Wollaston 1942

Some time in 1942, whilst I was in my second year at University,  we moved from 7, New Road Stourbridge, an address which had tripped lightly off the tongue, to 27, Meriden Avenue, Wollaston. Wollaston had once been a village a mile or so from Stourbridge, lying on the eastern side and on the gentler slope of the scarp of old red sandstone. From this ridge, one could look down across open country to the Severn Valley and ultimately to Wales. The main road from Stourbridge to Bridgnorth, eleven miles away on the Severn, passed through Wollaston Cross.

The same road joined the Wolverhampton to Worcester road at the pub called the 'Stewponey'. In the thirties this pub was rebuilt completely and equipped with a 'Lido'. The war and the English weather conspired to defeat this enterprise which when it first appeared was very popular.

In the thirties too, Wollaston had been absorbed into Stourbridge by the building of many acres of council houses which stretched almost from the end of Worcester street, at Studley Court - afterwards Mary Stevens Park, to the top of the ridge. A similar estate, 'Beauly Bank', joined the end of Enville Street, Stourbridge to Bridgnorth Road Wollaston.

Meriden Avenue was then a cul-de-sac leading north-west from Wollaston cross. There was a footpath however, linking its far end to Vicarage Road. In the early thirties it had been 'developed' by the building firm of E.R.R. Tooby and was lined with quite pleasant semi-detached houses. We had a front garden, a reasonably large rear garden looking out over a field, a driveway and a wooden garage.

As we had no car, the garage collected all sorts of junk in which hid an assortment of the smaller fauna. I once started to clear it out and after about an hour my Mother enquired how I was getting on. "Well," I replied, "If they all decided to charge at once, I would be in trouble."

In order to be in fashion and to keep up appearances, it was decided that the house should have a name.

Having rejected suggestions at Saunders and Bowkley the ironmongers that we might like a name-plate showing 'Lyndhurst', 'Chez-nous' or 'Dunromin' which they had in stock but which, even in those days were written off as 'naff', we opted for a plate into which up to ten separate letters could be inserted. During a previous holiday we had visited Goathland on the Yorkshire moors and Mother had rather fallen for the place. The house was therefore and for no other reason called 'Goathland'. This afterwards caused some embarrassment and cracks about 'sheep and goats' from morons who knew not Yorkshire.

One tremendous advantage now was that we had mains electricity, electric lighting and a selection of power points. Almost my first commission was to go out and buy a vacuum cleaner the marvels of which when demonstrated, persuaded my reluctant mother that it 'had something'. We even persuaded her eventually to dispense with her much loved but potentially lethal gas iron, and to use an electric one which I had scrounged from Aunt Ethel . I managed also to pick up a second-hand radiogram which enabled us to rid ourselves for ever of the chore of 'wireless batteries' and to play what later came to be known as '78's.

On the debit side, we were now a mile or two from Schools, Father's workplace and bus and train stations. No longer was everything just round the corner.

Having by now had a bike for a few years this was no hardship for me, and had the added advantage of being only a short distance from 'the Ridge' where the country began. The disadvantage in this respect was that wherever you cycled, it was always uphill going home. Buses from Kinver ran to Stourbridge via Wollaston every half-hour or so.