"New Quads in Town":

"Cecil Raikes" the locomotive that shunted the coal between Woodside Colliery and Nutbrook Colliery. ‘New Quads in Town’: It's well over fifty years ago now since the small town of Heanor, in Southern Derbyshire, became the talking point of The British Isles. It was during the Second World War that U.S. Staff Sergeant William Thompson, an American G.I. at that time stationed at Cheltenham, met Nora Carpenter, just an ordinary girl looking for love. They became lovers soon after meeting, and then some time later, Nora found she was pregnant. Can you imagine the surprise when she discovered she wasn't expecting one baby, but four? The family was aghast when local mid-wife Nurse Bryan delivered two boys and two girls, on February 28th 1944, at their home on Derby Road. They were named Michael, Maureen, Madeleine, and Macdonald Carpenter, and Nora's brother Don, a retired coal miner, recalled how they wrapped the babies in blankets, and placed them in draws in the home, and soon afterwards they took them in a neighbour's car to Heanor Maternity Home. Sadly, MacDonald, the last to be born died about two weeks later, and Nora became so ill she was taken to Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. The three surviving quads stayed in the Maternity Home for several months, and were later Christened by the Vicar of Heanor, Douglas Smith. The event raised interest throughout the whole of Britain, despite the war. The local cinema, owned by The Midland Empire Theatres, gave them Christening robes, and Savings Certificates, and even free tickets for life! Heanor postmen carried special large postbags to cope with the increase of mail and parcels from all over the country. There were envelopes with money, clothing coupons, and even a proposal of marriage! The babies all had blue eyes and blonde hair, just like their father, who visited and stayed at weekends. He was demobbed in 1945, and went back to the States. He obtained a divorce from his American wife and in 1946; Nora flew to the U.S.A. to join him, with the three children, and of course, to get married! Nora Thompson is believed to be still living in Pittsburgh with daughter Madeleine. Husband William Thompson died some years ago, but Nora has returned to Heanor twice since she left. She says she has had a happy marriage with no regrets. At first she was homesick, but the children kept her too busy to think about coming home. 'Time Magazine' story: QUADS AND THE MAN - MONDAY MARCH 13TH. 1944 Staff Sergeant Bill Thompson, whose home address is Friendship Avenue, Pittsburgh, was the friendliest Yank in all the crowded British Isles. He bounced down the street of his West Country station, shook hands with anyone & everyone, boasted: "I'm the father of the Heanor quads. I want, the whole world to know." The Father. The chances of a man in Britain siring four children at a single birth are 600,000-to-1. Auburn-haired auburn-skinned Sergeant Bill had made it. Life, he felt at that moment, had no problems he couldn't lick. He was not married to Norah Carpenter, the English mother of his quadruplets. He had a wife, Eleanor, back in Pittsburgh, whom he had married (after a three-year acquaintance) just before he went overseas. But he had written Eleanor long ago, told her that their marriage had been a mistake, that he was in love with Norah and that she was going to have a baby. Now, he hoped, Eleanor would give him a divorce and let him marry Norah. Bill was around one night last week when "the baby" was expected in Norah's home in sooty, unlovely Heanor. "I sat in the kitchen drinking tea and smoking," he related, until Norah's mother came in and said, 'It's a girl. There's another one coming.' I couldn't say a word. I thought, 'Jeeze, think of me being the father of twins.' "Three hours later they came and said the third had arrived. I sweated. I didn't dare ask again. I finally went out to the phone and told the sergeant on duty at my station that I had three babies. He thought I was nuts. "When I got back to Norah's I said, 'Don't tell me there's another one!'" There was. Said Bill: "Jeeze! You could have blown me down!" The Mother. Frail, fluffy-haired Norah Carpenter, former telephone operator in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, sat up in the tiny bedroom of her miner-father's house. Piled around her were congratulatory messages and neighbors' gifts: diapers, blankets, baby boots and dresses. To visitors Norah said: "I wish to make no secret of the fact I'm single." Her bustling mother said: "We would rather be honest about it." Heanor's town council opened a subscription for the babies, itself led