Journeys and Resting Places
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Journeys and Resting Places John Adams Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved. The moral rights of the author and editors have been asserted. John Adams 1945 Contents Foreword . vii PART I: Growing Up in Northern England Preface...................................................................3 Chapter 1: Early Days . 5 Chapter 2: Play Days . 23 Chapter 3: Away Days . 41 Chapter 4: School Days . 57 Chapter 5: Work and War . 77 Chapter 6: Army Days. .95 PART II: Soldiering On in Southern India Preface . 117 Chapter 7: A Passage to India . 119 Chapter 8: Arrival at Arkonam . 143 Chapter 9: Posted to Poona . 167 Chapter 10: Back to Bombay . 191 Chapter 11: Dispatched to Delhi . 215 Chapter 12: Serendipitious Sightseeing . 237 Chapter 13: Journey’s End . 261 Foreword John Adams, known throughout his life as Jack, was born in 1920 and died in 2010. Growing up in Widnes and educated at Farnworth Church of England Primary School and Wade Deacon Grammar School, he secured employment at ICI where he stayed throughout his career, rising from Laboratory Assistant to Research Scientist. There he met Margaret, his wife of 67 years. A wartime romance and marriage in Frodsham in 1943 was followed by Army service in India from 1945-47, one of the seminal experiences of his life. Although ill-health marred his final years, it did provide time to convert his recollections of his early life in Widnes and memories of India into a series of folders interspersed with photographs and mementos. He initially declared that it was not his intention that these should be read by anyone other than himself: it was the process of recollection that was so energising, not its outcome. However on completion, he felt that the material he had produced might after all be of some interest to others. Thus in memory of his life and work, members of his family have collated his recollections and memories into book form. The words contained therein are substantially his, with only minor editorial amendment (in italic font). Sufficient material was amassed to form a volume of two parts gathered under the overarching title Journeys and Resting Places. Part I describes Growing Up in Northern England and covers the period 1920 to 1945, recording his early life in Widnes, his schooldays and his first employment, together with recollections of Home Guard service and Army training. Part II describes Soldiering On in Southern India, tracing his posting as a Lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals from 1945 to 1947. Dedicated to his memory, it is hoped that this volume not only captures the recollections and experiences but also the spirit of the man, and that it might, as he hoped, be of some wider interest as a story of his time. vii viii Part I Growing Up in Northern England Preface When I started this work, I was surprised at the way that vivid memories of the time were brought to life again, even after the passage of the years. I was encouraged by some thoughts of Harold Macmillan to reflect that: Those of us who have reached extreme old age become gradu- ally reconciled to increasing infirmities, mental and physical. The body develops, with each passing year, fresh weaknesses. Our legs no longer carry us; eyesight begins to fail, and hearing becomes feebler. Even with the mind, the process of thought seems largely to decrease in its power and its intensity; and if we are wise we come to accept these frailties and develop, like all invalids, our own particular skills in avoiding or minimising them. But there is one aspect of the mind which seems to operate in a peculiar fashion. While memory becomes gradually weaker in respect of recent happenings and even of the leading events of middle age, yet it appears to become increasingly strong as regards the years of childhood and youth. It is as if new entries played into an ageing computer become gradually less effective while the original stores remain as strong as ever. This phenomenon has the result that as the memory of so many much more important matters begins to fade; those of many years ago become sharper than before. The recent writings on the tablets of the mind grow quickly weak as if made by a light brush or soft pencil. Those of the earliest years become more and more deeply etched. The pictures which they recall are as fresh as ever. Indeed they seem to strengthen with each passing year. When I started to write, it was not my intention that this would be read by anyone but I later thought it might be of some interest as a story of my times. Jack Adams, August 1999 3 4 Chapter 1 Early Days I was born at No.41 Witt Road, Widnes, and according to my Mother, weighed 10 and a half pounds at birth. (I am unable to confirm this statement.) My Grandmother registered the birth. I cannot imagine how so many people lived in this small house at this time as my Father had five brothers of whom he was the oldest. Witt Road was one of the many streets of terraced houses built in the 19th Century to house the influx of workers needed for the growing chemical industry. The houses were of basic construction and usually had two rooms downstairs and two upstairs, together with a small kitchen at the rear and an outside lavatory in a small, tiled, back yard. There could also be a wash-house built on to the end of the kitchen. The houses were rented, often on a short term basis, from the Landlord who owned them. My Grandad and Grandma Adams lived in such a house in Witt Road and my parents must have been living with them since their marriage in 1919, after my Father was released from the Army, or “disem- bodied” as his discharge papers declared. At this time he was employed as a “Sampler” in a chemical works laboratory although on his marriage certificate of the previous year his profession was given as “Platiniser”. Before the War he had worked at the Golding Davies Works of the United Alkali Company and is shown on a photograph of workers taken in 1906 when he was 14 years old. The Golding Davies and Mathieson Works were amal- gamated as Marsh Works in 1915 and after the War he worked there for the remainder of his life, except for a short period towards the end of 1929, when he spent some time at the Ardeer works of Nobel Division (I.C.I. Explosives). In the more skilled occupation of “Platiniser” he had been given a period of temporary release from the Army in August 1916 until he was recalled in April 5 1918 with the rank of Sergeant. (Before 1914, the Lead Chamber process was still the only method of sulphuric acid production in this country, but on the outbreak of war there was a sudden increased demand for strong acid for the manufacture of explosives. This demand could only be met by the improved Contact Process for acid manufacture and this required a suitable catalyst, the best one being platinised asbestos. This development had clearly led to a desperate need for skilled platinisers). However, he was subsequently recalled to the Army in April 1918 and given the rank of Sergeant, which he held until his discharge in 1919. One of my Father’s stories that I recall concerned a tin of sausages that he had brought back from France during the War for his Mother. She had heated this incautiously in a pan causing an explosion that plastered sausage over the kitchen ceiling! When I was 16 months old we must still have been living in Witt Road as there is a photograph of me wearing a lacy frock, and others where I was wearing some kind of overalls, taken in the backyard of this house. My Father had bought a Vest-Pocket Kodak camera and I suppose these were his first photographs. It was said that at this time I had shown some physical aggres- sion towards a neighbouring boy, Freddie Whitfield, but I have no recollection of this incident in which a hammer was said to have been used, but it was related to me by my parents in later years. Around about 1920, Widnes Corporation started to build houses for the growing population after the War; one of these developments was the Fair- field Housing Estate that was built on fields lying between Victoria Park and Peelhouse Lane. The road on the east side of the Park and the west side of the housing estate was called Fairfield Road and it was to No.92 Fairfield Road that my parents and I moved into a newly built Council House. This must have been by May 1922 as an old photograph shows me there, sitting on a wooden horse that I can still remember. It was made by my Grandfather Hinde, whose hobby was carpentry, and was covered with a skin of Army khaki uniform cloth and sported a fine horsehair tail. I also was wearing a natty sailor-suit at this time, having presumably grown out of the frocks I had previously been dressed in. It is significant to record that my Grandma and Grandad Adams had also moved at this time from Witt Road and rented a similar house in Belvoir Road, always referred to by us as “Bell - Voyer Road”, and only a short walk from our Fairfield Road house so we often visited each other in later years.