Dad's Mum and Dad

As I said my Mother and Father married in 1919. I may not have said that. They met at the end of the 1914-18 war. I think it was Christmas but I'm not sure if it was 1919 or 1920. I can't find the papers now. I think they married very much against the family on both sides, in Bolton I think, though I may be wrong, it was Bolton Town Hall in a civil ceremony, which didn't go down well with many of the family as you can imagine.

My Mother was quite a business woman, and my Father, all his life was very Irish. He didn't drink to any extent at all. He had a laissez faire attitude to life I think, one way and another. Anyway, he was a printer. He'd been a ??? or apprentice to a printers and he served, this was before the war and of course he was called up, so he never really finished his apprenticeship, but he was a member of the typographical association which meant that he was a fully qualified printer. So my Mother realising that he wasn't very well suited to working for a master with his Irish temperament decided to buy a partnership for him in a firm in Rossendale, Stacksteads. This was a very well established business that had been going for a very long time. The owner was a man called Sopholoph.

Now, my Mother knew Sopholoph through her association with cinemas and Sopholoph turned out to be a bit of a rascal and he'd taken the ???? collection money into the firm and towards the end of the year in 1932/1933 or something like that he collected all the monies due to the firm without paying anybody who was owed the money and cleared off to America! Leaving the company in a bit of a mess.

Well, my Mother again had to pay off the debts. She wasn't happy with being where they were and wanted to start up again somewhere more appropriate. The firm at the time had a salesman who was not a very good salesman in truth, Jack Fenton, who was of some Jewish ancestry, but, he assimilated into being English and his chief claim to fame seemed to be that he always wore spats. Anyway, he agreed to come in with my Father to the partnership and they opened up in Cloughold whereas the other business had been stationed in a place called Stacksteads which is near Bacup, whereas Cloughold is nearer Rawtenstall, and very near the railway station because they'd kept the business of the previous company, and the clients and they were mostly theatricals, but there one or two cinemas.

Because my Mother had a connection, and I'll go into this later, in the cinemas, she got lots of business for them through her connections, so it became very big business in cinemas which was an advancing sort of business then in the 1920s and 30s and eventually they had a very large collection of cinemas for who they printed everything such as the latest posters advertising the latest films that were coming, which sometimes they overprinted on the posters that were supplied by the film companies which were already showing lurid details of what the action was and you printed when and where it was and soforth in letterpress on the top, and so to that effect they had various letterpress colour printing machines which were able to print simultaneously 3 or 4 letterpress colours, so that you got a good blend multicoloured position quite easily if you were skilled enough.

So, it was a successful business and though the big fault was that Jack Fenton couldn't drive! But my Mother had insisted that my Father, well they bought a car in 1920 which was a ?bean?, rather unusual car and unusual name and we were supposed to have a great advantage because you didn't need to double de-clutch it and a much better clutch mechanism than most of the cars at that time so it was much easier to drive allegedly. So my Father, although he didn't like driving and had never really had a lesson had to drive off and see these various clients taking the salesman with him, which was his partner, and of course my Father had this, as I say, nice attitude and he got on very well and they did get a lot of business and they were very well thought of as printers. They also did lots of colour printing, special colour printing, for all sorts of people that, ??Southern?? Press and people like that who were quite important and they would do pictures of birds where there were very many colours using letterpress but they didn't make any money on these, they were just prestige items which my Father did because he liked doing it.

Now, the business would not have prospered, and would not have been anywhere without my Mother, who had an ability to make money in many ways and she often had to dig into her funds and help them out where things went wrong, in slight ways, they did very well but occasionally in all businesses you came into a funny time in the early 20s and 1930s and during the war, and you know you needed a hard head on you, and my Mother certainly had that.

I don't know that I can say much more about the actual Collins's in the sense that obviously they were an old established Protestant family in Ireland, but they had peculiar connections in the sense that apparently they originally came from Cork, according to my Aunty Susan, and Michael Collins of shamefull who was the rebel against the English during the war, along with ??Devoliera?? was a distant relative, a distant cousin of some sort, but he got shot by ??????? anyway in the 1920s so that was the end of him.

Now, I think I should say something about my Mother, who was called Mary Holmes, and she came to Rossendale in 1911 when her Father died. She was almost 16 and her Father, Mother and 2 Sisters had all died. Apparently all close to one another, presumably, although I have no evidence of this, in an epidemic. There was an epidemic of diptheria in Liverpool about that time or earlier and it's quite possible that that was the cause.

She came to live with her Aunt, Rebecca, who was her Father's Sister. Who was married to a Manxman John Carlod, always known as Jack, Manx Jack. Her Aunt had many young children, Mary my Mother was a very useful addition to the household. Both as an extra earning source for the family and because she brought them a very useful sum of money, donated by her Mother's Brothers.

