Page 206 - Redditch People

Redditch People

VIC BOTT

Vic Bott was born in 1898 during the Boer War and he lived through
the reigns of Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII,
George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. He came to Redditch at the age
of six and fell in love with the town. At that time the town was full
of needlemakers. He says:

‘This is how it worked: You would buy a roll of wire, I would cut it
into lengths, Joe Smith would point it and somebody else would
straighten it, it went through about seven hands and came back
from where it started from. Then it was packed up and des-
patched with a company name and perhaps it was only a few
neighbours working together’.

During the First World War he lied about his age and joined the
army at sixteen. He was on the front line as a machine gunner, taking part in the Battle of the
Somme and the Final Assault. He remarks, ‘I think it’s very difficult for this modern generation
to understand the sheer horror. Looking back, you can’t describe it.’ Throughout the war he
carried two photographs in his pocket. These have been repaired and are on page 11 in the booklet.

When he was demobbed in 1918 he was thrown into a saturated labour market with no skills. A
relative managed to find him a job at Royal Enfield. There, he rose to be a senior manager and
designed the Revelation bicycle.

PETER HALFORD

It’s not very often that you get a vibrant account of someone’s
memories who lived in one of the poorest parts of Redditch. Peter
Halford belonged to the Back Street gang. This is a must for any social
historian and covers a time when someone (such as Auntie Mary)
needed to visit the loo, she or he had to go out on to the pavement in
all weathers down the hill and up the adjacent entry. People were living
on cow’s tripe and chitterlings, cow’s intestines and pig’s trotters, with
delicacies such as condensed milk and bread and beef dripping.

Here is an excerpt:

“Like most boys of today we liked a game of football. Wembley
for us was the council house lawn. Flat as a pancake with herba-
ceous borders it had grey stone walls around it with cropped trees forming a screen.
What bliss! What a surface! The groundsman’s pride and joy! Pity he seemed to miss the
finer points of the game as he raucously chased us off the premises.”

Page: 206 © RLHS 2015