My Life by Lionel Graves. (Page 29)
During our evening expedition Perc had met a girl called Betty Walters in Leominster and had been out with her several times, she had a younger sister called Diana and we went out for a drink and a dance as a foursome, arriving late as usual. After a few dates I realised that Diana was the only girl I would ever want to marry and spend the rest of my life with, although it took Diana quite a bit longer to come to a similar decision. We got engaged in 1951 two years before we married and when I was at college.
Before starting College I used to get odd jobs in the holidays, once working for the Robinsons at the Rose and Crown. They used to bottle Guinness on an old fashioned machine which had about eight pipes or taps and so could only do eight bottles at a time. The pipes kept getting blocked so I had to suck them until they flowed again, although I spat most of it out I still swallowed a fair quantity and was quite merry by the end of the session-I hated Guinness! Another time young Karl Robinson, son of one of the bosses kept bothering and annoying us, wasting our time, so I filled a bucket of water and waited for him behind a door, when he appeared I let him have it full in the face and he fled, howling. About the worst job was scrubbing out the huge wooden cider vats or casks about 15-20 feet high. I had to get down inside with an inspection lamp, hat, soapy water and a hard scrubbing brush and scrub like mad. I used to sweat streams and one day dropped the lamp into some soapy water on the floor and on picking it up got quite an electric shock.
I started at Bede College, Durham in Sept 1950 and was the oldest student in our year as I had spent a couple of years teaching after my demob, all the rest were ex service who had completed their national service call up. The really old service men had either completed their two year course by then or just finishing their three year degree & one years teaching training. I qualified for a £5 a week grant for my time in the army and was the richest man of our year, they nicknamed me, Dad!
The first year I was in digs in a house on Claypath about ten minutes walk or run as it was in those days from College. The landlord were a family called Pratt whose father was bed ridden and still receiving nursing treatment for wounds got in the 1914-18 war, like most Geordies they were very friendly and hospitable.
I shared digs with Bob Frith an ex RAF ground crew man from Nelson in Lancashire. We got on well he was specialising in P.E. And was a very good middle weight boxer who boxed for Northern Universities. I went to some of the inter college bouts with him and acted as a second. He talked me into having a go at sparring with him which I only agreed to when he promised he wouldn't lay a glove on me. I just managed a three minute round and didnt land a real punch and was exhausted at the end of it.
I played a few games of rugger for the College, but sports had never been my metier. I could play several games but never to a high standard. I did a bit of rowing and was only in one regatta on the Tyne above Newcastle where we won the first heat lost the second. I was talked into playing fives for Durham Colleges against Liverpool as the regular player had something else on, travelled there by train and got severeley hammered, way out of my class.
I gave Bob a lift home on the bike one Christmas, it must have been 1950, across the Pennines and ran into a heavy snow storm, we stopped at a pub on the top and I almost had to be lifted off the saddle. I was frozen stiff, despite my ex RAF flying suit, with a kapok lining suit, sweaters and Dads old Observer Corps wool lined flying boots. After a thaw and a double whisky we were off again, I was never more glad to see the lights of a Lancashire town. I stayed the night at his home in Nelson and then went on the next morning. The main roads were not impassable, the snow was quite firm but at Wem they changed to sheets of ice and I fell or slid off half a dozen times and was reduced to riding with both feet on the ground. At Prees Heath I stopped at a nearby farm by the station, left the bike in a barn and caught a train to Tenbury via Wooferton and Shrewsbury. Three of four days later the snow and ice cleared and I went to collect the bike. It was grand to be young-ish.
Self at Bede.
Bede College, Durham 1950-52.
Back row, from the left: Self, Don Freak, Alan Martindale, John B. Davies
Front row, from the left: Tony Lowery, Frank Stones.
Email: Lionel Graves (lionel@graf-tek.com).
Copyright ©2000-2008 L. Graves. All Rights Reserved.
