| Description | DOB: 13th November 1902
DOD:Unknown
Born at the Forester's Arms in Brockenhurst, New Forest.
Early years spent in Brockenhurst, surrounded by rural and pub life.
Moved to Woolston, Southampton after parents separated in 1912.
Lived in a working-class area; experienced urban poverty, live, poor housing, and street hawkers.
Witnessed Zeppelin raids during WWI and suffered famiyl tragedies (father and sister died).
Attended a private school in Brockenhurst run by a music teacher.
Transferred to Ludlow School in Woolston.
No formal secondary or higher education; left school at age 14 in 1916.
Started work in 1916 as a teaboy on a constuction site.
Worked in factories, shipyards (Summers & Payne), and as an apprentice shipwright.
Became a bricklayer specialising in gas-works Sector setting across England.
Formed part of a nomadic workforce, often travelling for contracts.
Experienced both wage suppression and union activisim; joined the operative bricklayer's society.
Enjoyed boxing and bought gloves endorsed by Georges Carpentier.
Witnessed economic changes post-WWI including the 1921 downturn.
Participated in significant building and infrastructure projects asross the UK.
Lived through cultural shifts in working-class life and industrial trades.
Engaged in protests over wage cuts and working conditions.
Experienced the hard realities of transient, physical labour during the interwar period.
Type-written
Bricklayer, gasworks, WWI, retort-setter, Southampton, Woolston, Brockenhurst, trade union, industrial labour, working class, apprenticeship, Eastbourne, London, poverty, childhood illness, family death, itinerant work, lodging houses, labour strikes, beer culture, duck stew, boking, 1920s England. |