Page 7 - An Album Of Memories
P. 7
An Album Of Memories
Introduction
Florence Brewer, nee Newbold, was born in Monument Street in Birmingham
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on the 11 January 1896. She moved to 194 Galton Road, Bearwood,
Smethwick when she married Baden Brewer.
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On her 18 birthday she was given an Autograph Book.
The Brewer family, and later Flo’ and Baden, provided lodgings for soldiers of
the first world war who were passing through the area, some off to the war,
some returning home.
Flo’ was also a local music hall star in a group with two others. They performed
all over the Midlands.
As the Soldiers came and went, Flo’ asked them to sign her autograph book.
Some just left a name, others a sketch, memory, thought or joke, many a
timely reminder of the world as it was then, gripped by world war.
Pat Witherspoon lived nearby and knew flo’. When Flo’ passed away Pat
inherited some of her possessions including the autograph book.
Like may things we have it lay unseen for many years, forgotten in the back of
a drawer. Recently Pat re-discovered it at the time the wold was remembering
the centenary of the end of the great war.
Pat has loanded the autograph book to the Redditch Local History Society so
it, and Flo’ can be recorded and remembered.
Source: Pat Witherspoon Page: 7
