Dying wish unearthedan illustrious history

The night Hitler’s bomb rocked our village

Mystery over rugby playerHere’s a special message for

the boy on the front row, far right, in this junior Shropshire rugby team of over 50 years ago.

And it is this. Who on earth are you?

Local historian Allan Frost of Telford has been trying to identify all his team-mates in this picture of Wellington Boys’ Grammar School under-13 rugby team for the 1962-63 season.

After we published it in Pic-tures From The Past readers came forward to help him with the names. All names, that is, except one.

Allan says those who have been identified – there is a bit of doubt in one or two cases – are thought to be:

Back row, from left: Law-rence ‘Olly’ Blakeman, Mick Kelsall, Terry (?) Heighway, Bob Parsonage, Barry Turner, Colin Blaney (?).

Middle row: Allan ‘Jack’ Frost, Leonard (?) R Davies (‘Lard’), Phil Morris, Richard Young, Dave Newton, Jim Gar-vey.

Front row: Michael Scott, Richard Pryzbilko, Brian Lewis, and the sole unknown.

“It would be useful if people could confirm or if necessary correct these names, and please pass on my thanks to all your readers who helped fill in the detail,” said Allan.

NOSTALGIA

Wellington Boys’ Grammar School Under-13 rugby team from 1962-63

Call Toby Neal on (01952) 241458 or email toby.neal@shropshirestar.co.uk

DYING Mark Simpson told his brother about two boxes of family papers.

He said to Ben: “I want you to do something with them. There’s a book in them.”

Ben was never to see his brother again.“It was a bit of an injunction, really,” said

Ben.He knew that Mark, and a cousin, had

been researching the family history. And after Mark’s death in 2012, it fell to Ben to pick up the gauntlet, sift through the mate-rial, and continue the project.

The pressure had already been on from another direction.

His daughter Helen had given him a nicely bound book with blank pages inside for Christmas and had asked him to “write reminiscences for your granddaughter”.

The more Ben wrote, and the more he dug, the more he found out about interest-ing ancestors in a family tree in which some of the most illustrious names of Shrop-shire’s industrial history are interwoven.

From Horsehay, we have the Simpsons. Then there are the Maws of Benthall and Jackfield, as well as connections with the famous Darbys.

Ben’s father, Doseley-born Sir Joseph Simpson, was to break the mould, as he achieved fame and distinction in a totally different field – he became the first Com-missioner of the Metropolitan Police to have risen through the ranks.

The family story has now been compiled into a book by Ben called The Generations In Between.

And he has done so despite having lost the fingers of his right hand in an accident with a circular saw in 1986.

Ben, 73, who lives near Oxford, said: “They stitched them back on. They don’t work brilliantly, but they’re all right.”

His book includes many insights into Shropshire’s industrial past. There is, for example, an account of the visit by his great-grandfather Joseph Simpson to Ironbridge in 1854. Joseph wrote about the blast furnaces he saw and told of going 700ft down a coal mine at Madeley.

During Joseph’s visit he called at the All Labour in Vain, at Horsehay, and writes that he was amused to see the pub sign, which depicted washerwomen scrubbing a

black boy in a tub to try to turn him white. This sign remained a sometimes controver-sial feature of the pub – now demolished – up until its closure in about 2010.

For Ben’s grandfather, also called Joseph, an event which was to shape his life came in his childhood.

In 1884, when he was nine, his uncle Henry Charles Simpson became manager of Horsehay Iron Works and then, two years later, owners the Coalbrookdale Company sold the firm. Henry and another uncle, Al-fred Simpson, leased part of the works and

founded the Horsehay Company. Joseph was to work there and was chairman for several years before his retirement in 1949. He had married in 1903 Dora Maw, daugh-ter of Arthur Maw who, with his brother George, founded the Jackfield Tile Com-pany.

Ben’s father, yet again named Joseph but known to his family in his early youth as Toby, and latterly as Joe, was born on June 26, 1909, in a small house called Green-hurst, in St Luke’s Road, Doseley, but the family later moved to nearby Moreton Cop-

pice, Horsehay. He excelled in sports, his 22ft 3ins (6.79 metres) long jump at Oundle School setting a school record.

He joined the Met in 1931, eventually be-coming the Commissioner of the Metropoli-tan Police. Knighted in the 1959 New Year Honours, he served as Commissioner for a decade before his death in service in 1968.

His funeral was attended by members of the royal family and senior politicians.

l Generations In Between is published by Graffiti Press and can be ordered through www.simpson-heritage.uk

Report by Toby Nealtoby.neal@shropshirestar.co.uk

The Horsehay Works, which was run by the Simpson familyThe Simpson children at home at Moreton Coppice in 1924

Joseph Simpson, who was chairman of the company

A photo we used in Pictures From The Past the other day went down a bomb with Colin Downward of Harmer Hill.

Because Mr Downward was able to con-firm our suspicion that it shows children sitting in a Shropshire bomb crater during the war. And what’s more, he was one of those children.

“It’s at Harmer Hill, and was in about 1942,” he said.

“There was a men’s social club at the top of Chapel Bank and it was behind there. The people on the photo are Bob Lloyd, who is the one at the back standing up in a dark jacket, and then on the right the girl is Kathleen Wildblood, who lived in the Chapel House. The little one on the left sit-ting down is Frankie Pinnock, and the one on the right is me, Colin Downward. We were all from Harmer Hill.

“I’m 82 now. I must have been about eight or nine at the time. A lot of German planes in the old days didn’t know where they were and they used to drop their big

bombs and go home. I lived at Redcroft in Harmer Hill and it happened in the evening. My dad was an ex-sergeant in the 1914-18 war in the Cheshire Regiment. He was a bit of a hardened man.

“We heard it coming down and my mum started to panic. She said: ‘Bombs, bombs, Joe!’ He said: ‘What do you want me to do – go out and catch it?’

“It went boom. You heard the whistle and the bang. We had just had our tea. Our house was about 300 or 400 yards away. My dad had wanted to be in the 39-45 war but was too old. He was one of the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) wardens and worked out at Shawbury as an accountant for the Air Ministry.

“I don’t know who took the photograph, it would have been somebody in the village. Somebody told me years later there was a photograph, and years later somebody gave me this photograph.

“I can’t tell you when we went to see the crater. We might have had to go to school

the following day. It was quite deep.” The crater was filled in long ago, he said. Asked to pinpoint the site, Mr Downward, who these days lives in Harlescott, Shrewsbury, said: “If you go to Harmer Hill now and keep on the main road past the Red Cas-tle pub, up the road there’s a Presbyterian chapel on the right hand side. Next door to that is a men’s club, which is brick-built now (it’s in fact now the village hall).

“Originally it was called The Reading Room but that was knocked down and made into a social club. It happened at the back of there in a farmer’s field.

“I know Bob Lloyd is still alive, but he is not very well and lives with his daughter down south. The Pinnocks used to have a shop in Harmer Hill. I think they went to live somewhere like Whitchurch. I’ve lost touch with everybody now.”

In a final twist, it turns out that the photo had come from Mr Downward orig-inally, a copy being loaned by him to the Shrewsbury Chronicle years ago.Children in the Harmer Hill bomb crater

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