| CommuniGate | Williams/Bottrill/Hughes/Whitehead's

This is The North East | CommuniGate | South Bank Nostalgia Society

Feedback

Homepage

Old South Bank

The 1940's

The 1950's

The 1960's.

The 21st Century

Victoria Street School

Cromwell Road School

Princess Street School

St. Peter's RC Schools

The Boys Clubs

Military Service

Leisure

The Achievers

The Characters

Slaggy Tales

Ex - Pats Index

Maps & Aerial Pix

Reunion News

The Pubs and Clubs

Smiths Dock & Gala Days

Remember...?

The Entertainers

More Slaggy Tales

Some Slaggy Islanders

Pub and Club Activities

Ex-Pats Gallery

Other Schools

Religious Establishments

Reunion 2002 Pics

More Slaggy Islanders

Special Articles

The 1970's

Smith Family Album

Bert Earl

Yet More Slaggies

Farewell

Reunion 2003 Pics

Don Albitis

The Trolleybuses

Terry Larkin

South Bank Football

Blackpool Excursions

South Bank Tomorrow

For All Ex-Pats!

Remember When

Reunion 2004 pics

The Bowden/Howards

Reunion 2005 Pics

Rix Pix 2005

Tears for South Bank

PLUGS

This Is Your Life

Clan McManus

Chard Reunions

50th Anniversary

Reunion 2006 pics

Williams/Bottrill/Hughes/Whitehead's

Reunion 2007 pix

Work

2008 On...

The Artists

Contact Information for South Bank Nostalgic Society

Links for South Bank Nostalgia Society

Guestbook

1. Family History

Molly and Ernie Whitehead with their two sons in Redcar in 1938

Photo from Sheridan (Whitehead) Friedman
L-r: The Whiteheads - Molly, Eric Lewis, Ernest William, and John Ernest.
It started with a message in my Google Mailbox...

Name: Sheridan (Whitehead) Friedman
Posted:15:21 Wed 25th April 2007
Comment:
I'm researching my family history and found this site delightful! My dad Ernest Whitehead was born in 1940 to Ernest "Ernie" William and Mary Elizabeth "Molly" Whitehead. (My granny was a Miss Williams before she married my granddad.) She was born in Southbank in 1905, grandad was born in 1908 in Redcar. Anyway, they also had two older sons, John "Jack" and Eric Lewis Whitehead, born in 1930 and 1935 respectively. In 1949 the whole family emigrated to South Africa and granny and granddad died there. Just before she passed on, granny was reunited with an old friend who had lived down the road from her and gone to school with her all those years before in Southbank - Edith "Edie" Morgan (nee Briggs or Biggs). They became neighbours again in their late 70's, this time in South Africa. Does anyone remember them? I have photos which I'd love to send to the site but have no idea how to do it - any ideas? Thanks for the window into my grandparents' world! Kind regards, Sheridan (Whitehead) Friedman

Then...
Dear Dick,
Herewith (finally!) two of the photo's I've been promising to send you. I'll send more with my next email.
Note: One of the photo's is above with the second (and the full history) on story 111.
(Strike out "full" and put in "more"! At this point I didn't realise how much history would be forthcoming so, although this story started on the Old South Bank page I soon had to start a new page! Dick.)

2. Lucky to have a history

A day at the pool in the early 1950s

Photo from Sheridan (Whitehead) Friedman
My grandparents were Mary Elizabeth (nee Williams) and Ernest William Whitehead - known to everyone as Molly & Ernie. They had three sons; John Ernest "Jack" Whitehead (born 1930, Middlesbrough), Eric Lewis Whitehead (1935 - 2007), Ernest Whitehead (born 1940, Middlesbrough) Ernest is my father.

My granddad, Ernie Whitehead, was born in 1908 in Redcar to Ada (nee Winter) and John Henry Whitehead. My granny, Molly Williams, was born in 1905 in South Bank to Mary Elizabeth (nee Bottrill) and Lewis Davis Williams. She was the eldest of three surviving daughter, the others being Olwyn (about 1907 - 1990), Jane Annie (born about 1910 and died very young) and Gwendoline "Gwen" Williams, (about 1913 - 2000).

