If he was still alive, my late Grandfather, Leonard May would have gotten his telegram from The Queen today, as he would have been 100 years old.
He was 49 when I was born, so my personal images of him are from his later fifties through to his death at the age of 81.
The world was, of course, a vastly different place back in 1909. Great Britain was still very much great, with an empire spanning a quarter of the Globe, China was still, in essence, a medieval country, and the USA was still essentially an isolationist on the world stage. It was the year that Geronimo, the great Apache leader, died.
Woolworth opened their first store in the UK in this year (surviving there until finally going out of business in late 2008, early 2009). Louis Bleriot made the first flight across the English Channel, and Manchester United won the F.A Cup for the first time.
Short Brothers started building aircraft in this year in Kent, in England.
A manual worker earned an average of 23 shillings a week (£1.15). A pint of beer cost around 8p.
My grandfather shared his birthday with Napoleon Bonaparte (1769), and Lawrence of Arabia (1888).
Just eight years before he was born, Cadillac was founded in Detroit.
By the time my grandfather reached adulthood, in 1920, there had been a devastating War – supposedly the war to end all wars – followed by a worldwide influenza epidemic.
The Roaring Twenties were just beginning. The League of Nations was formed. The population of the world was 1.8 billion. In the USA, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, and prohibition took effect. By the end of that decade, the first transatlantic flight had taken place and the world was in economic depression.
My grandfather only had one employer all his life – H.M Dockyard, Chatham. He started work there at the age of 14, in 1923, and remained there until his early retirement in 1968.
He met my grandmother at a local dance, and they married in March 1934. My father arrived two months later, but I was never ever brave enough to ask if that was at least part of the reason they got married, and in any case, they remained together for the rest of their lives.
In 1934, they purchased their first home, 79, Featherby Road, Gillingham It was on the edge of town then and was brand new. It was a semi-detached (known in the US as a duplex) two-bedroom home, and cost £450. Granddad told me that it was really tough saving up the 10% deposit of £45.
When World War Two started, my grandmother didn’t feel safe ‘all the way out there’ so they moved back into the central part of town, and stayed with my great-mother for a while, and then rented 8 Windmill Road from 1942. My Aunt Janet was born in this year, and they would soon need more than two bedrooms in any case.
As he had a reserved occupation, he wasn’t conscripted in World War Two, but remained in Chatham Dockyard, which was a certain hazard itself, as it was frequently targeted by the Luftwaffe. The nearest he came to grief in an air-raid was one evening, when he had gone to a local pub for a beer, and the nearby bus depot took a direct hit, blowing out every window for miles around, and destroying dozens of buses. He wasn’t hurt but, my grandmother, recalling the night to me, conveyed very well how frantic she was at the time, until he appeared home safely.
On his 38th birthday, India gained her independence from the UK.
In 1954, Mr Coleman, the owner of 6, Windmill Road, sold the house to my grandparents, and they moved one door down. My mother had met my father in 1953, and although they got married in 1956, they continued to live with my grandparents until 1960, when they purchased 4, Windmill Road, from Mr Yale. I was born in 6, Windmill Road, one rainy Saturday afternoon in January 1959.
In 1963, he was offered a three year overseas commission in the Naval Base in Singapore. My grandmother didn’t want to go. They’d never been out of the country before, and she certainly didn’t like the idea of flying. Funny thing is, it turned out that my grandfather was more afraid in the air than my grandmother ever was, and at the end of the three years, grandmother wasn’t at all excited at returning to England!
Taking that overseas position gave him the financial opportunity to retire at the age of 58, which was almost unheard of back then for a regular working man.
On his 60th birthday, the great Woodstock music festival took place, but I don’t think that was quite his cup of tea!
He wasn’t greatly into music, but he did enjoy the annual Dinner and Dance held at The Rock Avenue Working Men’s Club, where he’d been a member for many years. Him and my grandmother were competent dancers, and sometimes bemoaned the fact that most young people didn’t dance ‘properly’ and got in the way, as ‘proper’ dancers like themselves, swept around the floor.
