreciated by most kids.)
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| Left to right: Ivy, Vi, Nell, Edie and Pat |
NELL
I can`t think of Nell without remembering her
as a teenager. In fact, she seemed
always to be young at heart. I
rang her once when she was about my age now. I asked whether or not she still had teen-aged dreams. “Of course”, was the reply?
During the war we lived in Nuxley Road, Nell
lived with Ivy in Myrtle Cottage in Little Grosvenor Road. For some reason no-one used the front
door to Myrtle Cottage. You went
down a narrow, unlit alley between two houses, up some steps into the back
garden and in through the back door.
When Nell visited us, I was given the job of bodyguard when she walked
home. I was a skinny 6 or 7 year
old, about 10 feet tall.
I won`t repeat the Stuka dive-bomber episode
(Lil) except to say that the Luftwaffe pilot was lucky to survive because I
only had a cap-gun pistol and Ken had a rifle which shot only corks. Plus the cork was attached to the
barrel with a piece of string to save him looking for it every time he fired
it!
Nell recalled this incident clearly when
Sheila and I visited her at the old folk’s home in Faversham about 67 years
later. Even to the fact that she
had saved us from the worst of Lil`s wrath.
As with all the rest of the family, one was
always made welcome if you turned up unannounced at Nell`s. Whilst putting on the kettle, she would
invariably ask what sort of meal did you want.
Lil told me the story that, shortly after the
war, she, Nell and Roger were shopping in the village. Passing the green-grocers, Roger
pointed at a large brown object, asking “What`s that?” When he was told, he turned to Nell and
said passionately, “My hair`s not like a coconut”.
(Jimmy: Nell
was admired for her cooking, especially her Cornish pies made with corned beef
and onions for parties and for Christmas when most of the Miles families got
magnetised together. The women of a certain age had a comical example they
would demonstrate at Christmas parties. Nell, Vi, Edie and Renee were all
totally confident and incapable of genuine shyness, though did pretend to be
shy at times. The Christmas of 1968 at Nell and Ron’s flat was typical of what
they might do. They stripped to their bras, knickers, stockings and shoes removed
their dentures, danced in time with kicks and swings as well as pull gummy faces.)
JIM
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| Jim about 20 years old |
Jim was the youngest of the nine and therefore
closest in age to us children.
We looked forward to Jim baby-sitting for Lil
when he was about 14. It was the
only time we existed without strict rules applying, even though Lil would tell
him what we should and shouldn`t do.
When we were evacuated to Ramsbottom, we
stayed initially with Rene`s sister in a tiny terraced house in King Street. The houses didn`t have toilets of their
own. About 6 toilets served the
whole street and were situated in a block halfway down the terrace. It was similar to using a public loo
without having to pay a penny.
After a while Lil, Ken and I moved out to Renee`s
sister-in-law`s house, a mansion by comparison. It was a semi-detached residence with indoor toilet and
bathroom. Jim would walk the mile
and a half to visit us (and to use the toilet).
I was about 11 or 12 when Jim agreed to take
me swimming for the first time ever.
He and his mate (Ron Stringer) were careful to explain that Plumstead
Baths were 3 feet deep at one end, and 9 feet at the other. What they didn`t explain was the effect
of refraction (or is it parallax) where one looks down into 9 feet of water and
it looks like 3 feet. (Mind you,
one has also to ignore the diving boards at the deep end). Anyway, I was quickest out of the
cubicle and jumped immediately into the deep end. Next, I surfaced and knew instantly that my feet couldn`t touch
bottom. For some reason I decided
to get out on the other side of the pool, perhaps because I didn`t know how to
turn round. I was about halfway
when Jim and Ron (both excellent swimmers) dived in and came up, one each side
of me. Ron, who was always pretty
laid back, said “I thought you couldn`t swim”. Anyway, I splashed and struggled to the other side and held
onto the rail, puffed out but over the moon.
With tuition from them both, that day I swam a
length without stopping and have been a half decent swimmer ever since. (See
Albert), I don`t think Ron was at all worried, but I had to swear to Jim that I
wouldn`t tell anyone, especially Lil.
I had to invent a “Learning to swim” episode when I went to the same
baths on a school trip a few months later.
