My Father - Peter Richard Boyd Roberts

Dad was born on the 2nd May 1917 at "Baulby", Busheywood Road, Totley Rise, Dore, Derbyshire. (Dore is now within the boundaries of the City of Sheffield and therefore in Yorkshire). This was the home of his parents, Stanley Boyd Roberts (Solicitor) and Edith Haywood Roberts, formerly Hoyland. (I believe it was after my brother John was born in 1946 that Dad and Mum moved out of her mother's house at 58 Wordsworth Drive to live in a house on Busheywood Road. Possibly the same house where Dad was born? And Busheywood Road is also the address where Dad's mother Edith lived at the age of 19 with her parents Charles Haywood Hoyland and Louisa Maria Hoyland, formerly Brooks.)

He had three brothers: John Haywood Boyd Roberts born 1915, Arthur Wynne Boyd Roberts born 1916 and James Brian Boyd Roberts born 1923. The photo below is of John, Dad and Arthur.

Dad also had another brother: David Littlewood Boyd Roberts born in 1918. He died in infancy in 1923 of the dreaded Spanish Flue. He is buried in the churchyard of Dore Parish Church (Christ Church) alongside Dad's father Stanley, where the monument has the inscription reads "For Of Such Is The Kingdom Of Heaven".

At some time Dad's family lived at "Redmires". The name comes from a number of huge reservoirs in the hills of the Peak District outside Sheffield in Derbyshire. I can vaguely remember Dad referring to the photograph where his father is sitting in a motor car outside the house.

By the time Dad went to school (around 1924), his family had moved to 88 Ashdell Road in Sheffield. We know this because he attended Westbourne Park Preparatory School at 50 Westbourne Road which is in walking distance. Here he became head boy and,in recognition of this role, he was presented with three books by Robert Louis Stevenson including Treasure Island.

The photograph above is of John, Gran, James, Dad and Arthur.

It is unclear whether Dad attended any senior school. We know that his family had money problems and unable to pay school fees for private school. His mother refused to send him to state school and he was therefore educated at home by tutors. He obviously learnt Latin as for years he could recite some of what he learnt.

He joined the Sheffield Repertory Theatre as a boy actor and appeared in a number of productions, including "The Marriage of Columbine" in 1928.

There are also photographs of plays when he must have been seven or eight years old.

Dad must have been attached to the theatre for a number of years as when he was thirteen, he appeared in the 1930/31 production of Sing a Song of Christmas. He must have made an impression, as he was presented with The Works of William Shakespeare signed by 30 members of the company.

Dad's eldest brother John may have gone to private school, and he did go to theological college in Oxford. John was very close to his grandfather Vincent Littlewood Roberts. Vincent could not stand Edith, John and Dad's mother. So John and Vincent had to meet in secret. Vincent may have provided the funds for John to go to college.

My Auntie Mollie (John's wife) recalls that Dad was very gregarious when he was a young man, always amongst friends.

But there were no funds to send Arthur and Dad to university, and they both had to seek employment at the end of their education. Their father Stanley, a solicitor, had become insolvent in 1932 when Dad was fifteen. Arthur was found a job in a high class shoe shop and Dad went to work for Arthur Davy and sons, pork butchers and general grocers. They had shops, with restaurants attached, in Sheffield, Leeds and Rotherham. They had their own pig farms, and also specialised in their own coffee and tea blending. Dad was probably trained at the shop in Fargate, Sheffield.

An extract from http://www.sheffieldonthenet.co.uk/ says "High up on the wall above the WH Smith store in Fargate can be found four carved heads of pigs and cows. They have no connection with the present store but relate to a previous occupier of the building. One Arthur Davy and Sons Ltd, who were pork butchers and general grocers. The upper floor was once Davy's Restaurant, which was very popular with city shoppers".