Olwyn Williams married Felix Hughes (1906 - 1970) in, I think, the early 1930's and Gwen Williams married Alan Foreman in 1941.

Going back one generation, Mary Elizabeth Bottrill (1881-1962) had a sister named Sarah Annie Bottrill (1883 - ?) and it was she who married John (?) William Bowden in 1907. He died during WW1 and she never re-married. She became known affectionately as "Nant", because her nephews, Thomas Hughes and John Ernest Whitehead struggled to say "Aunt". There were also three brothers, Charles (1886 - 1888), Joseph (1888 - ?) and James Elgy Bottrill (1891 - ?)
All the Bottrill siblings were born on Nelson Street, South Bank. Before coming to South Bank, the Bottrills had lived in Leicestershire for about two generations and, before that, they'd lived in Northamptonshire.

Lewis Davis Williams was born in 1879 in Durham to Ellen (White, nee Ward) and Lewis Williams (born in 1834 in Wales). I've seen Ellen's photo on your site so I won't duplicate it by sending it again. She was also the wife of Patrick White (born in 1832 in Ireland and died in 1872 in Whitwood, Yorkshire) and the mother of his seven children, James, Bridget, Mary Jane "Molly", William, Elizabeth, Patrick and John White. I see they have also been mentioned on your site before, as they all ended up moving to South Bank.
This is my connection to South Bank and why I felt I'd email you.

My childhood was filled with fascinating stories of my grandparents years in South Bank. My granny's father, Lewis Davis Williams, turned one of the rooms in their house into a type of gym and here he taught his 3 daughters to box! My granddad would often warn people to beware my granny's left-hook as she had a "mean South paw". Granny Molly remembered how she'd shocked and angered her parents when the new hairstyle, the 'bob' came out and she went off to have her long tresses lopped off and permed. Her parents were furious... until they realised how nice it looked then promptly marched her two younger sisters off to have their's done. She NEVER wore her hair any other way after that, right till the end she went for her monthly cut and perm at the local hairdressers.

My granny was working at the local cinema (I'm sorry, I don't know it's name but you might be able to tell me which one it would have been?) in the mid-late 1920's, showing people to their seats. My granddad, new to South Bank and staying with a friend, went to watch a show one evening. When he saw my granny he decided right then and there that she was the one for him. The only problem was that his friend had decided the same thing! For months they both pursued her until, when walking home one evening, my granddad told him to look elsewhere for romance, Molly Williams was his! The friend duly backed off and the rest was history. They married 21 April 1930.

My granddad had been in the army up till then but, when the first of their children was born, he went into business with his father who built houses in Redcar and the surrounding areas. For the rest of his life he always 'looked' like a soldier, back straight, tummy in - always the military 'air' about him.

During the 2nd World War they witnessed a church surviving a bombing, with only one window being broken, while the explosion obliterated all the other buildings that stood around it - I'm sorry I can't remember the name of the church but, I believe it stood on a corner and everything else around it was badly damaged. St. Peter's They also seem to have had an outside toilet because granddad loved to tell the tale of how he went out one night and had just got himself settled down, with his pants around his ankles, when he saw a German plane (which had been hit) spiraling towards him. Diving out of the toilet, whilst trying to pull up his pants at the same time, he leaped across the back yard and in through the back door. Unbeknownst to him, my granny was bending over, behind the door, hiding the children under the stairs. At the moment he threw the door open it hit her on the behind and she went flying, landing on top of the children under the stairs. The plane did not hit the out-house but landed in a field behind them. The next day their two older children, Jack and Lewis, went out to investigate. A few weeks later my granny noticed that there was a funny smell coming from jack's cupboard. After a thorough search she discovered the remains of the German pilot's ring-finger hidden amongst his socks - with the ring still on it! She took it off to the police Station and Jack was in terrible trouble that night.

