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| Joyce and Samuel Wait at Downhill's Park, Tottenham in 1957 |
During the late 1940's my father Samuel Wait (1923-2008) was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent from Streatham to Preston Hall Hospital in Kent. During his convalescence he attended Maidstone Art College where he trained to be a compositor in the hope of working at the British Legion Press, near Aylesford.
While Sam was at Preston Hall in the convalescing huts, his grandmother Jane Lacey (née Stuck) moved to 53 Talbot Street near Leeds in Yorkshire to live with her son Maurice, a headmaster and his wife Mabel (née Bachelor) a teacher. Sadly Jane Lacey died at St. James Hospital of cerebral thrombosis on October 3rd 1949. She was 81 years old.
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| Jane Lacey's (née Stuck) death certificate 2c 432 |
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| Descendants of Samuel Lacey |
By this time, it seems that Sam had no close family left living in London. His only known relatives, Aunt Annie (née Lacey1907-1979) and Uncle George, had moved to Worthing in Sussex shortly after Ruth's death in 1946. So probably with this in mind, Sam went up before a committee for acceptance into the British Legion Village in Kent (and the British Legion Press as a compositor).
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| Sam Wait (taken by surprise) at the British Legion Press |
He was accepted and began working at the print for two hours a day, eventually leading up to full-time employment. His foreman was Bill Hoadley and fellow colleagues included the brothers Ernie and John Readman. The Reader was Tom Haliwell.
During this period, the British Legion Press were producing work for various branches of the British Legion and handbooks for Reeds International.
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| The British Legion Press, Sam Wait is second from right |
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| Sam Wait in his Morris-8 c.1950 |
Meanwhile, back in London...
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| Joyce Coward c.1946 |
Joyce Coward (b.1931) left Stamford Hill School for Girls aged 14 in 1945. After this, she had a whole host of jobs. Her first position was that of an invoice clerk at Kinlocks, a grocery firm in Overbury Road in Tottenham. Then, after two weeks, she started work at Cossors making thermometers and hypodermic syringes.
For a few months during 1946, Joyce packed wine gums at Maynard's sweet factory in Vale Road, Tottenham, but her ambition was to become a hairdresser. So she eventually began an apprenticeship at Wells' for 17/6d. Unfortunately, after her three month trial, she couldn't afford to stay. The manager was sorry to let her go and offered to raise her pay to a £1 a week. But money was tight and she needed to give her mother 10 shillings rent. So reluctantly she left.
A few months later, Mr Higginson of Higginson & Wright offered her a job as a receptionist. This was a firm of roofers and tilers (including asbestos roofs) based near London Bridge. Higginson had worked with her father John Coward (1902-1962) in the past. Joyce took the job and the company even paid for her dinners. But she disliked working on her own, so she quit after a year.
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| Gestetner in Broad Lane, Tottenham |
For about eight weeks Joyce was working for Gestetner. Gestetner was based in Broad Street, Tottenham and was one of the largest employers in the area. They made the Stencil Duplicator and at their height employed six thousand people.
Joyce also spent a while at another large company - John Dickinson Stationery. The factory was in Fountayne Road, Tottenham Hale and became world-famous for the Basildon Bond brand. But inside the huge building, Joyce found the noise of the machines unbearable.
After spending time at a children's shoe manufacturers and a bag factory, Joyce was employed by At-A-Glance Calendars in Oakdale Road, Harringey. It was here that Joyce was working when she and my father began courting.
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| Joyce Coward in Jerome's Holloway c.1947 |
So how did my parents meet?
In 1954 Joyce's mother Ada Cooper (née Harris) responded to a request in a newspaper for pen pals for the patients at Preston Hall Hospital in Kent. I wonder which newspaper this was? Ada wrote the letter on behalf of her daughter Joyce, because she thought she was feeling lonely.
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| Descendants of John Coward |
When the reply came, Joyce was furious and blamed her sister Dorothy for writing the letter, so her mother had to own up.
Included in Sam's response was his photograph sat in the Morris-8. Joyce thought he was Italian! Eventually she calmed down, picked up a pen and began writing to him.
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| The back of Sam's photograph |
But on Sam's first visit, Joyce's stepfather, Marcus Cooper (1873-1967) totally ignored him. Marcus was disliked by most of Joyce's family and remained rude to Sam right up until I was born.
Joyce and Sam courted for two years. One of the events my father described, was how in early 1955 he drove Joyce in his new black Hillman Minx-10 from 31 North Grove in Tottenham to her grandfather's house in Chadwell Heath, Dagenham.
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| North Grove, Tottenham |
Every time he came to a set of traffic lights he had to keep pressing the accelerator to keep the engine running. These problems with the car made Sam very late getting Joyce back the twelve miles to her mothers house in North Grove, Tottenham. When they eventually did return, Joyce's mother was not very happy and her brother Ken politely told Sam that they did not like Joyce being kept out so late!
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| Kenneth Coward (1928-1994) with Joyce |
But this unfortunate incident didn't hinder the romance and Joyce and Sam got engaged in June 1955 during an evening tea at 31 North Grove. From now on Sam would call Ada Mum.
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| Outside 31 North Grove, Tottenham |
Before his wedding, Sam sold the troublesome Hillman Minx to the sister-in-law of Albert Chipperfield (his friend from the British Legion Press) . The car was later written-off after an accident!