During this time, Dad's father Stanley must have had some employment. His death certificate indicates that is occupation at the time of his death was "Steelworks Clerk". However, Stanley's great love was music, and there is a posting on this blog about Stanley's obituary. Dad was there when Stanley died on 12th January 1937 at home at 88 Ashdell Road. Dad was nineteen years old.

Dad was back on the stage in 1936. He appeared in the Hallamshire Arts Club production of "Richard of Bordeux", and two years later in the West End Stage Club's "Girl in Question". The photograph below could well be from this play.

His employment at Arthur Davy and Sons came to an abrupt end when he enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. His trade took him to The Royal Army Service Corp. As Dad would say, this was as comfortable a place as there was in wartime, even if his postings were overseas.

We know he was in Egypt in 1939. He is mentioned in a letter from his grandfather, Vincent, to another grandson, Basil Buchanan, dated 4th February 1940: "........... the third grandson went out to Egypt two and half months ago. He is in the Army Service Corps. I had a letter from him the other day and he is quite happy".

I guess the happiness did not last, as Dad contracted malaria, asthma or a disease caused by the heat. He had to be shipped home, but had to wait in various places for the first boat going west. This is how he came to be marooned in South Africa. Apparently he had to wait some time for a boat, but enjoyed his time there immensely, being well looked after by the locals.

Back in England, the army was desperate to find more officers. I do not believe that dad sought a commission (he was quite happy as a Private or Corporal in the RASC) but his background made him an ideal candidate. He always said (according to my brother Paul) that it was because he knew how to hold a knife and fork properly, and that his class origins would have singled him out.

So off he went to Dunbar in Scotland for officer training (OCTU). This made a big impression on him. He was destined for the infantry (The York and Lancaster Regiment). It may have been around this time that he learnt how to use a rifle. He could always remember the instructions on how to load and fire, and as I remember he was a fine shot. He ofter told the story of the passing out at Dunbar, when the night before they became officers, his group rolled down the high street making baa baa noises. A comment on how they saw their training?

Dad joined the the Second Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment as a Lieutenant and was posted with them to India on their way to Burma in 1944. Dad made strong representations to join another regiment, as he knew that another trip to the sub continent would result in the same illness as last time. But the army had no flexibility, so off he went to India and not France.

He did fall ill, and once again he had to be shipped home. I was a few months old when he returned, so that could have been the Spring of 1945. He had failed to fire a shot in anger, despite being in the infantry. Paul recalls Dad spoke a few times about someone he knew in the war who must have been quite well off. His name was McConachie and he was involved with pickles.

Dad kept one programme from his visits to the theatre. This is from a wartime variety show at the Sheffield Empire on 15th September 1941. The most interesting point being the final act "Youth Takes A Bow". It featured certain Morecambe and an Ernie Wise before they became a double act.

Injury Time, The Tiger's Wife and Before I Go To Sleep

I had previously read two novels by Beryl Bainbridge, only one of which (An Awfully Big Adventure) I enjoyed. The one book of hers that I really wanted to read was Injury Time. It is a very short novel that turns out to be a comedy thriller. Edward and Binny (his mistress) are throwing a dinner party for one of Edwards' work colleagues called Simpson and his wife. Not all goes to plan and later they have some unwelcome visitors. It is a light read, but the author is a great writer, and the story gathers pace through to a traumatic conclusion.

I was full of hope for The Tiger's Wife. It won this year's Orange Prize when my best loved "Goon Squad" never made the shortlist. It turns out to be the most boring novel I have ever read. So much so that after the first third, I had to skip the passages involving the interminable reminiscences of stories from the past. Whilst the book keeps to the present, and a story about Natalia, a young doctor, visiting orphanages after the Balkans conflict, it was just about tolerable. But her remembering stories from her grandfather who had recently died, not only disrupt the narrative, but in themselves are tedious fantasy. I was very glad when I came to the end.

