From Christine Bate’s document titled BateBatchford.doc
Geoff’s father, Harry was born March 22nd 1890. I also have a birth date of March 21st 1889. His early history is unknown to me and the first information I have about him is that he was employed at Craven’s Motor Works in the days when cars were built from scratch. There is a series of photographs that I was shown soon after I met Geoff. They show a car that was hit by a train and then rebuilt with Harry Bate as part of the team.
Geoff’s father volunteered for the army the day after WWI was declared. He joined up with a number of other Handsworth men at a time when patriotism was the norm. Since he knew how to ride a motorcycle, he was sent to France as a dispatch rider. The roads were very muddy and even when it was raining he slept in ditches at night because, according to Geoff’s mother, the French farmers wouldn’t allow soldiers to sleep in their barns. Harry Bate was invalided out of the army with dysentery and when he was well enough to return to work he found that there was no job for him as a motor engineer at Craven’s. He then worked as a mechanic in a repair garage and continued to do so until he became ill in the late 1930’s. He reportedly was off sick with a cold and asked the doctor to “sign him off” even though he wasn’t recovered, because he wanted to go back to work. He went back to work and eventually was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the throat. He spent some time at Netheredge Isolation Hospital and on July 4th 1940, he died at home. Although there was an insurance policy on his life, payment was denied because his death was attributed to his service in the army and the army refused payment of any compensation because they attributed his illness to his work in the garage.
Gram once told my mother that Geoff’s father had said he wouldn’t marry until he could afford to keep wife in the way he wanted to. They married in June or July 1928 when Harry was 38 and Trix was 31 years old. Grandma Bate told Geoff’s mother that a long time ago, Harry pointed out a young girl passing their cottage on Handsworth Road on the other side of the street and said, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry”. The Old Crown pub was next door to the Rectory garden and the high wall between was covered with ivy. Harry used to throw notes over the wall. This must have been before they left the Old Crown. Grandpa Batchford must have died in 1918 because his funeral was on Trix’s twentyfirst birthday.
Geoff talked about his father occasionally and there were some photos of him that Geoff explained to me. Before they were married, Harry and Trixie went to the Isle of Man to watch the TT motorcycle race and Harry had a motorbike before acquiring a three-wheeler car. When they went to the seaside at Cleethorpes when Geoff and Betty were little, Harry borrowed a car from the garage where he worked, drove it to Cleethorpes, put it in a garage, and left it there until the day of their return. Several times, Geoff’s mother told the story of the day that they disagreed about which road to take and simultaneously they both put out an arm to signal a turn.
While Geoff’s father was in Nether Edge Hospital, his mother became anxious because Geoff was so skinny and she worried that he also would catch TB. She persuaded Dr. Blythe, their GP, to admit Geoff into Netheredge too in order to “build him up”. There were very limited visiting hours at hospitals in those days and no dispensation was made to address the problem that she had two patients to visit. This meant that she had to decide how long to spend with her husband and how long to spend with her son. Geoff hated being in Netheredge. He talked many times about how distasteful the meals were, with a predictable menu every week, and how the chocolate and sweets that visitors brought were pooled so that he often had “cheap” chocolate given out to him. In those days, there was a big difference between the flavour of Cadbury’s or Rowntree’s chocolate and cheap chocolate. The worst part of his experience was that he was given a number when he was admitted and was always addressed by number rather than his name. Geoff remembered his number all his life.
When they were first married, Harry and Trixie rented a house on St. Joseph’s road and Geoff was born there. Harry complained that he spent his time feeding money into the meter for the gas fire since it was in March and still cool. Geoff’s mother told me that after he was born, she felt ill and exhausted and disappointed because she had expected to enjoy her new baby. When the Reverend Baker and Mrs. Baker and others came to visit her, she lay there wishing that they would leave. The reason was that she had caught “child bed fever”, puerperal fever, from the midwife who delivered the baby and had carried the infection from one patient to another. Mother and baby were sent to Netheredge Hospital and when Mrs. Baker came to visit, Geoff’s mother told her that she was desperately thirsty and it was difficult to get any nurse to bring her water. The next day, Mrs. Baker brought her a cutglass and engraved Victorian pitcher. The nurses admired it so much that they were always happy to refill it. When Geoff’s mother died and he flew back to England, Geoff asked me if there was anything that I would like him to bring as a memento and that is why I have that glass jug.