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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Michael Parsons Interviewed by Dr Thomas Lean C1379/77 © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk This interview and transcript is accessible via http://sounds.bl.uk . © The British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB United Kingdom +44 (0)20 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/77 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s Parsons Title: Mr surname: Interviewee’s Michael Sex: Male forename: Occupation: Bridge designer, Date and place of birth: 16 October 1928, structural engineer. Bristol Mother’s occupation: Shopkeeper Father’s occupation: Plumber, maintenance engineer Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 11 June 2012 (tracks 1-3), 12 June 2012 (tracks 4-8), 24 July 2012 (tracks 9-11) 25 July 2012 (tracks 12- 14) Location of interview: Interviewee's home, Sidmouth Name of interviewer: Dr Thomas Lean Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 on secure digital Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48 kHz Total no. of tracks 14 Mono or stereo Stereo Total Duration: 11 hr. 16 min. 28 sec. (HH:MM:SS) Additional material: Photographs Copyright/Clearance: One section in track 10 [between 26:59–33:39] is closed for thirty years until November 2042; otherwise no restrictions. Copyright has been assigned to The British Library. Comments: Interviewee amendments and additions are included in square brackets in the text, or as footnotes. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Michael Parsons Page 1 C1379/77 Track 1 Track 1 Could you introduce yourself please Michael? Yes, well, my name is Michael Parsons and I’ve spent my life, my working life working in civil engineering. I [laughs] – I just don’t know how far you want me to go, you know. That’s – that’s fine actually. When were you born and where? Yes [coughs] well I was born on the 16 th of October 1928 and I was born in Bristol, I believe, in the Bristol Royal Infirmary. And at the time my parents lived in a small building in Stapleton Road, Bristol, which was a shop in the front and with living quarters at the rear of the shop. And I think it was two small bedrooms above the shop, and that’s where – well my parents had a – well I had a baby sister at the same – at that time. So there were just the four of us in that little – in that little house in Stapleton Road. Anybody that knows Bristol knows that Stapleton Road is the road that leads to the football ground, and we used to have trams, electric trams running past the front door, which could be rather noisy. But when we left there we rather missed the sounds of the trams. What sort of area was it? Well I wasn’t really conscious of it really because it was on the main road with the pavement leading to the – to the street. We didn’t really know the neighbours. There was a garage out the back and I do remember there was a wholesale fish seller in a little side street the other side of the main road. And I remember being sent over by my mother to get a bucket of plaice, I think it was nine pence or something. And they’d shovel up the fish from the stone floor and tip it in the bucket. Apart from that [coughs] I didn’t have many friends, well I didn’t have any friends there really because I used to walk to school, which was Eastern Junior School I think it was. It was about two or three miles. I used to go and walk there with my sister and I didn’t – I didn’t really know where anybody else lived, we just lived in our own little – little community, our little family rather. The only other people we visited were my © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Michael Parsons Page 2 C1379/77 Track 1 parents’ parents who lived in other parts of Bristol, which we could walk to, which we did sometimes at the weekend. Well [coughs] there weren’t weekends really because we had the shop and my parents had to keep the shop going. But we used to just have the Sunday off, where we would go and visit and some say enjoy ourselves. [03:26] Could you describe each of your parents to me in turn? Describe my parents to you? Hmm. [Coughs] Yes, well my mother was the daughter of a local hairdresser who had a shop up in Clifton, quite a smart part of Bristol. And my father, he was born quite close to where my mother was born but he – he was a – he was a plumber and quite a good plumber I think from what I could see. But as he got older he [coughs] he – a lot of plumbers work, I don’t know whether you know but plumbing you think of being indoor plumbing. Well in those days, I don’t know what it’s like now, but they spent quite a lot of their time doing the lead flashing on roofs to make them waterproof. And as – as he got older the work outside, working on roofs in the winter wasn’t really very sensible, so he managed to get a job working in the Bristol Eye Infirmary as the maintenance engineer. And I remember mum saying, ‘Oh they used to say down there, if anything’s wrong fetch Norris.’ And he would come out and sort out anything, whether it was a door handle that was stuck or taps that would leak or any – any other thing – anything in the hospital that needed doing. I imagine there must have been bigger jobs where he would have to call in outside help. But I used to – we used to go there at Christmas time because they used to have a concert for the hospital patients and the secretary of the hospital was a – was a conjurer and he used to put on a big show for – for everybody. And I remember my father took me down [coughs] to his workshop down in the basement of the hospital, which always struck me as a complete jungle. But he knew where everything was and it all worked very well. But while he was out – before he got this job and he was out plumbing my mother looked after the shop and the income from the shop came from selling and repairing © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Michael Parsons Page 3 C1379/77 Track 1 umbrellas. And they also sold cigarettes and cosmetics and I think she ran a little penny library or something where people would come in and borrow books and … but she would do that all day and then in the evening when the shop was shut she and – when Dad had finished work he would come home and help, and they would sit down repairing the umbrellas that had been brought in through the day. [Coughs] And I remember them telling me that if a frame was broken and it needed a new rib to the umbrella they could write a request and post it in the morning, and the next day they would have it delivered. But of course soon the bigger stores could sell umbrellas cheaper than they could repair them so it was all beginning to die and I knew they had a bit of a struggle. But just before the [coughs] just before the war, that was about 1936, with my mother already having two children, I think there was another one on the way, so they had to abandon the shop premises and move to a – a new semi- detached house up in Horfield. I imagine that they tried to sell the house and the – the shop but they couldn’t, so they rented it out to someone who took it on as a – I think he was selling second hand radios or something along that line. Anyway as far as we were concerned [coughs] I knew that my father used to have trouble getting the rent. He used to go down there … go on a regular basis to try and get the rent that was due. But anyway, when the war came – it’s rather cruel to say so, well it’s not cruel because no one was hurt, but it was their bit of good fortune that this shop was bombed and completely demolished with – nothing could be rescued. And at that time, or subsequently, there was a government scheme for compensating people who’d had bomb damage. So they got the – what was the old shop re-built and managed to sell it, presumably at a reasonable price, and it helped them to pay off the mortgage on the new house. So I think looking back that was probably the best bit of economic fortune that my family – well, that my parents experienced.

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