The first novel from S J Watson, Before I Go To Sleep, is brilliant. It is described as a crime thriller, but over halfway through, we do not even know if there has been a crime. Christine wakes up every morning with no memory and every day she has to piece together who she is and what has happened in her life. To say any more about this highly original concept would spoil the story. I can only say that it is an unsettling but thrilling book as we join Christine in her search for the truth of her situation. OK, there are the occasional instances that stretch the imagination, but there were times that I read late into the night to find out just a little more. No wonder it is number one in the paperback chart.

Margin Call, War Horse and Coriolanus

There are so many good movies out at the moment that I am going twice a week. And sometimes a small film pops up that I find far superior to those with big budgets. Margin Call is one of those. It is written and directed by J. C. Chandor, his first ever feature film. It certainly will not be his last. He previously worked on commercials and documentaries and wrote and directed one short movie. His taut screenplay is amazing, well plotted, excellent dialogue and  filled with tension. I am so pleased it has been nominated for an Oscar. And I think he should win it. The movie takes place in just over 24 hours at an investment bank in Manhattan, teetering on the brink of the financial crisis. The cast are top notch. Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci and Paul Bettany are first rate, but even they cannot match up to Jeremy Irons as the boss. Best thing he has done for years. Even Demi Moore puts in a performance of which I never thought she was capable.

I find it difficult to say what I thought about War Horse. It is not a bad movie, but knowing how the play on which it is based was so successful, I was somewhat disappointed. The first section set on a farm at the edge of Dartmoor is fairly tedious. I just don't think director Steven Speilberg knew how to present a period English story. We were then off to war, but in no time the central character (Joey the horse) is in the hands of a French family. I had just imagined we would see how Joey fitted into the British war effort, but no. Most of his war experiences are on the other side. There is then a passage which does not involve Joey at all. All a bit unsatisfactory. I have to say that the movie looks and sounds very good, and there are the odd standout performances. Why Emily Watson has not been nominated for an Oscar, I really don't know. Her performance is superior to that Of Meryl Streeps' Iron Lady. Just a shame she was only there at the beginning.

I was so looking forward to seeing Coriolanus, one of the few Shakespeare dramas I have never seen. And if the movie is anything to go by, it works better on the big screen than it would in the theatre. The modern setting also works really well. The battles scenes invoke modern street warfare as well as any recent movie. I had no idea of the plot, and it turns out to be a superb story of politics and military power full of intrigue. Ralph Fiennes has to be congratulated for his performance in the title role and as a first time director. John Logan has done a fine job to edit the long play into a solid screenplay. Fiennes did seem a little wooden at times, but Coriolanus is just a magnificent soldier and General but not at all articulate and unwavering in his ideology that the people should be subservient to the military. Vanessa Redgrave as his mother is terrific, but the best acting for me was from Brian Cox as Menenius. Another Oscar worthy performance.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and The Iron Lady

Although Tom Cruise is beginning to show his age, he is still able to impress with some of the spectacular stunts on offer in the new Mission Impossible. The fourth outing for Tom and his crew is as good an action thriller as can be found these days. Only let down by a weak last half hour, it is elevated above it's predecessors by the contribution from Simon Pegg who has never been better. Well directed by Brad Bird, for sheer rollercoaster entertainment, it does not get much better than this.

Alison came with me to see the latest Sherlock Holmes adventure, having really liked the first with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law. But be both came away somewhat disappointed despite the almost universal positive reviews for this sequel. Neither of us thought A Game of Shadows as good as the original. There seemed to be too much repetition and it was all too obvious. OK, it was quite fun in parts, and Stephen Fry is brilliant as Mycroft. Guy Ritchie directs with his usual verve, he is just let down by a silly plot and a flimsy screenplay. If there is a third, I might avoid.

