STREETLY,
STAFFORDSHIRE MEMORIES
(1936
- 1961)
A HOUSE IN MIDDLETON ROAD
(January
1943)
by Chris Myers
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A HOUSE IN
MIDDLETON ROAD, STREETLY
Saturday,
31st January 1943
It's a dull and chilly day. I'm
walking with Mum along
Middleton Road in
Streetly. I'm six-and-three-quarters. So I
don't hold her hand any more. Or not often,
anyway. Mum is 44 but she wouldn't like me
telling you that. We've just turned into
Middleton Road and
Foley Road and
All Saints
Church are right behind us. We are walking
along the pavement on the right-hand side.
It's one of the usual ways home for us,
after we have been to something
in the
Parish Hall on a Saturday afternoon.
If I look over to the left in
Middleton
Road there is a line of oldish houses on the
other side of the road. They all look much
the same as each other. I don't know who
lives there except for one person. That is
Heather Craik who is one of my elder
sister's best friends at
Sandwell School
in Blackwood
Road.
She is a nice, gentle girl who I like. She
isn't bossy. (This is a picture of her taken
five years ago with my sister at Sandwell, in 1938. She was
10 or 11 then. She's on the left).
I think that
Mr. Ralph who is
in the Home Guard with Dad possibly lives in
one of these houses as well. But I am not
sure. I'm not even sure that this is a
picture of Mr. Ralph either but it probably
is. He has a daughter named Pat who is older
than me.
It's all a bit different on our side
of the road. There are houses here as well.
But not so many and there are big gaps
between them which are fields and you can
see the farmland stretching right across and
down to the Chester Road and the big
hawthorn hedge which is there. These houses
are a bit bigger than the ones opposite and
have more garden around them.
As we
get near the end of
Middleton Road I know
that we will soon turn right into
Manor Road
which will eventually take us home, on to
the Chester Road. It's quite a long walk.
But before we get to the end of this road,
just before the corner into
Manor Road,
there's a long privet hedge. Behind it is a
large house. You can hardly see it although
there is a gap in the hedge so that you can
walk up to the front door. Not that I have
ever done that. I do know what this house
is, though. It's called
"The Greylands".
"The
Greylands" is the only house in
Middleton Road that I know anything at all about.
Quite often, in an evening, when I am about
to go to bed, Dad puts his head around the
living room door and says to Mum and my
sister and me "I'm just popping down to
The
Greylands. Shan't be too long". We all know
that he is off on Home Guard business and
he'll be in his Home Guard officer's uniform
which proves it. And off he goes. I've no
idea what he does there. Although I know a
bit of what he does on other evenings when
he's sometimes out nearly all night, and
every Sunday morning. It's not just
"The
Greylands" he goes to. I know that for
certain.
The Home Guard men, here in
Streetly, have two sorts of headquarters. Or
HQ as they call them. It's where they mainly
do whatever it is they have to do.
Dad has
something called a
Platoon HQ which is in a
rather smelly stable at
Little Aston Hall.
There are always men there at night. They've
been doing it for nearly three years. Every
night. They take it in turns to go there,
probably once or twice a week. Their job is
to keep an eye on everything which is going
on in the area. They climb up ladders in the
dark, up onto the roof of the Hall. Then
they watch out for German parachutists or
strange lights or just about anything which
doesn't look right. Sometimes they can hear
the bombers overhead and watch the flashes and
fires as Birmingham burns. Sometimes the
bombs come down much closer. Other men will be
doing patrols in the countryside, to check
up on things. They'll all come and go at the
HQ during the night, sometimes warming
themselves up by a coke stove, sometimes
having a couple of hours sleep. It depends
on what's going on. Then, when it gets
light, they'll gather up their things and
trudge off home, or even straight to work.
They are usually there on Sundays as
well. Learning drill and how to use a
bayonet and that sort of thing. I can
tell you quite a lot about all that. But
I had better keep to the subject.
"The Greylands" is a bit different
from the Little Aston HQ. If we
peer through the gap in the hedge, past the
gate, I can see
that it's bigger and grander than a stable -
or a scout hut or the back room of a pub.
They call this house
"Company HQ". I know a
quite a bit about what goes on at
Little Aston
Stables but
"The Greylands" is rather a
mystery to me.