the donations with £25. To Norah at that moment, life had never seemed so exciting. Even the local cinema sent a gift: "Flicker tickets for life! For all six of us!" The Children. Auburn-haired Michael and MacDonald, brunette Maureen and Madeline came into a home ready for only one baby. They were wrapped in cotton batting and pink-&-blue shawls, put into an "emergency" sideboard drawer and carried to wicker cots and baskets in Heanor's nursing home. Three-pound MacDonald, the last to arrive, died in his sixth day. His brother and sisters seemed to be doing well on a diet of milk, water, glucose, Vitamins K and B1. The U.S. Army does not distinguish between legitimacy and illegitimacy. Result: the three babies will share $70 in monthly family allowances. The British Army allows three children, legitimate or illegitimate, about $18 a month. Michael, Maureen and Madeline lose the King's bounty £1 per head ($4.04) for multiple births of three or more. This bounty is not for by-blows. The Wife. Trim, sensitive Mrs. Eleanor Thompson answered the long-distance phone in Pittsburgh. A New York Daily Newsman told her about her husband's progeny. She exclaimed: "Can you imagine! Quadruplets! That never happened in his family. Not even twins." No, she would not give Bill a divorce. Said her priest: "There is no way the marriage can be broken under the laws of the Church." Said her father: "Let him sweat it out!" The World. Yanks in Britain called Bill Thompson "the best man in the whole damn Army," made the inevitable cracks about his status in the Services of Supply. Officialdom, British and American, pondered the chances of a Congressional inquiry into Army morals as reflected by Sergeant Thompson's application of lend-lease. But the death of MacDonald, the sudden weakening of Norah cast a shadow over Bill's high spirits. He hurried to London, conferred long & earnestly with his superiors. Then, scratching his head over how to legitimize his family, he received the press. Said he: "We just want to be left alone." The original 16m/m copy of this film is now deposited with: The Media Archive for Central England at The University of Leicester, 1 Salisbury Road, Leicester LE! 7QR, U.K and will soon be the subject of a Central News programme 9 All three children married. Michael Thompson lives in California, Maureen spent two years in a convent before marriage, and Madeleine had two children. So ends a happy story, when Britain was at war, a ray of sunshine amongst the cold of depression. How do I remember this, when I was only four years old at the time? Well my mum was one of Nora's neighbours at the time, and she kept a scrap book with all the newspaper cuttings and memories, which was handed down the family after she died. Some years later when I was in the entertainment business, I was given a 16mm film of the event, now possibly the only surviving record in colour of the event! ‘Growing Up in Fifties Britain’: I guess I was luckier than most children of my age, and experienced a lot of new and exciting events that happened during the 1950s. The war was fading into the past, and the government of the time was releasing stocks of equipment that were no longer needed for the war effort. On a rare visit to Nottingham, my father took me to an Army Surplus shop, and presented me with the first parachute I had ever seen. What, you might think, would a child of ten years old, want with a parachute? Well, where there’s imagination, there’s also creation. We took it to our one acre garden, where we placed a dustbin lid where the hole in the top was, and from the handle on the lid, we tied a rope to an overhanging branch on an apple tree. By pegging out the ropes that went to the body harness, we created an absolutely perfect ‘tent’, which being made of nylon, was also waterproof. We played in our new ‘tent’ all through summer. However, we lost it later in the same year, when we made a fire inside, and the breeze set fire to the fabric. From the same shop my father, who was always interested in communications, purchased an ex – government radio receiver, in a huge grey metal box, with handles, and labelled ‘R 107 Tropicalised Radio Receiver’. (Just after WWII, R.107, and 1152 receivers were easily available; some being removed from fighter planes). Some Sunday’s we would pack up sandwiches and a flask of tea, and head to the highest peaks of the Derbyshire hills. The radio was heavy, and it needed two to load it into the boot of our 1172cc. Ford ‘Popular’ car, to which we had fitted two extra 12v batteries for extra power. 