Despite Oscar worthy performances from Meryl Streep and, particularly Jim Broadbent, I found The Iron Lady to be wholly unengaging. Probably not surprising when the director was Phillida Lloyd of "Mama Mia" fame. I had nothing against the central device of showing Margaret Thatcher as she is now, suffering with dementia with her memories shown in flashback. But the scenes at her home between the history are far too numerous and far too long. So we only get glimpses of her past which is overwhelmed by her present decline. There were glimpses of the movie it could have been. Alexandra Roach is terrific as the young Maggie, setting out so young to become an MP. And there are hints at how Thatcher's standing up to a hugely male dominated House of Commons led to her dominant personality as Prime Minister. So we are left with Jim Broadbent's wonderfully humorous Dennis to show that if he loved her, then that said the most. I wonder if Harvey Weinstein had any imput as a distributor? Maybe not.

My Mother - Dorothy Roberts

Mum was born at 1 Johnson Street, Rotherham on 16th April 1923. Her parents were Ralph William Askew (see posting 2/11/2009)and Edith Agnes Askew (see posting 4/2/2011) formerly Leather. Johnson Street was the home of Edith's parents, George Robert(Bob)Leather and Hannah Elizabeth Leather formerly Boler. Mum had two brothers, Donald and Geoffrey and a sister Iris.

Mum's father is recorded on her birth certificate as a General Labourer. After the first world war he worked as a coal miner (following in the footsteps of his father George Askew) until he broke his back down the pit. With the £200 in compensation, he invested in two shops. The photograph below shows Ralph and daughter Iris outside his shop in Cambridge Street, over which the family made their home.

However, the shop went bust. Apparently Ralph gave away leather when he saw children without any shoes. During this time, his wife Edith had a baker's shop in Barley Terrace. Apart from getting up at extremely early hours to bake barm cakes (they used to sell out before noon) she suffered from the flour getting on her chest and had to give it up.

Ralph then became a postman, then a bus conductor and finally, according to his death certificate,a brassworks valve tester. Could this have been for Effingham Brassworks where his father worked, having been brought from Northwich in Cheshire by the owner Mr George Gummer to play football for Rotherham Town.Ralph died in 1945 aged 49. His wife Edith remarried to Harry Frost.

Mum was very bright at school. She won a scholarship to the grammar school, without which her parents could never have afforded to send her. Even so, mum attending Rotherham High School for Girls would have still had an impact on the family finances with the uniform, gym kit etc.

But when she reached 15 or 16, Mum had to leave school and find a job. First at Boots and then at the local council offices where she worked for a senior officer. This turned out to be quite fortuitous for the family. After losing the two shops, they had been found a council house in a very poor neighbourhood. Other children would be seen eating bread and lard in the street. Ralph and his family may never have been well off, but the children were well brought up, had good manners and eat proper meals. So when another council house became available at 58 Wordsworth Drive (when an old lady died), their names were on the list and Mum's boss helped secure the move. It must have helped that mum did babysitting for him.

The house on Wordswoth Drive was reasonably new in the "Wembley" design, and in a great position just across the road from Herringthorpe Playing Fields. The year was 1939. While Mum worked at the council offices, she learnt to be a comptometer operator. My Aunt Iris (who supplied most of the information above) said that she was sent to Germany to learn how to use the new machine and became the first in Rotherham to operate it. But when she actually went to Germany is a mystery.

Mum was also a Sunday School teacher, possibly at the Methodist Church.

During the war, Mum met one David Davis, an army surgeon bassed at the barracks in Rotherham. Mum's sister Iris could remember meeting him a number of times. They became engaged, but when David returned to London, Mum followed. But she came back soon after. Mum and Iris shared a bedroom, and Iris told me that Mum's engagement ring lay on the dressing table for a week. Nothing was said until their mother asked about it, and Mum revealed it was all over. So, thank goodness, she was free to meet Dad.

Coming Up Next - The Story Of My Mother and Father

Over the last couple of years, I have periodically been writing up everything I can remember about mum and dad. I found a basic desktop publishing feature in Microsoft Word which let me include photos etc, but I now want to put it on the internet. So what better place than my blog.