Her Mother's Father, William Henry Holmes, was a merchant mariner who was apparently certificated although I haven't been able to very that. I was told and I believe that he was probably a certificated first mate. But, he'd fallen on hard times. He was born in 1863 and he was the son of a ship's master apparently, which I repute, and he was by all accounts very difficult, with a stubborn, unyielding personality which you quite often saw in my Mother by the way. It caused many an upset with those with authority over him. He was a very large man for the day, some 6 foot 3 in height, apparently very good at settling disputes with his fists, which was a very good accomplishment for a merchant marine officer of the time, and he was no doubt a good first mate on the ships he served in. The trouble was that line he served with and sailed with was very financially weakened by the cotton famine and textile slum which followed on from the American Civil War, with the North's effective blockade of the Southern ports. When a further slum of trade occurred at the turn of the century the line folded and he found it very difficult thereafter to obtain employment, and he had to be content with getting a job with the Mersey Docks and Harbourboard as a general labourer. Though I believe he eventually obtained a slightly better position with the companies ferries.

My Mother's Mother had married very much against her family's wishes, according to legend. Her family were apparently quite prosperous merchants, with interests in shipping and other related activities, including pawnbroking. She apparently was of Christian Jewish background and they seem to have had businesses in Scotland as well as England and Wales. I believe though, and this is only because I've been told this by people, that family had cut her, that's the mother, off completely and it was only when she was did they arrange a small dowry for my Mother who was the last of the thing which went to her Aunty.

When my Mother arrived in Rossendale she had never worked, but apparently been taking commercial education, book-keeping and typing, or so she said. And regard to her Fathers ??? p???? I don't know how that was but perhaps they were, people are always trying to get on and she managed to get a position as office girl with a local firm of shoe manufacturers in Cowpe in Rossendale where all her relations lived.

She soon discovered that more money could be earned by working in the factory, and being like her Father, strong willed, she was soon working a a piece worker, sewer of uppers. She progressed with the same firm until the time of her marriage in 1990, the company's sample and floor manager, she was in reality the manageress. She had saved from her earnings, working often in the evenings as well as usually long shifts. By the time she was married she had enough money to quite soon buy a house, car and provide the money for the partnership for my Father in a printing business.

It's possible that some of the money may have come from her dowry, but I don't believe that to be so. She never seemed to worry about the fact that Auntie had taken what little money she brought because she seemed to have a very great affinity with her and after all she was the Sister to her Father who she adored and thought was a wonderful man. You never heard much about her Mother but you heard a lot, a lot about her Father.

I've forgotten to say that my Grandmother was a Catholic, and so the staunchly Protestant Collins' became Catholics, and so did my Mother much to her chagrin and dismay. Now, we were brought up and educated in Waterfoot, which is a little offshoot in Rossendale, an out of the way place in some ways and whenit came time to leave the junior school at 11, my Mother had intended us to go to the Catholic public school run by the Jesuits in Clitheroe, a very famous school indeed but my Mum then got it in her head that the school was likely to try to turn us into priests, being Jesuits there were some protelising Jesuits came to the church and she took an instant dislike to them because she thought that the Stonehurst College would be very similar, so she stopped that and we were sent to a school in Manchester. I was sent first of all to them, it was a sort of Jewish Grammar school of a peculiar sort. It had other non Jews by the way there it was not like it is there now it is a very strict orthodox school I believe but at the time it had quite a good education because most of the teachers at the school had been called up for national service and the teachers had been replaced by Jewish refugees from Germany and they were all highly academic people who were far too clever and advanced really to be teaching young idiots but that was the way it was, peculiar really but men who were undoubtedly great scholars, but not necessarily good teachers. My brother didn't like the school at all and didn't settle, he joined of course 2 years after me, 2 years younger and didn't last, I don't think, more than 2 or 3 weeks. So my Father had to put him in another school and he had a friend, or acquaintance with the headmaster Mr Weston at Haslingdon Grammar School. So my Brother went there, and a very good school it was at the time and Mr Weston was Dr Weston and he wasn't one of these PHDs that you get today, he was proper qualified. Dr, a Dr of Science and so he was a very clever man, for a schoolmaster, it was quite rare to have a man in such a relatively small school of a small town, such an academic person.

Grand Aunt Lynn

When I was young, my brother and I used to visit Dublin to see our Grand Aunt Lynn. She was, obviously, related to my Grandfather. She had married a very high official in the customs and lived in a most impressive Georgian house in some style. She had servants and was quite a lady and very difficult to contend with if you were a relative, in the sense that they were rich.

Some years later, quite recently, in the last 20 years I suppose, I went to Dublin and I thought I'd look up the house. I couldn't remember the name of the street, but I could remember, surprisingly, more or less where it was. Although the place was knocked down it hadn't been knocked about at this place as much as in some of the others. So I found it and it was a firm of solicitors. So that was it, there was no one who could remember Aunt Lynn so I never bothered and don't know any more about it.

