Douglas John Perkins (1906 - 1980)
circa 1908
It was snowing gently in Hingeston Street, Birmingham on 14th December 1906. On the rare occasions that it did so in the 73 years that followed my father would show uncharacteristic excitement. For that was his birthday.
He was the first and, sadly, only child of John and Clara Perkins (née Waters) and was taken just a few weeks later to the nearby All Saints' church to be baptised.
His baptismal certificate bears, unusually, a photograph of the interior of the church. This is fortuitous because the church has long since been demolished. And so a record of it has been preserved for all time.
By his fourth birthday in 1910 his father was tragically dead - at the age of only 29 from Bright's disease (renal failure?) - leaving a half built row of houses and a mass of debts.
What happened to this single parent family in the years that followed can only be guessed at. A family story says that my grandmother and 'Sonny' (as Dad was known in his early years) were invited to join her brother Arthur at his bakery in Coventry or, according to another version, her elder brother Tom in Australia.
Both versions agree that she was counselled by an elderly neighbour (Mr Boddington of Ashted Row, Birmingham) to stay put. He is alleged to have said 'There will be a seat by the fire for you and Douglas when you arrive but, within the year, you will be out the back earning your keep'. My grandmother took his advice, made the hard choice, and ended up owning the bakery!
When the time came for my father to go to school the doctor pronounced him so frail that he should go to the school nearest to his home. This happened to be a Roman Catholic one, St Vincent de Paul, Ashted Row - though the family were 'nominal' Anglicans. At the time of my grandfather's death the Roman Catholic community of that area had shown my grandmother great kindness, which she never forgot. She had a 'soft spot' for the Catholics for the rest of her long life. There is still a St Vincent de Paul school and church in Ashted: a phoenix which rose from the ashes of slum clearance in the 1960s.
What is certain is that by 1914 they were living in Harborne - a district of Birmingham which my grandmother always described as 'kippers and curtains'. We know this because of my father's brief moment of fame, granted him by the Daily Sketch of 7th February of that year!
My grandmother worked very hard, even providing lunch in her home for teachers from a nearby school. Her first objective was to clear the debts left by her late husband's building project. By the time she died in 1963 she still owned, and rented out, houses in Cato Street, Saltley, Birmingham. It seems to have been part of the culture of her era that, even though you may own property yourself, you lived in rented accommodation.
By 1918 my grandmother was doing well enough to send my father to King Edward VI Grammar School, Aston. I don't know how good he was academically, because he went as a fee paying pupil, which is probably as well as far as 'Beaky' Ross (one of his masters) was concerned. (It is alleged that he 'loathed free place boys'.)
There is no doubt in my mind that Dad's time at Aston (1918 - 23) was as influential in his life as it was to be in mine. Throughout his life he was a member of what is now called the Aston Edwardian Association. He was always known to his contemporaries as 'Polly' from the current music hall song 'Pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green'.
My grandmother's ambition was for Dad to be a doctor. This was no doubt influenced by the circle in which she by this time was moving - in Ashted Row (once more!). The big houses opposite hers were occupied by doctors: Montgomery, Waters (no relation to her) and McGovern.
But my father had other ideas, and became a pharmacist. Once again he established a precedent which I was to follow. As part of his apprenticeship with Southall's in Upper Priory he attended the thriving School of Pharmacy at the Municipal Technical College in Suffolk Street, Birmingham. This was (much) later to become the University of Aston which I, too, was to attend. He qualified as an M.P.S. (Member of the Pharmaceutical Society) in 1928.
Many years later he showed me his lecture notes which were liberally sprinkled with excellent drawings of plants, for he was an able artist. Botany formed a large part of the pharmacy courses of those days - before the discovery of antibiotics. It is interesting to note that the wheel has now turned full circle: the drug houses are pouring vast amounts of money into researching plant based medicines, following the rise of antibiotic-resistant 'super bugs'.
I am unsure of the chronology at this point in his life but I think he next obtained work as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company: Cuxson, Gerrard of Oldbury. He always claimed he was interviewed for this post by the Managing Director, Mr Archie Gerrard, in the bar at Moseley Rugby Club!
His 'patch' was East Anglia, around which he would drive in his Wolseley 9. He had learnt to drive at the age of 21 when he bought this vehicle. The chap who sold it to him accompanied him as he drove twice 'round the block'. His comment was 'you'll be all right' - and that was the sum total of Dad's driving lessons. It was some years later before driving tests were introduced!!
I'm not sure that he was a very successful salesman. He would later complain that selling into pharmacies in Cambridge was very difficult because the students were - even in those days - only present for 24 weeks of the year. Without them there was little money around the town of that time. As a result of this job Dad knew East Anglia very well and would recount his experiences of motoring across the fens, high above the surrounding countryside.
By the mid 1930s he was managing a pharmacy in Ward End, Birmingham for Hedges, makers of L26 snuff: hardly appropriate for a health company!!
Each evening, as he was preparing the shop for closure, Gladys Shakespeare would pass by with a group of friends en route to play tennis in nearby Ward End Park. The rest, as they say, is history and he married her in September 1937 at Washwood Heath Methodist Church. His 'best man' was a fellow pharmacist, Frank Yeomans.
