Smokes, skies, and simple pleasures

My grandad had a terrible hacking smoker’s cough caused by decades of chain-smoking home-made ‘roll-ups’ made from loose tobacco and Rizla papers.  He had a peculiar habit of letting these thin cigarettes, known as ‘gaspers’, cling to his bottom lip whilst speaking, then closing his mouth and inhaling deeply with a pop after he’d finished a sentence.  At home, he always sported trousers held up with braces, an open-necked white shirt speckled with a few fragments of tobacco, with a white singlet beneath.   However, when he ventured out, he always wore his dentures, a jacket and tie, and a hat – either a flat cap or a trilby – depending upon the magnitude of the occasion. 

I was thrilled when he gave me a little piece of history, which I still have to this day. It is a very large (36mm diameter) copper coin nicknamed the ‘cartwheel penny’ due to its substantial size and weight.  Unlike other coins, which turn left to right, cartwheel pennies turn vertically to view both sides the right way up. One side bears the likeness of George III, while the reverse showcases Britannia and the date 1797, making the coin nearly 170 years old when he gave it to me.  I don’t know the story of how he acquired it, but it’s incredibly special that he chose to pass it on to me.

The ‘cartwheel’ penny | from the personal collection of Natalie Mayhew

In his younger years, he was quite a dapper chap – all sharp suits and Brylcreemed hair – with an eye for the ladies.  However, the image of the debonair young man in the grainy photograph on the sideboard contrasted with the cantankerous old fellow relishing pigs’ trotters on a Saturday night from the comfort of his favourite armchair.

His smoking habit eventually caught up with him.  In his early 60s, he had to have both legs amputated above the knee because the blood vessels in his lower limbs had become blocked, resulting in excruciating pain and ulcers.  He became wheelchair bound and, at a time before modern aids such as chairlifts, he relied upon home-made blocks to help heave his mutilated body backwards up the stairs to the second floor flat he shared with my grandmother.  These blocks were ingeniously created from five equal sized pieces of timber screwed together to make an open-bottomed cube with two holes in the top through which a short piece of rope was strung to go over his hands when in use, or act as handles.  He still wore the same trousers as before, but now the lower trouser legs were folded up and secured in place by a couple of nappy pins.  Unsurprisingly, he had become a very angry and bitter man but was still unable to give up his ‘smokes’.  He died in hospital aged 66 on 21^st July 1969 – the same day that man first walked upon the Moon.

That summer, my brother and I were living with our maternal grandmother and I remember the bewildering emotions when we were told of our grandad’s death juxtaposed with the thrill of witnessing the moon landing on a tiny black and white TV.  Our parent’s parents had never met, and our father was working abroad, so we were not taken to his funeral.

Many years later, when I became interested in family history, I realised that I didn’t even know his name beyond “Grandad.” After several false starts based on his name given on my father’s birth and marriage certificates (Charles Richard Mayhew), I was able to ascertain that he was born in Fulham on 27^th October 1902 and initially named Richard Charles Mayhew[i], then baptised two weeks later as Charles Mayhew[ii], but was always known as Charlie.  He was the fifth child of Alfred George Mayhew, a Sanitary Wallpaper Printer, known as George, and his wife Emma (nee Levens).   Two of his older brothers had died in infancy, but his brother William, born in 1884, and sister Emma, born 1901, had survived and, during the first five years of Charlie’s life, Emma would safely give birth to two more daughters, Rose Annie and the splendidly named Lily Rose Dorothy.  Tragically, Emma died in childbirth along with her baby in April 1908. 

After their mother’s death, the five surviving children were separated, although, from historic school records, it seems likely that Charlie and his younger sister Rose were kept together, at least for the first few months[iii].

Although life must have been very difficult for Charlie as a youngster, he likely witnessed the dawn of aviation and would probably have been aware of the public excitement surrounding ground-breaking events, including Louis Blériot’s historic first Channel crossing in 1909.

By the 1911 census, Emma now 10, Charlie aged 9, and 7-year-old Rose had returned to stay with their father and his new bride Constance Hilda (nee White) in a tiny one-bedroom flat in Fulham[v], but their older brother 16-year-old William had gone to work as a farm labourer in Selby, North Yorkshire.[vi]   I’ve not yet been able to locate little Lily, the youngest aged just 3[vii], and assume she was being cared for by friends or relatives.  As George and Constance would welcome their first of their six children less than six months after their marriage, their home would have been very cramped indeed.

On 4^th August 1914, news began to break that Britain was going to war with Germany, and other countries, such as France and Russia, would be in it too.  Ultimately, the world would never be the same again, but for twelve-year-old Charlie, this news must have seemed bewildering, albeit rather exciting, as most people believed that the Germans would be no more of a problem than the Russians, French, Spanish, Turks, Chinese, and all the other countries which had – mistakenly some believed – tried to check the advances of the British Empire in the past.

During the first weeks of war, tens of thousands of young men stepped forward to ‘do their bit’, including Charlie’s uncle Ted Mayhew, his cousin’s fiance William Krug, and probably several of his neighbours and friends’ older brothers.  There was a general sense of elation and belief that to volunteer was a man’s job, offering adventure, possible glory, public esteem, and the chance to escape from an arduous or tedious job. 

