Childhood tales from 60 years ago

This narrow historic thoroughfare, now lost to the city scene, was in the heart of Worcester, running between Bank Street and what was then Merryvale (now Deansway).

Powick Lane was lined with houses, shops, pubs and businesses, plus the Worcester Dispensary where, for regular contributions of a few shillings a week, poorer city folk could see doctors and obtain prescriptions made up in hard times before the dawn of the Welfare State.

The last remaining buildings in Powick Lane were pulled down in the 1980s to make way for the CrownGate development between High Street and Deansway.

Gerald Wilkes was born in 1933, one of an eventual family of eight children - five boys and three girls - of Ernie and Matilda Wilkes, who lived in one of the four courts of tightly-clustered houses which were up entries leading off Powick Lane.

Along the same entry as the Wilkes lived Grandma Goodwin, mother of Gerry's mother, and seven cousins, the children of the Fortey family. All five houses in the court had to share an outside lavatory and wash-house, but there was a great community spirit.

"We roughed it in those days but got by, and everyone knew everybody and looked after each other. We had some good times, and they were a great crowd of people," recalls Gerry.

He was to live in Powick Lane until the age of eight and shared most of his boyhood exploits with a younger brother, Cecil and his cousin Billy Fortey.

"Day trippers came in charabancs to Worcester on Saturdays and Sundays and used the large parking area alongside Merryvale and in front of Hounds Lane School. We lads would tie empty baked bean tins to the bottom of our shoes or boots and dance for the charabanc trippers who would throw us ha'pennies or pennies for our trouble.

"Our parents would also send us with a pram to High Street, which was being widened at the time and where unwanted wooden blocks were piled up on the footpaths. These had been used for years to form roadside gutters, and we would push some home for fire wood.

"There would also be regular visits with the pram to collect discarded bits of wood and old crates from outside the grocery store of Shuter & Flay in High Street. This timber was used by my mother and the other women to stoke up flames in the boiler of the outside wash-house where they did their household laundry.

"My father would also send us to Shuter & Flay from time-to-time to buy six-penny-worth of broken biscuits. You could always be sure that somewhere among these would be a real treat - little chocolates in the shape of wine bottles.

"The large confectionery business of Nortons was also nearby in Powick Lane, and we lads would usually be around when the delivery vans arrived there. These would not only collect large jars full of sweets but also drop off empty returns - jars which would often have the odd toffee or sweet or two still left in the bottom. We would try to snatch these out of the jars before we were chased off!"

Close by in Powick Lane too, was the shop and store of Prossers, the rag and bone merchants where, for some reason, a pet monkey was kept chained up.

"However, it would often get loose, and the shout would go up: 'It's escaped again,' but we lads immediately knew where we could find it because it always hid behind the organ in the Lady Huntingdon Chapel, though it did once go slightly further afield and end up in St Andrew's Church."

Gerry says his father's little dog made a regular habit of jumping over the wall into Prossers' yard and coming back with a rabbit skin which had to be taken back the next day.

"My father and some of his friends would also take their dogs out ratting to Bennett's farm at Lower Wick and bring back several rats in cages. These were then let out as sport to be chased and killed by the dogs. The rats' tails were later cut off and taken to the City Police Station which was then in Copenhagen Street, next to the rear entrance of the Guildhall."

The police would pay the men 3d or 4d for each tail, depending on its length, presumably as an inducement to keep down the local rat population.

"Ratting helped the men earn some extra money."

Gerry points out that in the 1930s, the site where the "new" City Police Station was later built at Deansway was an open area and natural sandpit where local children played.

"Some Sundays, Smiths, the butchers in The Shambles, would drive cattle through Powick Lane, and there was one famous occasion when a cow ran up our entry and got its head stuck down the outside lavatory.

"My father and six others tried desperately to get it out, even tying a piece of rope round its neck, but it all proved in vain and, in the end, the entire toilet bench seat had to be taken up to free the cow's head."

Gerry also has fond memories of some of the local characters of the 1930s.

"A crippled chap we called Fonso Jeynes had a sweet shop near the Model Dwellings at Copenhagen Street, and his party trick in the summer was to dive regularly off Worcester Bridge. Fonso was good swimmer and would be thrown the odd few coins.

