Miles family about 1945

Miles family about 1945
The nine brothers and sisters of the wonderful and amazing Miles family. Nell, Vic, Lil, Albert, Perce, Ivy, Frank, Harry and Jim.

Monday 20 May 2013

Written by my cousin Ron Cassidy


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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)

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
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.








Jim Miles (senior)

Jim Miles (senior)
Jim at a hops camp in Kent – something enjoyed by quite a few of the family. Jim, physically speaking, apart from picking hops, was keen on amateur boxing, Greek wrestling and gymnastics. His shapely muscles reveal his strength in this photo. I saw him lift himself from the ground to the flat, concrete roof of a shed, for example, using one arm. We were both keen on fun boxing when I was about 11 years old. He let me find his body with my boxing gloves – there was not much pain or bruising in this for him. The other things we played were badminton over the washing line and darts on a target hung on the shed door. Mum was quite good at that too.

The Miles families on holiday

The Miles families on holiday
Rene, Edie her daughter Linda in Warner Bothers.

Miles brothers

Miles brothers
In the garden of the prefab we lived in showing Nissen huts. Back left to right:Ron's dad, Ivy's husband Fred, Ron the husband of Nell, Ernie, Jack, Jim, Front: Harry, Perce, Vic, (?)

Miles and Miles

Miles and Miles
Aunt Vi, my mum Rene and aunty Nell

Short Harry, tall Ron

Short Harry, tall Ron
Harry with his daughter Linda and Ron (husband of Nell) with his son, Roger.

Lil

Lil
A lovely and kind lady and Ron Cassidy's mum