Frank & Lottie Kelland outside 4 Haven Road
from the private collection of Jennifer Leach
Memories of Kelland family members
As told to Beryl James by Jennifer Leach & Brian Kelland
The house in Haven Road contributed a big part of our childhood memories. Brian and I are cousins, but we grew up as close as a brother and sister. Number 4 Haven Road was our grandparents' house. Frank Kelland married Lottie George in 1898 when Frank was twenty-one and Lottie nineteen. They first lived in Shooting Marsh Stile and then moved to Haven Road.
The house
The house next door at number 2 was then the doctor's house; my mother was born in 1915 and she remembered playing there. She was the youngest of eleven children, born within fifteen years and, although two of the children died in infancy, my mother's home must have been very crowded. At the front were two rooms; the parlour, used on Sundays, and another room which, by the time we remember the house, was Granny's bedroom. The main living room was at the back of the house, where there was also a scullery with a cold tap and a gas cooker. The living area had a range for heating water and drying clothes. Washing for such a large family must have taken up a lot of our grandmother's time and was done in the wash house at the end of the garden where there was a copper boiler fuelled by a wood fire underneath. The house had a twisting staircase and upstairs were two bedrooms on the first floor and, at the top of the house, 'the garret' that was used for storage, but not sleeping. There was no bathroom and baths were taken in a tin bath, brought in and filled from water heated on the range; lighting was by gas lamps.
The grandparents
Our grandparents were poor: grandfather was a stone sawyer. His father was a wood sawyer and Lottie's father a brass finisher; we found this out from their marriage certificate. Grandfather was a soldier in the First World War and was so proud to have fought at the Battle of Mons in 1914 that he named my mother Olive Mons. He brought a beautiful china-headed doll back from France for the children.
Brian lived the first eight years of his life at Haven Road with his father after his mother died in childbirth. His father worked at Pike's Garage nearby and Pike also had a cycle shop in Haven Road. There were other shops there too: I remember Mr Stoneman's grocery shop and another shop where I was once sent on an errand to buy polish.
Grandfather died in 1938, but as a child I visited my grandmother every Friday, walking along the canal path with my mother. Brian's father would walk us home in the evening. Brian and I often played together; we shared a pair of roller skates and used one each, scooting along together, rather than taking turns! He had a wonderful metal pedal car made for him by his Dad.
More memories of the area
Like most children in those days, Brian and I had plenty of freedom. Haven Road went straight down to the river then and there was an open area called 'the Banks' where the Malthouse pub is now. There were a few swings and a seesaw, but when the fair came, Brian and I were allowed to go on our own. Brian remembers going to see the monkeys and one stole his toffee apple; he was really worried that he'd be in trouble because a sign said that feeding them was not allowed! We sometimes watched men catching eels from the river bank using steel traps. The river was flanked with warehouses which are now antique shops.
In the years when I visited Haven Road, the house next door was no longer the doctor's, but was a lodging house. Grandmother's rent was still paid next door and sometimes she sent me round to pay; it was about 2/6 a week (12½ p). I didn't like going there much as it was quite rough.
Characters and happy memories
The most exotic character we remember was the onion seller who came from France each summer; he was allowed to sleep rough at Raddon's timber yard whilst he pedalled the district on his bicycle.
My grandmother died in 1957 and the visits to Haven Road came to an end. That house filled our childhood with happy memories and my grandmother's house and the lock-keeper's cottage where our uncle lived (see story about Fred Kelland on this website) gave Brian and me roots in St Thomas. Brian began school there too, first at Comrie House on the corner of Chamberlain Street, and then at the Union Street school, now St Thomas Primary School. His father remarried when he was eight and they moved from Haven Road.
Determination
There is one more surprising thing I remember about our grandmother: she had a gold watch! Our grandparents were never well-off and struggled to raise such a large family, but she managed to save up and bought the watch from John Hawley's jewellers in Commercial Road. I think that indicates the will power and determination of my grandmother.