"Then there was a chap named Gardiner who sold stuff from a push barrow in The Shambles. He lived in Newport Street where they sold faggots and peas, but on his way home he would drop into the Queen's Arms in Powick Lane and usually have a drop too much to drink. When he came out he would lie on his barrow and we would wheel him home.

"We also had regular cause to be grateful for the kindness of Billy Bowkett who, I think was a relation of Prossers, the rag merchants. Every Sunday, he personally made a big pot of custard in the outside wash-house, and we would all line up with spoons to enjoy it."

Gerry says that in the weeks running up to each Christmas, he and some other local children would start going to church on Sundays at St Andrew's.

The church was not demolished until the late 1940s, leaving its spectacular spire - the Glovers Needle - in splendid isolation.

However, the sudden pre-Christmas interest of the lads and lassies in going to church was not driven by any religious fervour.

"It simply meant that we got invited to the church's Christmas parties with their food, fun and games, but come January and St Andrew's did not see us again until the following November."

Gerry says the church was surrounded then by "lovely gardens," and his Granny Wilkes lived close by in Copenhagen Street.

"There was also a popular bread and cakes shop on the corner of Copenhagen Street where the baker named Carter was helped at the counter by his twin daughters.

"In Powick Lane, we had the rear of Simes departmental store (later, Bobbys and now Debenhams), Swifts, the cold storage people, the Worcester Dispensary, and a small family firm who made fruit baskets."

Every late summer, members of the Wilkes family would go off hop-picking.

"People met outside Foregate Street Station where a Mrs Hundley handed out tickets, and we caught the train to Bransford to work in the hop-fields of Mr Roly Williams."

Haircuts for the Wilkes' boys were always from their father's barber, Bill Watkins, whose shop was next to the Lord Nelson pub in Merryvale.

"Bill was well-known for always asking customers: 'Do you want a drop on?' It meant having ordinary water put on your hair."

GERRY also made a confession regarding one boyhood exploit about which he is none too proud.

"Early in the Second World War, the American GIs, based locally, would sometimes park their lorries near Hounds Lane School, and we lads would go and look in the backs. A few American military overcoats ended up as warm blankets on our beds!"

Ernie Wilkes, Gerry's father, had worked on the widening and reconstruction of Worcester Bridge from 1930 to 1932 and was later employed by Co-op Coal and then by Sadlers, the meat delivery people. He was also a barman at the Queen's Arms pub on the south side of Powick Lane.

"It was a good old boozer, run then by Bill Pittock, and was one of four pubs within just yards of our home. The others were the Berkeley Arms in Bank Street, the Duke of Wellington next to the Huntingdon Chapel at Birdport, and the Lord Nelson just round the corner from Powick Lane in Merryvale."

Before Gerry's time and up until the 1920s, there had also been two other pubs in Powick Lane - the Glovers Arms and the Rising Sun.

Gerry's boyhood at Powick Lane was shared with his parents, brothers Raymond and Cecil and sister Doris. His other two brothers and two sisters were not born until later, after the family had moved in the early 1940s to live at Portefields, Tolladine. Interestingly, their cousins the Forteys had also moved from Powick Lane to Tolladine where their home initially was in May Avenue.

Gerry's schooling began at Hounds Lane - "a great school" - and continued first at Gorse Hill and finally at St Paul's. His teacher at Hounds Lane was Mrs Darke, and also on the teaching staff were Harold Bradley and Christopher Darke who were later to be among his teachers at St Paul's School. Christopher Darke became Gerry's headmaster.

After leaving school, Gerry worked first for a firm at Britannia Square and then as a delivery van boy with the railways before, at 18, undertaking two years' National Service, mainly spent in Germany.

On de-mob, he began 39 years employment with Meco, the mining engineering company in Bromyard Road, working in the Roller Shop where conveyor belts were produced.

At 59, however, he and some of his Meco colleagues were made redundant and since then, he has worked part-time for Paul Cherry, the dry cleaning specialist at Blackpole. Gerry's wife of the past 48 years has been Shirley, a Worcester girl "born and bred" whose maiden name was Walker. They live in Glenthorne Avenue, Worcester.

Alas, Gerry's brother Cecil, with whom he enjoyed many of his boyhood exploits, died 18 months ago. Cecil had worked for 49 years as a mould maker at the Worcester Royal Porcelain factory.