He had a part-time job as the Club Secretary for some years, and helped turn around the fortunes of the club at the time, as he was always very frugal with both his money and other peoples. He also used to perform Master of Ceremonies duties at various occasions around the towns.
He always enjoyed sports, but cricket was his greatest love. He played for the Dockyard team in his younger days. On a few occasions he would take me along to see Kent matches when they were played locally. I recall going to one game when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and the BBC were there to televise the match, and I spent more time looking to see where the cameras were pointing than watching the cricket. Grandfather was not impressed. In his retirement, he would spend many hours in the summer watching both local and international matches on TV.
He only had three cars all his life. A Ford Eight, a Ford Prefect, both of which were used vehicles, and the only and only new car they had, a Ford Cortina Super. The only difference I was ever aware of as a child was that it had chrome trim down both sides of the car, whereas the deluxe model didn’t, and to my eyes looked decidedly plain in comparison.
He had one minor accident in the local back streets that I know of, when he first started driving a car, but I don’t ever remember there being any other occasions, so I guess all in all he was a safe driver.
A lifelong smoker, he had a stroke in 1978. That put paid to both his part-time job, and to driving. He recalled to me once, that he’d never passed a driving test, as when he first got a motorcycle, there was no requirement, and when he got his first car, which wasn’t until 1948, that as he had a license to ride a motorcycle, that was good for a car too!
Life became more difficult for him in some ways after his stroke, but he retained an active mind until his death. He quit smoking. In fact my father offered him a cigarette in the day room in the hospital where he was recuperating. (You could smoke in some parts of hospitals back in those days!) He took one draw on the cigarette, coughed, declared it was the most disgusting thing he had ever tasted, and never smoked another. He told me, that he had been such a fool smoking all his life, as firstly, he knew it had certainly been a major contributor to his stroke, and secondly, he lamented that he could have had a bigger house, if he’d not wasted all that money on smokes. He liked a drink, but almost always stuck to beer, and wasn’t a heavy drinker in any case.
He had strong opinions on some issues, some of which are considered ‘old-fashioned’ these days. He always held the firm belief that much of the problems with relationships and couples these days was due to everyone being far too materialistic; wanting everything today; women going out to work to help achieve those aims, instead of couples being content to wait for things. I can hear him saying those things now. They had a mortgage to buy a home, but never had credit cards, or bank loans to buy things. His philosophy was to save up for something first.
He frowned at me when I showed him new technology, such as a VCR, and a CD player. He didn’t see why you needed to record TV when there was always something to watch each evening in any case, and why did I need to buy CDs when I could listen to the radio. I reminded him that he had purchased a brand new TV soon after the end of World War Two and had told me it cost around £70, which was a huge sum of money back then! I wonder what he would have made of the Internet, and the widespread adoption of mobile phones. (I didn’t get my first mobile phone until a year after his death).
Although they never went out of the UK again, they enjoyed several holidays around the country, sometimes driving themselves and sometimes taking coach tours.
He was admitted to Medway Hospital before Christmas 1990, with digestive problems caused by his stroke some 20 odd years earlier. The hospital were very kind, and even arranged for my Grandmother to be with him for some Christmas Dinner together on the ward.
To me, the writing was on the wall, when he was moved into a small side room, and the end finally came in January 1991. I had just gone home, after sitting with him until almost 4am. I was convinced at that time, that he’d be fine until I got back later that morning with the rest of the family, but it was not to be.
The Funeral Service was held at St Mary’s Church in Strood, and his ashes were scattered at Medway Crematorium.
I suppose it’s quite a sobering fact that of the four people in the photograph to the left only the little boy is still alive. I ‘m quite thankful of that fact though, as I’m that little boy!
I know that I’ve not always, or even often, lived up to the good but simple values that he held throughout his life, but I hope he doesn’t look down and frown at me too much. 2009 is certainly a much different world to 1909, and not always for the better.
R.I.P. Leonard William May 1909-1991
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