These articles will start with their individual early lives and continue with my memories of their life together with their three boys. The great thing about publishing these stories on a blog is that they can be edited and extended when I remember something new. So here we go.

Five years of retirement - Five years of my blog

The first five years of retirement have gone so fast. Each year has been special in it's own way. This year, for example, brought our exciting trip to America, combining Michael and Sara's wedding celebrations with a holiday taking in Boston and Cape Cod as well as out three nights in New York. My mother's family history has been an ongoing project, and I made quite a few discoveries. The background to the Askews and Cuthbertsons are described on this blog. Now that I have gone as far as I can with father's family, I successfully managed to create web pages with the help of FileZilla (a File Transfer Protocol) and courtesy of free web pages from Google and Ancestry.

The garden has taken on a new dimension this year. Planting in the new borders, created the year before, has meant I now have far more perennials than before. Not all in the right place, so some transplanting in the Spring will be called for. Book Club has continued despite the cancellation of the course at Tring school, and now meets every two months at The Bell in Aston Clinton. Tramping the footpaths of the Chiltern Hills and swimming every week still keeps me reasonably fit. Long may it continue.

Tring Book Club - A Visit from the Goon Squad and Snowdrops

When I recommended "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan to the last meeting of my Book Club, I did not imagine for a moment that it would be chosen as one of the next books for the club to read. It is quite a complex book so I it was with some trepidation that I waited last night for the verdict. It was hung jury, split down the middle. Some, like me, thought it to be a challenging, original but satisfying read. The others were mightily unimpressed or gave up early on. I just think that it is an amazing piece of very modern fiction and, as I said in a previous posting, one of the best books I have read for a long time. When I revisited it last week, I realised that not only does it switch between the first and third person, but we also get one chapter in the second person, one as a magazine article and one as a diary in PowerPoint. Although in one way a collection of short stories (each has it's own title), there is always a link with overlapping characters (there were so many of them), albeit at different times in their lives. And the final chapter whizzes off to the future. Fantastic.

"Snowdrops" by A.D. Miller is very different. Told in the first person as letter to his wife to be, Nicholas comes clean about his time as a lawyer in Moscow, and his involvement with not one but two pieces of corruption. The first is bearable. It's about his firm acting for their banking client in a new oil terminal in Siberia. The other is not. Nick becomes entangled with two girls ("cousins"), particularly the seductive Masha, who are persuading their ancient "aunt" Tatiana to move from her apartment in Moscow to a brand new one on the edge of the countryside. He should have known better. The second half of the book I found almost too painful to read, I actually wanted to rush through it to get it over. I guess from that aspect it was well written. It did reach the Man Booker shortlist. Miller had spent some considerable time in Russia as a journalist and it shows. His descriptions of the city are detailed but enjoyable. It was just when Nick's mother comes to visit that it becomes too much of an obvious device to show off his knowledge of St Petersburg. In the end I found the plot a little too fanciful. The banks relying on a single surveyor's report, and Nick not taking the many opportunities to untangle himself from Masha. But the promise of the week in Odessa was always too much.

Another Earth. Hugo and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Always on the look out for a decent sci fi drama, I took myself off to Milton Keynes to see the (very) low budget movie "Another Earth". Almost not worth the journey. A disastrous car accident leaves the perpetrator (Brit Marling who co-wrote the screenplay with first time director Mike Cahill) in prison and the victim without his family. How the two come together is the basis of an intriguing story, set against the discovery of a parallel planet Earth that comes nearer and nearer. However, the film becomes pretty slow and tiresome at certain points, and is not helped by the naive acting of newcomer Marling. The sci fi element is only a sideshow, with only some radio communications to tell us what is going on. Until the last seconds of the movie that do, at least, give us a brilliant conclusion.