At the time, the school leaving age was just twelve years old[viii], so, along with most of his peers, Charlie would have left school just before Easter and entered the workforce to learn a trade.  He was still far too young for active service as recruits had to appear to be between 18 and 38 years of age, although tens of thousands of lads as young as 14 or 15 were passed as fit by recruiting sergeants – who were rewarded with a cash bounty for each new soldier.

If the army was not yet an option, Charlie might have volunteered to support the war effort.  The Scout Movement, founded by Sir Robert Baden-Powell, had already been in existence for six years and was open to boys between 11 and 18. The London Evening Standard reported in August 1914 that Sir Robert, the Chief Scout, had issued the following appeal, “Boys of Britain, don’t go about waving flags because there is a war.  Any ass can do that.  And don’t stay idle and do nothing – that is almost worse.  Come and do something for your country.  She needs your help.  The Boy Scouts are now a service in all parts of the kingdom.  Come and join the nearest troop in your district, and do duty like a man.”[ix]

Becoming a scout was a good opportunity for lads of around Charlie’s age to become messenger boys when few homes or public buildings had telephones, so telegrams or letters – the main methods of communication – had to be delivered by hand. 

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, electricity was used for wired field telegraph, which had been around for about fifty years[xi], whilst radio (wireless) communications, tested during the Boer War, was in its infancy.  Unfortunately, both technologies were unreliable and found to be vulnerable to weather, terrain, and the risk of the enemy breaking the electrical lines that connected the troops with their commanders. 

Although telephone, field telegraph, radio and despatch riders were the usual means of communication, when these methods broke down during battle, homing or carrier pigeons were relied upon for urgent communications.  Historically, carrier pigeons had been trained to carry message or small items over short distances whilst homing pigeons, previously used for racing, had remarkable navigation abilities, and could cover long distances at great speed. A good homing pigeon could cover 150 miles (241 km), travelling at an average speed of a mile (1.6 km) a minute.  In 1915, it was announced that carrier or homing pigeons were being used for ‘certain purposes in connection with His Majesty’s service’ and warned that anyone who ‘shoots or kills a carrier or homing pigeon while on passage renders himself liable to prosecution’.[xii]

Back in Britain, pigeon racing, in which specially bred and trained pigeons are released from specific locations, was already a popular working-class sport.  An observer in Battersea at the turn of the twentieth century noted that pigeon racing was a ‘weekly sport, especially among the tattooed men in the poorer quarters of the parish, costers with flat black caps and hoarse voices, chokers instead of collars and ties, and Sunday boots of a ginger yellow’.[xiii]  Although urban homes had limited space in their backyard or balcony, many ‘pigeon fanciers’ found room for pigeon lofts, and friends or neighbours might share the costs and responsibilities to enable them to keep homing pigeons. A young lad like Charlie might made himself useful cleaning out their pigeon lofts and earning a few pence for his efforts.

According to family legend, Charlie took up smoking when he was just ten.  Perhaps he started to gain peer-group identity and approval, or to display that carefree rakishness which seems, even today, to appeal to young adolescents.  However, Lord Baden-Powell, the Chief Scout, took a very dim view of young people smoking: ‘just make up your own mind for yourself that you don’t mean to smoke till you are grown up; and stick to it.  That will show you to be a man much more than any slobbering about with a half-smoked cigarette between your lips’.[xiv]  This dire warning came too late for Charlie who was already horribly addicted to tobacco, even though the Children’s Act of 1908 had made selling cigarettes or any smoking paraphernalia to a child under 16 year an offence[xv].  Intriguingly, as part of the Act, it was the duty of a constable (or a park-keeper in uniform) to seize cigarettes from anyone apparently under 16 who was smoking in a public place and, for that purpose, they were authorised to search boys – but not girls. 

Charlie was likely a keen cigarette card collector as, even before the war, these were given away in cigarette packets as a marketing ploy.  These beautifully produced full colour cards, featuring a common topic or theme, were designed to be collected in set of 25-50 cards, and quickly became miniature reference books with fine illustrations and detailed texts capturing snapshots of the social history of the day.  Themes incorporating every conceivable subject, including first aid, aviation, sportsmen, army regiments, and flora and fauna, were produced to encourage collectors and potential smokers alike, and some people even considered the cards to be of educational value to the youngsters who collected them so eagerly. 

Cigarette cards from the Lambert & Butler ‘Aviation’ series 1915[xvi]

The war persisted until November 1918 and, although, in January 1916 the government imposed compulsory active service for unmarried men aged 18 to 41, later expanding this to include married men and, in what would become the last months of the war, raising the upper limit 51[xvii], Charlie fell just short of the minimum age so was never conscripted to fight.

By the 1921 census, Charlie and his siblings from George’s first marriage, had all flown the nest and the records reveal some surprising changes in their circumstances[xviii].  William, now 25 and married, had become a male nurse employed at a lunatic asylum in Shropshire.  Emma, aged 20, had taken up a position as a servant responsible for a large property in a Welsh village.  Charlie, aged 19, was working as a plumber’s mate and had found lodgings in Fulham, living just a few doors away from his father and stepfamily.  Unfortunately, 17-year-old Rose’s situation had taken a difficult turn as she was an inmate in a home for fallen women in Lincolnshire.   