Jack, who now lives in Didcot, Oxfordshire, has a lot of South Bank stories to tell. One he often tells is how he was 'saved' by a pair of long pants. Apparently, after another night of bombing, he and his friends had gone out investigating and found an unexploded bomb. They took it to one of the children's father's sheds and tried as hard as they could to open it. I suppose, being young boys, they were inquisitive to know what exactly made a bomb go off. Anyway, after hours of hammering and prying they couldn't get it open and made a pact not to tell anyone else but to meet the next day to continue in their quest to get the thing open. Early the next morning my granny woke Jack up and told him she was taking him to town to get his long pants. He was torn, he wanted to meet up with his friends as arranged but he was also excited to finally being graduated to long pants, the sign that he was no longer a 'little boy'. I suppose there wasn't too much of an inner-fight and he went off to get his long pants. The next morning the classroom seemed empty, many of his friends weren't there. (I'm sure you know where this story is going.) The Headmaster came in and whispered to the teacher who then informed the class that they should have a few minutes silence for the boys who hadn't arrived for school that morning. He said they had apparently tried to open an un-exploded bomb by melting it on a fire! It exploded and they were all killed. He then went on to tell them this was a lesson for the rest of them. Poor Jack says he sat in stunned silence as the realisation of what could have happened to him hit him. He felt responsible because he never told anyone what their plans were. It obviously affected him deeply as he often talks about being 'saved' by his long pants. I wonder who those poor little boys were? Does anyone else know this story? How awful it must have been for their parents to lose their children at a time like that.

Soon after WW2 my granddad, Ernie Whitehead, took his wife and three sons to South Africa. He came from a long line of bricklayers and builders and he'd been offered a job there. So, in 1949, the arrived in a dusty little fledgling-town near Johannesburg and he began building houses for the employees of the new Steelworks (ISCOR) which had just opened there. They did really well for themselves, were well known and liked by everybody there and they never left. Granddad was responsible for the building of the first English speaking Church there. Sadly, today the congregation has dwindled and they rarely hold services there but, when they do, my dad will attend. Granny was renowned for her baking and would often be approached to bake a cake or a tart for this or that committee, in order that they might raffle it to make some money. Granddad died in the town he helped build in 1983, and granny followed him in 1987.

I will write more, if you'd like, and send more photos later. Have to be off now to feed the young'uns :-)

Kind regards,
Sheri.

3. More from Sheri

Uncle Jack in London in 1988

Photo from Sheridan Friedman
Hi Dick,

Just got off the phone with my Uncle Jack (Whitehead) and he has filled in a few of the blanks. He says he'll have a sit down and a cup of tea and see if he can remember anything else. ;-)

Right, three of his friends, who were killed while trying to 'dismantle' the bomb I told you about previously, were;
Georgie Kemp, 'Skinny' Halstrip and Georgie Carter (I hope I've spelled them correctly.) He couldn't remember the other children's names but said he'll let me know as soon as he does.

My granny worked at the Empire Cinema in 1929, as an usherette, when she met my granddad - not The Palace, as I had thought. I didn't even have to mention all the names of the various cinemas that were there at the time - he could tell me straight away. He mentioned the Hippodrome and also one called The Odeon. He seems to think The Palace wasn't there then?

He says he went first to Princess Street School and then on to Central. Apparently Mr. Harris (named "Pop" by his students) was his teacher each year, moving up with them. He used to say,with a smile, "I've got the biggest load of dummies walking but I wouldn't part with them for any class in England!" because Uncle Jack and his friends were so good at sports that they won all the trophies and his class was always full of trophies for the various sporting events they'd participated in.

My granddad, Ernest Whitehead, worked at Dorman Long as a bricklayer in the furnaces and, on leaving school at 14, Uncle Jack worked for the Council, also as a bricklayer. (Funny thing that - they employed bricklayers but years later were only too happy to tear South Bank down....!) When they moved across to South Africa in 1949 Uncle Jack was the first 'apprentice' bricklayer to be employed by ISCOR. I'm happy to say that that brickwork is still standing....;-)

While in South Africa, Jack played football for ISCOR - usually in the 'goalie' position because he was so tall. He became known as 'The Big Swede' (must have been the blonde hair and Nordic features?) but woe betide anyone who called him that while sitting near my granny during a match (she always supported her son's and never missed one of their many sporting events). There's a well told story in our family of someone sitting in front of my granny one day when Uncle Jack saved a goal in spectacular fashion. They shouted something along the lines of, "Hurray for the Big Swede!!!" only to hear my grandmother shouting back at them, "He's not Swedish - he's from Yorkshire! I should know, I'm his mother!"

I'll send more again soon.

Kind regards,
Sheri