I've told you that Dad
goes there a lot. I know that Graham, my
elder brother used to as well. That was
before he got called up, last June. There's
a picture here of him coming out of the
front door of "The Greylands". It was probably
taken a couple of years ago now, in the
winter of 1941 (which was a very cold one).
He was 18 then. He's written down one or two
things that he does at
"The Greylands" and I
have been trying to work them out. I suppose
I should have asked him about everything -
that would have been easier. But he's being
sent abroad now and I shan't see him again
for ages and ages.
What Graham has said is
that he has learned a lot of things at
"The
Greylands" which will be useful to him. (What
he actually says is that he has learned a
number of essential life skills. But that's
just the way that grown-ups use long-winded
ways of saying the same thing). One of the
things he has learned, he says, is how to
change a barrel. I can understand this. I
know that Home Guard men have to look after
their guns. I sometimes clean Dad's and
Graham's rifles. It is super when you have
used the pull-through a couple of times and
you look down the barrel and you can see how
clean and shiny you have made it. So I can
understand that sometimes things like that
have to be taken apart and bits replaced if
they have got broken.
But the other
thing he has learned, he has said, is how to
draw a pint. I can't yet work out what that
can possibly have to do with the Home Guard.
I'm still thinking about it. So far, there
is only one possible reason which I can
think of.
They must do art classes
there as well........ In that picture of
Graham coming out of
"The Greylands", I can't see his
sketchpad. But perhaps it's under his greatcoat.
We walk on past, without stopping. Past
the gate which we've seen my brother
approaching, two years ago. I'll show you a little bit of what goes
on inside the house. It's all I know,
really.
Here are a couple of pictures of some of the men
inside. I
don't know their names. And I don't know
what they are doing.
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It looks as though they
are playing Ludo, like I play at home. But I
bet it isn't that. It's something serious
and important and Ludo isn't that.
And here are some more pictures.
They were probably taken at the same
time.
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Crikey, is that the time? Dusk approaches and
we mustn't hang about. We'll leave the
men
inside to get on with whatever they are
doing. We walk on past the tall hedge as we
have done so many times before and
hurry on home. Once we're there, up go the
blackout frames, the curtains are drawn, the
wireless is switched on, and there's the
prospect of toast and dripping shortly. Around the fire, the four of us. Not my
brother though. He's waiting to be
sent to the docks at this moment. To
go up the gang-plank with his kitbag on his
shoulder and on to a troopship which will
take him to Burma or India or Africa or goodness knows where.
He might already have gone and is
now heading out into the Atlantic. We at
least, here on the
Chester Road, are warm
and cosy. And not in any danger. Unlike my
brother. I wonder if he is thinking
about us. Or about "The
Greylands" and all his friends
there. I suppose he has more
important things to worry about.
Eighty years
later.....
No memories,
images or facts relating the use of
"The Greylands" in 1940-1944 seem to
have survived, apart from those
appearing on this page.
There are two further references,
both transcribed below. One is a
memoir by a young man who was a
regular visitor there until 1942 and is part of the
Webmaster's Family Archive. The
other appears in a booklet published
in early 1945 entitled
"Home Guarding". The latter,
written by the Battalion C.O,
Lt.-Col.
C. Cartwright, M.C.,
commemorates the efforts of many
hundreds of local men, and a number
of women, to defend their homes and
community against a real and
terrifying threat.
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A memory
from
Vol./Pte. Graham Myers
(recalled in
2001)
".....Around this time (during the
winter of 1940/1941) the unit acquired the
use of a large residence which was standing
unoccupied. Known as
"The Greylands", this
was situated on a corner site between
Manor
Road and Middleton Road, Streetly, and was
taken over to provide a suitable Company
Headquarters. The evening training sessions
on weaponry, map-reading and other skills
were henceforth held here. A three-quarter
sized snooker table was obtained and set up
for recreational use. In another room a
well-stocked bar appeared, available for the
use of members and some of us – myself
included – took on the additional rota task
of bar-steward, which office entailed the
acquisition of useful new talents, such as
how to draw a pint and how to tap and change
a barrel.
Despite the leisure-time
attractions now on offer, the serious
business continued as before. Over the
months – and now years – the platoon had
evolved from a motley band of enthusiastic
but unskilled volunteers into a highly
trained, effectively infantry unit.