Charlie began courting a local girl, Emily Banfield, known as ‘Em’, and they were married on 25^th April 1925 at St Saviour’s church in Brockley Hill, Lewisham[xix].  It seems that they had been living at 9 Lessing Street, Brockley Hill, for at least six weeks as they were married by banns so it’s likely that the young couple had had left Fulham following some kind of family rift and headed to Lewisham, where Em’s elder sister Alice and her husband Bill Joyce could offer them support.   The official marriage entry states that Charlie is a 22-year-old bricklayer whose father George is a now a night-watchman, and 23-year-old Emily’s father William is a labourer.  Their marriage was witnessed by John Henry Scott Hubbard and William Thomas Frederick Joyce, Em’s brother-in-law.

The young couple soon moved to Tooting[xx], a rapidly expanding and popular area of South London, where their first son Arthur was born before the end of the year, their daughter Edna arrived in November 1927, followed by their youngest son Peter (later my father) at the beginning of May 1929[xxi]. 

During the first years of my grandparents’ marriage, major changes were underway for British aviation.  South London’s Croydon Airport[xxii] had become Britain’s busiest airport boasting the first purpose-designed airport terminal and air traffic control tower and commercial aviation began to take shape during this period, with airlines offering scheduled passenger flights.  The 1920s and 1930s were a golden age of aviation with a host of daring and record-breaking flights from Croydon Airport that made the aviators global celebrities.  Women such as Amy Johnson and Jean Batten became household names and competed alongside their male counterparts, including Jim Mollison (Amy’s husband), Charles Kingsford-Smith and Sir Alan Cobham.  Elsewhere, Charles Lindbergh made his historic non-stop solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927, and Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932.

Although these trailblazing events were reported widely in newspapers and in newsreel footage at cinemas, they would have impacted little on everyday life in the Mayhew household.  A worldwide economic depression had begun and, as money was tight, Em may have resented Charlie enjoying what she saw as the freedom to engage in an active social life, perhaps with a few flirtations.  Another family legend claims that she took her three young children down to the pub where he was hanging out with his ‘fancy woman’ and left the children for him to take care of. Certainly, in May 1931, she found herself facing charges of assaulting one Milly Giddings[xxiii], who claimed that the inflicted injury was serious enough to leave her incapacitated for weeks.  Her defence was that Ms Giddings was drunk, so she had pushed her away.   After my grandmother pledged to steer clear of any further interactions with the complainant, the summons was postponed indefinitely. 

Meanwhile, Charlie’s passions extending beyond his growing family as he constructed a dedicated pigeon loft and embarked upon a journey of breeding and training racing pigeons.  Despite his daytime occupation as a journeyman bricklayer, earning a weekly income of around £4[xxiv], the allure of race prizes ranging from £10 to £15 must have been very enticing.  How proud and delighted he must have been when he won his first trophy – the prestigious Wimbledon and District Homing Society Novices Cup[xxv] – in September 1931.

Over the next few years, as the victories and commendable finishes mounted, Charlie would have been able to enjoy the luxury of indulging in a pouch of extra tobacco and a few well-deserved beers at the weekend.  

On the morning of Sunday 3^rd September 1939, following months of speculation, the Prime Minister Mr. Chamberlain announced Britain and France’s declaration of war on Germany.  During the days leading up to this declaration, millions of children, including my father, his brother, and sister, were evacuated to the countryside.

According to our grandmother, when war was declared, my grandfather slaughtered his racing pigeons, which she then cooked into a pie for their tea.  Although there’s no evidence for this family legend, she did mention that there wasn’t much meat on the pigeons apart from the wing muscles, which seems plausible.

It’s a fact however that a public information campaign prompted a significant cull of British pets, when as many as three-quarters of a million animals were destroyed in just one week during the summer of 1939.  A pamphlet had been published – with an advertisement for a captive bolt pistol at the back – and recommended: “If at all possible, send or take your household animals into the country in advance of an emergency.”  It concluded: “If you cannot place them in the care of neighbours, it really is kindest to have them destroyed.”[xxvi]

At the onset of the war, the National Service (Armed Forces) Act mandated conscription for all male British subjects aged between 18 and 41 within the UK, with exemptions for vital occupations[xxviii].  Charlie’s talents as a skilled foreman bricklayer not only ensured that he was not called up to fight, but that he would be kept in full employment for the rest of his working life rebuilding the streets and skyline of London after the devastation caused by air-raids during the period known as the Blitz. 

Whilst the post-war era ushered in new beginnings for many people and expanded opportunities for global travel, Charlie’s world contracted. He never kept pigeons again, never once boarded an aeroplane, learnt to drive a car, nor ventured beyond England’s shores.

In retirement, before illness incapacitated him, Grandad contributed significantly to the planning, design, and construction of a septic tank, rear extension, and installation of modern amenties to a tiny historic flint cottage in West Sussex bought by my father.

But that’s for another story….

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