By the time of my birth in 1939 Dad had his own shop in Ash Road, Saltley and we lived above (and behind) it - until Adolf Hitler decided it obstructed his plans for the subjugation of England. The Luftwaffe's aim was not very good and the drop forging company opposite suffered instead. But the bomb blast wrecked the shop anyway. So Hitler got his way!
As a family we decamped to Brockhurst Road, Hodge Hill and Dad obtained employment once more at Cuxson, Gerrard. His was a 'reserved' occupation manufacturing tablets, so he was unable to exact personal revenge on the Third Reich for his recent discomfiture. He did not complain, and neither did we!
Once victory was secured Dad was transferred to other work (I never really knew what, but I think it was a support role to sales reps. in the field). During this period my brother Tim arrived - and Dad's family was complete.
In 1952, he was invited to join - as the junior partner - a retail pharmacy at the Yew Tree, Yardley. This was to 'rescue' a one man proprietor who had had a heart attack and who needed someone to keep his business going.
It seemed to us that, no sooner had Dad settled in to his new life, than his senior partner sold his share of the business to Boots the Chemist - thus leaving my father 'high and dry'. There were dark murmurings of legal action from his solicitor and friend from student days, Joe Ritchie. Mr Gerrard, on learning of what had happened, offered Dad a job whence he had come: a very generous gesture. Instead he decided to 'go it alone' and purchased a pharmacy in Highfield Road, Hall Green from a Mr A E Southerton. There he remained quite happily, sometimes working a 58 hour week, until he decided to retire in 1970.
Perhaps it is as well that he did, for he suffered a heart attack shortly after retiring. Happily he made a good recovery and was able to work three days a week for other pharmacists: first in Grove Lane, Handsworth and later for a Mr Donnai on Hob's Moat Road, Solihull. Within a comparatively short time he was turning down offers of work as short as half a day - so that he successfully made the transition from 58 hours per week to none!
Thereafter his love of sport came once more to the fore. It could be summed up in three words: rugby, cricket and golf. He played them all more or less in that order.
As a young man he had played rugby for Aston Old Edwardians, though never in the higher XVs. Whilst doing so he managed to break both collar bones which, I was told, was because of 'high tackling' - something frowned upon by my Rugby teachers. Nowadays it is, I believe, standard practice - yet no-one ever seems to break their collar bones!
Though Rugby was, then, a young man's game Dad played cricket for much longer. Although I am not sure in what order, he played for Birmingham Chemists and Washwood Heath Methodists before World War II. Afterwards he played, first, for Hodge Hill Cricket Club. They were a 'wanderers' side and eventually disbanded, after which he played once more - and finally - for the Chemists.
His cricketing style (he was a batsman) was to foreshadow that of Ian Botham - the big hitter. His career best was 41 and he would recall the story of its achievement with great relish. He was playing for the Chemists who had won the toss and elected to bat. It was a Wednesday afternoon fixture and Dad needed to leave early to open the shop 'on rota'. So the captain decided he should open the batting along with one of the regular openers, a bank manager!
Dad did not allow this promotion to affect his style of play, to the enormous discomfort of the bank manager at the other end, who was poking and prodding in the manner expected of a number one. Thus he got his career best score and was still able to get away in time to open the shop. A bit like Drake and the Spanish Armada!!
When, as children, we used to play cricket with him in the garden the only way we could defeat him was to have a rule stating that if the ball went over next door you were out! Even then he would 'get out' in style, once hitting it next door but three into Sandhurst Avenue!!
In anticipation of retirement my father had taken up golf - for the second time in his life. As a young man he had been given a set of golf clubs as security on a loan! He had used these to 'try out' the sport - and liked it. The loan (£30) was never repaid and the golf clubs were still in the garden shed when he retired.
He now joined Maxstoke Park Golf Club, playing on Wednesday afternoons and Sundays as he had done at cricket years earlier. Gradually he became very much a part of both the playing and social life of the club, my mother joining him for the latter. His golfing companions were usually Roland Higgs (a non-cricketing, retired bank manager!) from Water Orton, Arthur Blades (husband of my mother's cousin Bessie) and a man whose forename was Clifford. Eventually a section was formed called 'The Old Maxis' - a title requiring no explanation!
On occasion he also played for Aston Old Eds., where he would get a roasting from his teammates who were of a much higher standard. They took the view that he had resumed playing too late in life to reach a high standard - but they kept inviting him! A group of your school contemporaries will always be the harshest critics you can face!!
And so the years rolled by, peppered with overseas holidays and cruises with friends: the Holts (Connie and George) being the most regular. Early in 1980 Dad suffered a couple of heart attacks (in 1977 he had had a slight stroke from which he made a full recovery) and died on 26th February.
At his funeral there was a solid phalanx of his Old Maxis friends. Their attendance on what was their normal day of golf was a generous tribute which required no words from them.
Taken in December 1979 this is probably the last photograph of my father - appropriately enough at an Old Maxis 'do'.