10 Here we would sit for hours listening to foreign stations, commercial, amateur, and governmental, from all over the world. Due to our location we also could pick up the airports, and Royal Air Force bases. It was not illegal to do this; it was only illegal if we made use of the information we heard for bad purposes. For the next few years names like Plessey, Marconi, and Phillips, became household names to us. We would keep a box of spare ‘bottle’ valves with us, tucked under the front seat, because radios in those days, were not as reliable as they are today. Our most treasured companions on our expeditions were the 6X5GT valves, which we would buy whenever we saw them in shops. I was always a happy child, and loved to sing even then. My father went to our local ‘Currys’ shop, which sold all manner of things at that time, and brought a microphone. Some more expensive radio sets were fitted with microphone sockets, and with a suitable length of wire, the radio would become a public address system (PA); and I would love to sing for the neighbours. I loved belting out songs like ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and ‘Don’t Fence Me In’, which I had learned from the BBC Light programme. ‘Life Goes On’ I have a recollection of my parents taking me to Ilkeston Market Place, where a ‘Spitfire’ airplane had been transported, and after queuing for about an hour, I got to sit in the cockpit. I believe it was to raise money for some charitable cause, but cannot recall which it was. My father worked underground at Coppice ‘Woodside’ Colliery, and he came home one day, and told us that the National Coal Board (later British Coal), was offering miners special government ‘Emergency Food Packs’, which had been made for troops abroad, but as the war was now over, they had a surplus. Miners could buy them for £1 a box, deductible from earnings. Like most families we had one, and they contained a load of items including, bars of dark chocolate, (you didn’t have milk chocolate then), and tins of corned beef, egg powder, dried milk, and many other things. As we were a miners family, my mum and I, used to go to the church hall on Market Street, Heanor; where we were given a good hot meal, for which we were charged one shilling each, and for us that was the highlight of the week. 11 Saturday saw my father and I, walking to Ilkeston, by way of the Shipley Estate, making our way down to Nutbrook Colliery, and coming onto the main road near to Ilkeston Railway Station. Then we would walk up one side of Bath Street, looking in all the shops, tour the Market Place, and down the other side, until we arrived at Station Road. Here was a shop called ‘Mitchell’s’, which dealt in furniture, old books, and allsorts of things. Popular at that time were stuffed birds and animals in glass cases, there were otter, squirrels, badgers, butterflies; all selling quite cheap. Mum was superstitious, and would not have anything like these in the home, saying they were ‘unlucky’. Opposite the second – hand shop was a greengrocer, and we would cross the road to buy ourselves a fresh peach, which we would eat on our way home. One week when it rained, we caught a Notts and Derby Trolley bus, which caught fire at the bottom of Hardy Barn at Shipley; they didn’t offer our fare back, despite the fact we walked the rest of the way home. Our escapades which were numerous continued well into my teenage years. ‘Lady Lovely’s Chatter’: There was quite a bit of controversy when Penguin Books decided to publish the novel ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ by D.H Lawrence. The court case seemed to be endless, though I won’t go into detail except to say why should I give the book more publicity; if the tables had been turned, they certainly wouldn’t have given my book any! Much of a do about nothing really; Lawrence just wrote about the activities many a full blooded male had experienced. Around the age of twelve, it all seemed to be happening in my world. King George had died, and a new monarch was about to take his place. There was ‘The Festival of Britain’ the countries proud achievement, and there was little me, growing up fast. A school friend and I used to ‘Cap’ school at least once a week, and our happy hunting grounds were The Shipley Estates’, then owned by The National Coal Board; they also owned the Woodside and Coppice collieries nearby. The lake at Woodside, (now the center of ‘The American Adventure’ theme park), drew us like a magnet, where we fished, swam and watched the trains that went from Heanor Gate Station, to Ilkeston Junction. There was also a small locomotive which shunted wagons into the sidings, where they were loaded with coal. 12 Between the two collieries they used a much larger