Gwen Aspinall remembered

History Society member Gwen Aspinall recently passed away at the age of 100. Her family recently sent us some words about her life as a contribution to the website. Gwendoline Harris was born in Oldbury on August 10th 1909 and moved to Birmingham at the age of two. She was one of four sisters born 2 years apart. Her parents had met at the Oldbury Market; her mother worked on a sweet stand that family members owned. In Birmingham she grew up on Soho Wharf, Hockley; it was a poor area but had a great community spirit. Gwen attended Barford Road School 1913-1923 where her best friend was Adelaide Morell. Adelaide who had just lost her Mother was put to sit next to Gwen. They would greet the First World War soldiers coming home at the train station. She was a member of the netball and swimming teams. Her mother bought her and sister May new gym-slips to perform acrobats/gymnastics with hoops that lit up and red skirts, green scarves and white blouses to dance the Scottish Reel, Irish Jig and the Sailors Horn Pipe. She also danced the Minuet and the Gavotte for a performance of Cinderella’s Ball. Dressed as Fairies in white lace dresses with her sisters she sang “Come Trip, Trip Tripping”, a song she was still able to recall and sing at her One Hundredth Birthday celebrations in August 2009. Her father worked on the canals, had joined The Dockers Union and was a delegate for a Union in Bristol for Ernie Bevan. As a young girl Gwen was expected to collect wages, for the men who worked on the canal barges for Leonard Leigh, from the Old Wharf near Paradise Street. Gwen met and married Frederick William Aspinall in the 1930’s. He had just lost his Mother who had died not long after giving birth to a baby boy. When Gwen’s Mother heard that the baby was going to have to be put in an orphanage she said she would take care of him and from then on brought him up as part of her family. Gwen and Frederick had four daughters: Shirley, Gwendoline, Hilary and Jayne, and one son Gerald. Hilary was born at home during an air raid in WW2 while Frederick was working away in Leeds. One of the big highlights in the family was when they went to Bidford on Avon on the bus for a week’s holiday. Everything had to be taken including sheets, towels and even fishing gear packed in suitcases. They thought they were going such a long way and whilst there Gerald’s job was to empty the outside toilet. Gwen went to work for the Electoral Roll in Birmingham and whilst she was there her youngest daughter Jayne was born. She was almost 42 yrs old and as soon as Jayne started school she returned to her job and stayed there until retiring. Before moving to the Staffordshire area to be near her family Gwen lived at The Lenches Trust in Moseley and that is when she became a member of Balsall Heath Local History Society.