Elizabeth II Coronation 1953

Not a photo of my ancestors today.  This is one taken at a street party for the Queen's Coronation in 1953.  This was a party held in Birch Avenue in Romiley where my grandparents Samuel and Sarah Cox lived.  

On the front row are my cousin Valerie and I posing with spoons of jelly in our mouths and the little tot to the right of me, kneeling on the chair, is my brother Brian. 

No other family members on the photo and most of the children were grandchildren of the people living in the street.  Most of my grandparents neighbours were quite elderly.

My father William Cox 1920 - 1969

My father William Cox was born on 13th May 1920 in Romiley, Cheshire. He was the son of Samuel Henry Cox and Sarah Ann Mycock.

The first picture I have of him was taken when he was 15 months old, my grandmother mother had written on the back of it "Willie Cox 15 months old".  Why didn't all our ancestors write the info on the back of photos. (I must admit though that I am guilty of omitting this too.)  I don't know what happened to the blond hair as he was quite dark as an adult.

The next picture I have of dad was a school photo which I have copied (with consent) from a book published in 1999 written and published by Frank Beard (a local man and ex-pupil) about Romiley Primary school, where dad and I were both pupils.  The photo was taken in 1933 when Bill was 13 years old.  Pupils stayed at school until they were 14 at that time.  There was no secondary school in the village.
William (known to all as Bill) is the second boy from the left on the back row.  Also in the photo are two of Bill's cousins, Harold Mycock is third from the left on the row in front of Bill and Emily Mycock is second from the left on the front row.  Which of my grandma's brothers they belonged to I don't know but they all lived in the village.  The photograph is labelled wrongly as it says William is first left next to Mr Slater but he is second from him.

The photo below is of Bill and his friend Les Howard and it was taken at Blackpool Pleasure Beach when they were about 17 years old.  Not a real motorbike just a photographer's prop.  Bill is on the back of the bike.

 

Bill and Les, together with two other school friends formed a band called the Savoy Melody Makers.  Bill played the piano, Les was the drummer, Frank Ernell was guitarist and Frank Higginbottom played the saxophone.  They regularly played for dances at Romiley public Hall and also played for afternoon tea dances at the Savoy cinema in the village.

Frank Higginbottom later found fame and appeared on television with a group called the Keynotes and on the Billy Cotton Band Show. He also had success on tv adverts (The Esso Blue Dealer and Milky Bar Kid). He went on to join the Adam singers backing starts like Perry Como and Max Bygraves.

No such fame for Bill but he was always very popular playing in the local pubs for sing-alongs and never had to buy his own beer.



Bill is first from the left at the back here standing next to his friend Les.  This photo was given to me by mum but all she wrote on it was Savoy Melody Makers.  I didn't know there were so many of them or who the others are.  I knew Les and always called him uncle Les.  He used to come to our house to practice for the band with dad.  I think the man top right might be Frank Higginbottom.

I will write more about dad later.  

Samuel Henry Cox

Samuel Henry Cox was my paternal grandfather. He was born at 5 Alliance Street, Accrington in Lancashire on 26th April 1983.  He was the eldest child of William and Hannah Cox.  William was originally from Spetisbury in Dorset and the son of a shepherd, Thomas Cox.  Together with his brother and some other young men from the village, William traveled to Lancashire looking for work in the cotton mills as the agricultural work in Dorset was becoming harder to find and paid very little.  There he met and married Hannah Ingham on 11th November 1882.  They had four children, three daughters followed Samuel. they were Beatrice, Florence and Rhoda.

The is a recent photograph of Alliance Street where Samuel was born.











By 1901 the family had moved to Blackpool where William was a house painter and Samuel was working as a cart driver.  In 1911 they were living in Cheadle Heath, Stockport and William was now a yarn dyer and Samuel a coal dealer.

Later Samuel moved to Romiley and was a lodger in my great grandmother Ann Selina Mycock's household and he was working in a cotton mill.  He married my grandmother Sarah Ann Cheetham, nee Mycock on 1st November 1919 in Stockport.  This was Samuel's first marriage at the age of 36.  My father William was born the following year and his sister Nora two years later.

Samuel was a quiet man and liked nothing more then going sitting in the pub at the end of the road, with a half pint and playing dominoes.  He always had his dog Squip with him.  I think he used to go to get out of the way of my grandmother.  I don't think they got on very well in later years and I believe that after Nora was born they slept in separate rooms, so maybe they never got on.  Grandma always slept in the front room downstairs.  Granddad played the piano and also taught my father to play.