loco with the name of ‘Cecil Raikes’ this took loaded wagons to the main line junction, which went past a smaller pit ‘Nutbrook Colliery. It was near here that I first discovered what sex was all about, and how humans and nature came into conflict, as they rolled together in the grass, crushing the bluebells. Her name was Margie and his was Frank, he was the engine driver of the saddle-tank locomotive; each Tuesday and Thursday they would meet up at the little woodland copse by the side of the line, where they would make passionate love. There’s a famous quote attributed to have been said by actress Mae West who asked “Is that a gun in your pocket honey, or are you just glad the see me?” Even at that age, I realised that Frank must have been glad to see Margie, and noticed he came complete not with a gun, but a rifle! As observers, what made us first notice their activities was that she never stopped talking, (hence the play on the title of that well known book), and the fact that Frank believed in the old saying “Actions speak louder than words”. The grounds around Shipley Hall were private, and fenced off, with a couple of gamekeepers to ward off intruders, trespasses, and poachers. There were two lodge houses where they resided, Nottingham Lodge and Derby Lodge, named I suppose after the two nearest cities. The thought of a little danger always appealed to us, and we would clime the wall near Nottingham Lodge, and make our way to the animal cemetery that was nearby. Here were buried the bodies of animals, both pets and working dogs, that were kept on the estate, and each had it’s own small named grave stone. Some were inverted cone shaped, others square or rectangular; but all with their names carefully engraved, with name, date of birth, and death. In the centre of the hall grounds where the house had once stood, (it was demolished in the 1920s; due to mining subsidence), were dozens of horizontal poles, which throughout summer, were filled with the skins and pelts of squirrels, rabbits. Along with other animals, the skins were treated and left to dry, to be later sold to make fur coats for the more wealthy people. We were often chase off by the resident gamekeepers, they were not really interested in catching us, but at the age of twelve we could almost run as fast as the rabbits, and hares, that roamed the woods. 13 The coal mines of The Shipley Estates were self supportive, they had their own brickworks, near to what is the Shipley Country Park Visitor Centre, along with a small gasworks, and here they made gas, coal tar, and bitumen paint, for their own use. The farm nearby later became the property of ‘The American Adventure’ theme park, where they stabled the horses for the wild west show, and some of the entertainers resided in bunk houses during the summer months. ‘The March of Time’: In a lifetime of living in the same town, and in my case, the same house, it’s amazing how things have changed; I think for the better. My first recollections as a child were the sound of the miner’s boots as they passed our house to Coppice Colliery, the 7am blowers from New Langley, Coppice, Woodside, and even Ormonde Collieries that heralded the start of a new workday shift. They were followed at 7.30 am by the blower at Morley’s Factory on High Street; and the day became alive for us. My mum would take me into Heanor to stock up the grocery cupboard, and our first call would be the butcher, Bart Evans on Market Street; and while she made her choice, I would play in the sawdust that covered the floor of the shop. On the Market Place was Edwin Hunt’s Fish Shop, with it’s open front window, displaying the best from the British trawler fleet, with live lobsters, mussels and fancy sea food. As we made our way down to Red Lion Square, I would sneak uo the entry to Poynters the Butchers, and at the back of the shop stood two large gas boilers, not for washing clothes, but cooking ham joints, which would be cut up and sold in the shop. Looking back now, it’s surprising how present health and hygiene regulations have changed; the best example of this would be going to the pictures, and eating your fish and chips wrapped in Newspaper to keep them warm. The ultimate luxury was having Izal tissues in the outside toilet, instead of the daily ritual of having to sit and tear the copy of ‘The Daily Herald’ into squares, for whoever may follow next. On Friday nights a horse and cart and two men would visit each house to empty the pan toilets, a disgusting job if ever there was one. I’ve heard some older people refer to them as the ‘Good Old Days’; were they really that good? 14 Please go to the next web page......