Numerical strength had been maintained,
sufficient new recruits having joined to
offset losses from the resignation of a few
less able-bodied elderly men and from the
ongoing effect of the call-up for regular
military service. My own turn came in June
1942; in the following October, whilst on
leave, I paid a visit to the old platoon and
gave a short talk at
 "The Greylands" on the
complexities of providing artillery support
in the field, with the help of my new-found
knowledge in that area. That was the last
occasion on which I was to meet them as a
serving unit....."
(Webmaster note:
The maitre d' at "The Greylands" was
almost certainly Corporal Perry
(right), a member of
the Little Aston platoon. Joe Perry lived on
the Chester Road and was described in a
contemporary photograph as "Mess Steward"
which must have related to "The Greylands". |
A tribute from Lt.-Col. Cartwright, M.C., C.O. of the
32nd Staffordshire (Aldridge) Battalion,
Home Guard of which
"B" Company and the
Streetly/Little Aston Home Guard
platoons were part (written in late 1944):
".....My
old friends at "The Greylands".
From
the beginning, "B" Company was stiff with
potential officers and N.C.Os. In fact, one
is tempted to call it the
Battalion O.C.T.U.
(Officer Cadet Training Unit) when one
remembers
 the number commissioned from "B"
and transferred to B.H.Q. and elsewhere. In
this way came about the migration of
Myers
(left),
Pitt, Thatcher, Moseley, Mills, Pepper,
Kendall, Chaplin, Murray, Fox, Dodd, and
Hooper. A
 fair number to lose from one
company, but I must say that
Athey and,
later, Yates always took the broader view
and never stood in the way of their
advancement, although they were losing such
good men. There are two more names to be
added to the list,
Naylor
(right) and
Farrow, who
transferred to the
H.A.A. Bty. R.A.
(Heavy
Anti-Aircraft Battery, Royal Artillery).
What a tower of strength
Athey was in
the early days! He was badly missed when he
found it necessary to retire from the Home
Guard in February 1942, but he left behind a
tradition - "All the help in our power" -
which has been more than maintained by
Yates
who succeeded him as Company Commander.
This glance at "B" would be incomplete
if it did not catch sight of
Ralph
(see above), that
lover of the
 Lewis
machine gun and devoted
Welsh Fusilier, and
John, the able and most
helpful Q.M., also of Richards, whose
official appointment was Intelligence
Officer, but whose heart and soul seemed to
be in Bombs and Bangs if one judges by the
very successful way he ran his "school" at
Mill Green, and
Carr
(left),
who did so much to
help with his cinematograph apparatus.
I cannot leave "B" Company without
mentioning those who transferred to the
H.A.A. Bty. I do not believe that any one of
them really wanted to go, but, like their
O.C., they also took the broader view and
did their appointed tasks...."
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"The
Greylands" survives in the 21st
century, unlike everyone in these
pictures; and the house happily retains
its name. Did the original owner return
after the Home Guard vacated it in 1945?
Why was it empty and available anyway?
Let's hope that generations of different
families who have lived in it have been
happy there over the last 80 years.
We'll say T.T.F.N.
("ta-ta-for-now", a 1940s catch-phrase)
to it as it looked in 2018. Recent
(2022) estate agent particulars and
images describe it as a lovely,
desirable home - and mention its
function as a venue for "Home Guard
parties". One would certainly agree with
the former. But, as for the latter,
well, even if there was ever a party,
there was certainly a bit more to it all
than that: for more than four years the
house, like its temporary occupants,
"did its bit".
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This family
and local history
page is hosted by
www.staffshomeguard.co.uk
(The Home Guard of Great Britain, 1940-1944)
Please see INDEX page for main acknowledgements.
(Grateful acknowledgement
is made to Kate Cutler for the Greylands and Ralph
images from her family collection.
These images
are © Kate Cutler 2023.
Acknowledgement is made, too, to the present
owners of this house, part of whose early
history is recorded here).
All text and images are,
unless otherwise stated, © The Myers Family 2023
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INDEX
Home Guard of
Great Britain
website |
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INDEX
Streetly and Family Memories
1936-1961
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L8V Jan 2023
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