Contributed by BESSIE LITTLEWOOD (Dad’s first cousin)

(“Jimmy” in these recollections is James Frederick Watts)

22 The Dene, Wylam, Northumberland NE41 IEW

“I’m finding facts about Jimmy very hard to bring to memory…my head is full of the song, “I’m an Airman“, which was all the rage the year he emigrated. You’ll have heard, I’m sure! It’s a long time ago, and I was very young. I’m trying to remember some of the tricks he got up to and the consequences that went with them.

At the time Alice was living at a house in Delph Lane, and Auntie Lucy was two streets away in Providence Avenue. I was five or six years old; Jim was three years older. I went to live with Auntie Alice because my mother was out teaching, and it was convenient for her.

I vividly recall the visits of the rent-man. He arrived every week, knocking loudly as we crouched behind the door, hardly daring to breathe, waiting until he decided it was a waste of time. Poor Auntie Alice, she never had any money for the rent, and goodness knows how much she owed.

One very hot night, Jim and I were tucked up in bed alone in the house. We couldn’t sleep and we were bored, so Jim decided it would be a good idea to move our quarters. We took the mattress off the bed and made up a new bed on the floor in a dark corner. We then snuggled up and dropped peacefully off to sleep. When Auntie Alice arrived home she found an empty bed and had twenty fits. She really took it out on Jim when she found where we were.

Another day, at lunchtime, we met the wife of Mr Patrick, the boss where Kit worked. Foolish Mr Patrick had forgotten his knife and fork, which he needed for his lunch, and she asked if we would take them to him. Jim, always obliging, said Yes we would, and the wo of us trotted down Cambridge Road, not too far really, but a long way, it seemed to us.

On returning home we were met by a wrathful Auntie Alice, who naturally was very worried at our absence. Well… we had been away for a couple of hours and had missed lunch and afternoon school!

Eventually Alice and Lucy moved to new houses on an estate built for former servicemen in a district of Leeds called Meanwood, but were still only a couple of streets away from each other. By this time I was back with my own family, but naturally we used to visit our aunts in their new homes.

Now, as you know, Jim loved to perform. He was the star at the Buslingthorpe Concert Party. Full of confidence, with a pleasant voice and attractive personality he’d sing, play the drums and put on a show.

One day, when he went to change for the evening performance, he found he hadn’t a clean shirt, poor lad. What could he do? But he didn’t give up. He found a piece of white paper and from it he cut out a collar and a “dickie”, and somehow made it work.

Buslingthorpe, by the way, is the district where our parents were born. They were all married in Buslingthorpe Church, which is no longer there, having been pulled down years ago.

My sister Jean, our cousin Fred Sargeant (Auntie Lucy’s son), Jim and I had lots of fun in the open fields that lay behind Auntie Alice’s new house – No. 44 Stainbeck Road, Meanwood, which in those days was on the outskirts of Leeds. Fred lived only a couple of streets away, though my parents’ house was beyond Woodhouse Ridge, a steep stretch of open parkland overlooking the Meanwood Valley, a good half hour’s walking distance.

One evening, we were larking about round a little stream, the beck we called it. Jim started a game of “Do as I Do”. He jumped over the water, followed successfully by Jean and Fred. Poor little me ended up sitting up to my waist in the middle.

When we were called in we said nothing about my wet clothes. Nobody seemed to notice them, and my mother, Jean and I set off to walk home. Halfway there my mother suddenly saw that I was shivering, and realised I was wet. Was she cross? No; all she said was, “You silly girl, you could have stayed the night”- which would have delighted me, but you can’t win them all, can you?

He left school at 14, and at one time worked behind the counter at the Cooperative Society drapery department. What led him to emigrate I just do not know. I must leave it at that.

One great regret in my life is not going to his embarkation party. Jean went, but I said I was too busy doing my own thing as a young teenager, not realising the significance of the occasion. Later, my father (Jim’s Uncle Charlie Cathcart), who was very fond of him, always loved to read his letters and never failed to get out the atlas to find out exactly where he was.

My last words must be to Mary, his wife, and her lovely family (at least the ones we have met are lovely). Mary, I ask you how you managed to cope with the trials and tribulations of life on the sheep-farm, raised eleven children, and yet still looked so elegant when we met three years ago.

Lots of love to you all. Bessie”