I was born at the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century when the events of the first world war were the main memories of my parents’ generation; the Boer war was still remembered by an even older generation.
Veterans of the Crimea were still alive, as were the survivors of the American civil war. Thinking about this it is surprising that ages and generations are divided by war, like way-markers along the road. Peoples’ memories are often dated by: “just before the war…” or “after the war…”. I think now that the younger generation will use a different time scale and possibly the millennium will be used as a time stamp. The use of atomic weapons and means of mass destruction have probably made war obsolete although there are bound to be madmen with a lust for power. Thinking back on this, to an untold number of people war is a major disaster. To my parents and their generation, the first world war completely changed their way of life by altering the social conditions that existed before this conflict. The aftermath of war was there for all to see for the first time. The men in spinal carriage, the limbless and blinded ex-soldiers. I remember these from my childhood: the long flat adult perambulator with the paralysed man, or the man that lived somewhere on Uppingham Road who had a black cloth covering his face. One-armed and one-legged men were a common sight and were almost taken for granted. Nearly every street or area had its shrine on the wall maintained by the widows of the men of the street who had been killed; some of these were maintained clean with fresh flowers up to the outbreak of the second world war. It is strange to think that times and events that I lived through are, for the younger generations, now part of history.
My grandmother, my father’s mother born in the 1850’s (I think), was still alive although, through some forgotten scandal the real date of her birth is shrouded in mystery and varies anywhere within a period of ten years. That’s another story, as is the story of the death of her husband, my grandfather.
On my mother’s side of the family, there was my grandfather whose wife had also died at the beginning of the century, leaving him with six children to raise between the ages of one and fourteen years old. At the time they were living at 13 Edward Road in Clarendon Park, and my Aunt Em (short for Emily) always talked nostalgically of “those days when we lived in Edward Road”. Grandfather’s occupation was variously: waggoner, coachman, cabbie although originally apprenticed as an upholsterer to Inglesants, a large furniture store and manufacturer. His first love, and throughout his life, was horses; much the same pattern as the youth of today is obsessed with cars and motor cycles. I believe he worked in the 1900’s for a hire firm called Illston’s situated in Humberstone Gate, and he remained friends with Mrs. Illston.
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