Dad's Grandparents

My Grandfather was an Irishman who had joined the Lancashire Constabulary and was at the time of his death, in 1907, a Station Sergeant, which was quite an important position in those days as he allocated all the rounds for the various policemen on the beat. Anyone who has seen the American series' of police procedural scenes will know how they still allocate in America very similarly to how we did years ago. It's surprising how these habits keep on. In America you'll find that it seems to work very well there. You've got the various precincts, if you remember the series in LA, California.

Now, my Grandfather met my Grandmother whilst living in Glasgow. He was staying there with his Uncle who was an Inspector in the Scottish police. Having been seconded at some stage from the Royal Irish Constabulary in relation to the Irish menace of the Finnians?. The story is that my Grandfather was banished to Glasgow by his Father, who at the time was the Station Sergeant, similar to the position my Grandfather got himself, in Wexford. Now it appeared that young Mr Collins at that time was very fond of playing the game Hurley, the Irish game. His Father was a staunch Presbyterian and didn't really care for Irish games, especially Hurley.

Anyway, there was this important match and he had to get off early to play. So he decided that the only way to do it, if he wanted his dinner before he went, was to alter the Station clock. Now, of course this was a very serious offence because it meant that all the bookings in and out were all wrong. When it came to light, and it did quite quickly, his Father was so annoyed, and it was such a serious thing, that he was shipped off, forthwith, without much ado really to be sorted out by his Uncle in Glasgow, which was well away from any silly Hurley games!

So my Grandfather as a young man there, before he could join any police force or anything, met this young lady who was from the Scottish Hebridian Islands, or the Western Islands. Her name was Máiréad (or Margaret in English). She was a Gaelic speaker and didn't really learn English until she met my Grandfather, or she was just in the process of learning it when she met him. All her life from all accounts she spoke with that beautiful lilting Western Isles tongue in English, which sounds so very nice and you can hear it sometimes on Scottish programmes. It's a beautiful form of the English language. Now, the strange thing about my Grandmother and her Irish connections was she wasn't at all worried about anything. But she was very worried about anything Scottish, and she would never go back to Scotland, and disliked the Scots most intensely. Narrow minded bigoted fools in her opinion, and she would never ever go back, not for funerals, not for anything. Grandpa apparently had to stand in, and other relatives if she was supposed to go, she wouldn't go.

So there we are, there's the Collins family in Ireland. A quite large family and they were all either in the Irish Customs or the police.

One of my Great Grandfather's brothers had gone to the police force in England, again in Lancashire. He was again recruited because of the Finnian menace in England and Scotland at that time, so that when my Grandfather became able to think about a new job, he didn't join the Scottish police but went to his Uncle in Accrington where he was in the police force. He became a policeman in the Lancashire constabulary and served in various positions all aroud Lancashire before ending in Rawtenstall, and when he was nearly 47 he died. So that was the short sort of life that he led. My Aunties always said that it was because he had been very badly cold and suffered a great deal, including a bout of pneumonia about 10 years before he died on the moors around Bolton where he was in action against a large poaching gang. The weather was vile and cold, it was winter, anyway it hastened his death at an early age.

Dad's Dad, Aunts and Uncles

About the Collins family. Our family.

Starting I think with my father Lawrence Jerome Collins who was born into a family of 9 in about, I'm not very sure but I think it was about 1897.

Now, my father had 9 siblings, 4 boys and 5 girls.

Of the boys...

One died when he was quite young, a schoolboy, that was Frank. The other 3 were Peter, Lawrence and Raymond. My uncle Raymond died sometime in the 1920's of tuberculosis. That just left then, of course, Peter and my father Lawrence.

My Uncle Peter married Maria Manning and they had 2 girls, Ann and Josie. Both my Father and his Brother served in the first world war. Uncle Peter taking ammunition to the front at Ypres. My Dad served with the Serbs against the Austrians and Bulgars.

Of the girls...

Margaret was named after her mother, I'll go back into that later, she died in childbirth or shortly afterwards of some fever or other. Something connected with childbirth, I'm really not sure.

The baby was my cousin Rita who was the pride of her brother at an early age and I'll go onto that later. May who was the next girl married a man she met while working at a local hospital which was being used a a convalescence home. She was a schoolteacher. People volunteered during the 1st World War to help out these retiring servicemen who needed attention. He was a chartered electrical engineer called Fred Ray who eventually rose to be a director of the South Eastern Electricity Board.

The other girl, Teresa, was unlucky in that she had her eye knocked out while working half time at 12 years of age in a cotton mill. She married a man called George Taylor and lived in very poor circumstances and died quite young.

After that there were Edith and Susan. Edith was a clever lady, and my favourite Auntie. A manageress of a shoe shop, she married late in life to a family friend after the friend's wife died prematurely.

Susan was the other sister and she lived with Edith in their Mother's old house and they brought up between them Margaret's daughter. The baby was also named Margaret but was always known as Rita. Rita was a particularly beautiful girl, convent grammar school educated who did not marry until her 40s.