Above is the Stock Dove public house where granddad used to spend his time. It is at the end of the road where my grandparents lived.

To the right is an old picture of it.  The walls were stripped of their paint in recent years but I remember them being a pale yellow or cream colour.  As with lots of pubs at that time there used to be a bowling green behind it but when I was a child it was just a patch of derelict land. There is now a small block of flats there.


Samuel died on 18th February 1959 at the age of 75. He had a bad chest for many years which may have been caused by working in the cotton mill.

 The photo above shows me sitting on the wall with my granddad, his dog Squip and my cousin Valerie. I think this was taken in the summer of 1947. It is opposite the house we moved into when we left my grandparents house.

To the right I am sitting on granddad's lap in the back garden of our house in Cherry Tree Close, Romiley. Also in this picture is my father William.

Sarah Ann (Sally) Mycock

Sarah Ann Mycock was my paternal grandmother.  She was born in Marple, Cheshire on 24th July 1880.  She was one of 14 children of Edward and Ann Selina (Godber) Mycock.  Sadly only 8 of them survived beyond infancy.  I have only been able to trace 10 of them.  All the ones who died in infancy were between censuses and the family moved around a lot so not sure where to look for their births.
Of the eight who survived to adulthood there were five girls and three boys.  Sarah Ann had five older siblings.

According to my cousin who sent me this photograph, it was taken in 1898 when Sarah was 18 years old.

On the 1901 census she was working as a live in domestic servant for a family in Romiley, which is the village where I was born.

The house where she was living is just two streets from where she lived when I was a child.

Below is a photograph of the house I took a few years ago.  Not a very grand house and certainly not a house where the owners would have servants now.  The head of the household was a 24 year old married woman with two young children who was from London.  He husband must have been away. Her sister was living with her and Sarah was the only servant.

In 1903 Sarah Ann married Bertis Cheetham at All Saint's Church in Marple.  Bertis was 10 years her senior.  They had one son Norman Joseph who was born in 1904.  Bertis died in 1911 at the age of 40.  After the death of her husband Sarah Ann would help women in labour and also used to lay out the dead.  I don't think she had any formal training.  She delivered my cousin Valerie in 1944 and I believe she was present when I was born but did not actually deliver me.

The photo on the left was taken in the mid 1940s I think, maybe around the time I was born.  The one on the right is of Sarah with son Norman (top right) and his wife Joyce (bottom right) and two daughters Karen and Pauline (front).  I think they were born in 1947 and 1948 so this must have been around 1950 - 51.

In 1919 Sarah married my grandfather, Samuel Henry Cox, at the Register Office in Stockport and the following year my father William Cox was born.  Two years later they had a daughter Nora.

I was born at my grandparents house as my mother was living there because my father was still in the army as he had not yet been demobbed after the war.  They lived at 38 Birch Avenue in Romiley.  Even though we moved out when I was less than two I have fond memories of the house as my brother Brian and I and also my cousin Valerie (Nora's daughter) used to spend a lot of time there as our parents all worked.  We used to go there for our lunch from school, which was not very far away, and also spent the school holidays there.  Such a lot of happy memories and excellent home cooked meals (although I did not like the parsley sauce).  She did make great soups and egg custard.  I even remember in my teens when I was off on hikes with the guides, that she would ask me to call round before leaving to have a bowl of warming pea and ham soup or a meat and vegetable broth with lots of barley in it.  She had a big old cooking range and there was always a pot of something very wholesome on the hob.

This is Valerie on the gate of 38 Birch Avenue during the 1950s

Below is a recent photo of the house taken a few years ago.  A new front door, wall and garden gate.

The only other photograph I have of Sarah was taken at Valerie's wedding on 15th June 1963 in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Sarah is looking very fashionable fifth from the left.  She was dressed a lovely pale grey suit with a pink blouse and had her first pair of nylon stockings and slip on shoes at the age of 83.  The young lady standing next to her is me and second from the right of me with the wedding cake on her head is my mum and dad is standing behind and to her left.  To the right of mum is one of Sarah's nieces, Millie who was the daughter of her sister Hannah. 

Sarah died on 19th May 1973,at the age of 92,  in London where her son Norman had taken her to live with him when she was unable to look after herself.  He was the only one left as my father and his sister Nora has emigrated to Australia on 1967, where sadly my father died in 1969 at the age of 49.