Uncle Bill

We saw Bill and Gladys often; at the Hednesford cottage, or visiting with them at their house: 342 Cannock Road, Wolverhampton.  The house had steps going up from the gate, with a little brick wall on each side, and I particularly liked to play there. 

Bill and Gladys were a very kind and loving couple, who left behind them many happy memories.  My sister Judith stayed with them while I was being born, and she possesses a letter written from Gladys to Mum at that time.  

Bill managed to avoid work in the mines.  Instead, he got a job in one of the car factories that were starting to appear in the Black Country in the twenties and attained what passed for affluence in the Knowles family.  During my early childhood, when we visitied Grandma and Grandad Knowles often, Bill was the only member of the family with a car — a large black Wolseley saloon.  My mother claims that as a young man he wore spats.  He was eventually a chauffeur for the CEO of Boulton Paul, the aircraft manufacturers. 

With Bill's help, the other Knowles boys all escaped from colliery work. When the war came, Bill helped them get jobs with Boulton Paul.  Because his wife's people were farmers, and two of her brothers butchers, he was able to get fresh meat during the war, too, which he sent on to Grandma and Grandad.  Altogether, Bill was a life support system for the Knowleses. 

Auntie Gladys I remember as fat and jolly, with a very heavy and nasal Staffordshire accent, pronouncing "bus" as "booz".  Uncle Bill was devoted to her, and her death broke his heart.  He lived on for many years; I remember calling on him last, in company with Mum and Judith at a nursing home in Wolverhampton in late 1978 or early 1979.  When someone mentioned Gladys he burst into tears. 

Bill and Gladys had one son, Douglas.  Douglas married Joyce and was in the construction business. However, he got into a lawsuit, suffered a big judgment against him, and never worked again (because anything he earned would have been garnished).  I don't know how he lived. I know how he died, though: sometime in the late eighties he won a trip to Spain in a competition.  Arriving at the hotel, he fell over dead.  Douglas and Joyce had two children, Paul and Jennifer.  Paul attained some rank in one of the local police forces.

The above is from my own memory and from things told me by Mum and Cousin Stanley.  Aunt Muriel has another point of view.  "Like the rest of my brothers, he came from Havington, not Givington.  All the years I cared for Mum and Dad I did not receive any help from Bill or the others.  They treated Mum like dirt.  The story about them getting meat for us during the war is rubbish.  Gladys did have a brother Syd who was a butcher in Wolverhampton, but I don't think we had much off him.  They used to come visit weekends to see what I had managed to get off the factory black market and the shops in Handsworth."