When Martin Scorsese was thinking how to make a movie about George Melies, one of the earliest pioneers of moving pictures, and found he ended up selling toys in a Paris railway station, he must have thought this would be a marvellous place to set his new film. And he was right. Based on the illustrated novel by Brian Selznick "The  Invention of Hugo Cabret", Scorsese knew he could build a fantastic set, bring in some wonderful characters who inhabit the station, and film it all in 3D. So unlike a normal Scorsese thriller. But what a beautiful movie he has created. The story revolves around the boy  played by Asa Butterfield who lives a clandestine existence in the station's clock tower. He is surrounded by a fabulous cast of British actors. Ben Kingsley as Melies, Helen McCrory as his wife, Baron Sacha Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Richard Griffiths, Frances De La Tour, Christopher Lee (never been better) Jude Law and Ray Winstone are all terrific. But for me,  it is the one American who steals the show. Chloe Moretz as Melies' adopted daughter is just so charismatic for one so young. The opening sequence of the movie is worth the price of admission on it's own, and the technical expertise throughout is top drawer. Some critics were less impressed with the last part which delves into the early works of Melies, but the story is actually about him and I think we are very lucky to have Scorsese show us how movies actually started.

Having seen the original Swedish version, and not being impressed with Daniel Craig in the trailer, I was not going to see "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" until I watched Film 2011. Both Claudia and Danny gave it great reviews, as had all the press. Now I see why. This was a brilliant piece of cinema from David Fincher. Despite the running time of two and a half hours, there were times when the pace was relentless, and the editing fierce, as if he was trying to cram everything in. There were obviously scenes I recognised from the original, but overall I have to say that it was superior. Much of the movie takes place on an island where members of the same family inhabit various luxurious properties, and this was far better, and obviously more expensively filmed than the original. The complex plot was easier to understand without subtitles and the whole story seemed to be more coherent. Daniel Craig was actually pretty good, as was Roony Mara in the title role. And like "Hugo" it was the British acting contingent that gave the movie so much class. Christopher Plummer, Steven Berkoff, Joely Richardson and Geraldine James were all terrific. Steve Zallian did a great job adapting the book for the film, but the greatest credit still goes to director David Fincher. Top man.

Black Mirror Trilogy

Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror" comprised three new dramas on Channel 4 that explored how new technology might have progressed in years to come. They were all highly original, very disturbing and uncompromising in their portrayal of a unpleasant future. The first in the series called "The National Anthem" gave the Prime Minister, played effectively as usual by Rory Kinnear, an impossible dilemma as the release of  the kidnapped young female royal (the ransom demand shown on YouTube) depended on his submitting to public humiliation on television. This was all about the power of the Internet and social networking. There were serious flaws with the plot. Family would normally always come first as the Prime Minister would regret at the end. But this did not spoil what was a powerful and upsetting drama.

"Fifteen Million Credits" envisages the concept of the "X-Factor" gone mad. Our future selves gain credits in ways including getting fit on an exercise bike. Fifteen million gets you performing on the top TV talent show "Hot Spot", complete with judges even more awful than their present day counterparts, including Rupert Everett as sleazy Judge Hope. Bing, very well played by Daniel Kaluuya, is our tragic hero who uses his spot to have a rant against what the programme stands for. But the story goes into overdrive when he starts gathering credits all over again so as to donate them them to the object of his love, Jessica Findlay Brown (from "Downton Abbey"). But her performance on the show does not go as planned. The visual effects are stunning for such a small film. Huge credit must go to all those involved.

The final part of the trilogy is "The Entire History of You", written this time by Jesse Armstrong. Technology has advanced to the stage where you can store all your memories on a hard drive implanted in your brain. These can be played, rewound frozen etc. Just like Sky Plus. When a young lawyer suspects his wife of having an affair, the constant replaying of his memories finally drives him mad. Not the best of the three, but still a dizzying prediction of what the future has in store. But as one character demonstrates, you can always go without.