Kites of Springfield
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:16 pm
I have been looking through some old letters and stuff and found this, written by my father. As far as I can see, the Gladys Kite it mentions was the daughter of this William https://bcconnections.tribalpages.com/t ... ver=494933
1939
William E Kite born 9 Apr 1907
Gwendoline Kite born 8 Dec 1900
Gladys J Kite born16 Jul 1927 (later Whittle)
name deleted as living.
Dad was writing about a visit in 1932/33 and if if there are any relatives of the Kites on here then they may be interested - and if they had a photo of the house from that time then I would love to see it. Dad was staying with the Wesson family.
"This aunt’s house where I stayed just had a living kitchen downstairs with a bedroom above and a second bedroom which was above an entry. The door into the house was in the entry. Along the entry was a communal wash-house and lavatory and communal water tap. There was an enamel bowl which stood on the table in the living room and it served as the kitchen sink. The room had one fireside chair, three ordinary chairs, a sideboard and corner cupboard in which were kept my cousin’s (aged 3) rusks and milk and a tin of biscuits. I seem to remember we fed well by my home standards. the small bedroom over the entry was accessible through my aunt and uncle’s bedroom. It belonged to another, maiden, aunt who was in service in Birmingham, and she lived there, coming “home” once every month for a half-day.
...
The maiden aunt’s bedroom where I slept at Springfield had a single bed and a big mahogany chest of drawers with a needlework box on top. She showed me once what she kept in the box – a small tin which her father – my grandfather – filled with tea leaves and sugar and took to work. He worked in a foundry and died from a heart attack at work and the tin was his sole memorial, except for a photo of him, a stern looking but kindly man with a big moustache.
...
The time I stayed at Springfield and slept in the maiden aunt’s bed, there was an old couple who lived in the back-to-back house at the other end of the entry. The woman always dressed in black silk Victorian period clothes, and he wore a black coat, fawn drain-pipe trousers and, when he went out, a bowler hat. Even then, they seemed frozen in distant time and I never knew who they were, though they must have been retired. They both had vicious tempers and chased us out of the entry where we played when it rained. On the other side of the entry were two more back-to-back houses. The one on the roadside was used as a shop and Mrs Kite and her daughter, with whom I used to play and who was called Gladys. The shop must have closed because of the depression, but it still had a lot of sweets in stock, though they were getting sticky. But Gladys had access to them and she was a generous girl, so she was very popular. In the house behind the shop there lived another old woman who owned the houses either side of the entry. I went along the entry one day to the lavatory and her door was open. I heard her say: “Fetch your auntie, I’m dying”. And she did, the next day, following a stroke. Her husband didn’t work either. Perhaps they lived on the rents from the property. He used to carry out repairs to the houses. They were very jerry-built. I saw him working at a dividing wall. He lifted the bricks, and they came clean away from the rubbishy mortar. He could have demolished it by leaning on it. In the days the houses were built, they used coal slurry instead of sand with a small amount of cement for the mortar. Gravity did the rest."
1939
William E Kite born 9 Apr 1907
Gwendoline Kite born 8 Dec 1900
Gladys J Kite born16 Jul 1927 (later Whittle)
name deleted as living.
Dad was writing about a visit in 1932/33 and if if there are any relatives of the Kites on here then they may be interested - and if they had a photo of the house from that time then I would love to see it. Dad was staying with the Wesson family.
"This aunt’s house where I stayed just had a living kitchen downstairs with a bedroom above and a second bedroom which was above an entry. The door into the house was in the entry. Along the entry was a communal wash-house and lavatory and communal water tap. There was an enamel bowl which stood on the table in the living room and it served as the kitchen sink. The room had one fireside chair, three ordinary chairs, a sideboard and corner cupboard in which were kept my cousin’s (aged 3) rusks and milk and a tin of biscuits. I seem to remember we fed well by my home standards. the small bedroom over the entry was accessible through my aunt and uncle’s bedroom. It belonged to another, maiden, aunt who was in service in Birmingham, and she lived there, coming “home” once every month for a half-day.
...
The maiden aunt’s bedroom where I slept at Springfield had a single bed and a big mahogany chest of drawers with a needlework box on top. She showed me once what she kept in the box – a small tin which her father – my grandfather – filled with tea leaves and sugar and took to work. He worked in a foundry and died from a heart attack at work and the tin was his sole memorial, except for a photo of him, a stern looking but kindly man with a big moustache.
...
The time I stayed at Springfield and slept in the maiden aunt’s bed, there was an old couple who lived in the back-to-back house at the other end of the entry. The woman always dressed in black silk Victorian period clothes, and he wore a black coat, fawn drain-pipe trousers and, when he went out, a bowler hat. Even then, they seemed frozen in distant time and I never knew who they were, though they must have been retired. They both had vicious tempers and chased us out of the entry where we played when it rained. On the other side of the entry were two more back-to-back houses. The one on the roadside was used as a shop and Mrs Kite and her daughter, with whom I used to play and who was called Gladys. The shop must have closed because of the depression, but it still had a lot of sweets in stock, though they were getting sticky. But Gladys had access to them and she was a generous girl, so she was very popular. In the house behind the shop there lived another old woman who owned the houses either side of the entry. I went along the entry one day to the lavatory and her door was open. I heard her say: “Fetch your auntie, I’m dying”. And she did, the next day, following a stroke. Her husband didn’t work either. Perhaps they lived on the rents from the property. He used to carry out repairs to the houses. They were very jerry-built. I saw him working at a dividing wall. He lifted the bricks, and they came clean away from the rubbishy mortar. He could have demolished it by leaning on it. In the days the houses were built, they used coal slurry instead of sand with a small amount of cement for the mortar. Gravity did the rest."
