| Description | An interview with John McCARTHY, a married man with two daughters, who is a Curator, Birmingham Central Library, born in Warley, W.M. and now living in Birmingham. John McCARTHY’s father was a General Labourer, born in Ireland and his mother a Housewife born in England. In the interview, he talks about …
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McCARTHY, John Logged by Louise Harvey
01
Born on 27th July 1943 in Warley, West Midlands on the border of Warley Woods, 4th child.
Parents were Daniel and Florence McCarthy.
32” Describes parent’s occupations.
58” “My mother was Church of England but my father was a strict Catholic…” 1.06” Father’s family very large – one of 11 children.
1.17” Father didn’t go to church as he worked most Sundays but he wanted his children to follow the Catholic religion.
1.32” Went to Catholic school.
1.38” Mother didn’t really practice in the Church of England and let him and the other children practice Catholicism. “She was quite happy to let us go wherever our Dad wanted us to go…”
2.14” Describes quality of education – strict, but good teaching. He approves highly of Catholic schools.
2.38” Discusses the extent to which taught Catholicism. Encouraged to learn Latin.
02
3” “The school I went to was St. Patrick’s on Dudley Road, Winson Green…”
9” Describes age ranges in school (Primary, secondary etc).
24” Recalls his time at the infant school, winning “Teacher’s Prizes”. Story about being pulled home by his brothers on a red train that he had won. “I remember the infants quite well because I seemed to be very lucky in so much as I won one or two teachers' prizes…”
59” 6 boys and 4 girls in family – all went to the same school.
1.15” St. Patrick’s changed, becoming a junior and infant school only, and the secondary school moved to Cardinal Newman’s.
1.55” “We used to take the 11+ but in those days…our mothers and fathers said you couldn’t go to grammar school because you had to buy all the books and everything for grammar school and we can’t afford to do that…” Says that even if you passed the 11 +, you would have to be very lucky to go to grammar school.
03
“This was around 1953-54, it was the year of the Coronation”.
10” 1954 Left home in Winson Green and moved to Edgbaston, because house was too small. Still went to St. Patrick’s.
40” Previous house was back-to-back house in Carlisle Street, Winson Green. Describes house.
1.02” Talks about how small rooms in house were for 10 children and 2 adults. “You couldn’t all get in the house at the same time, you had to stay out for as long as you could…”
1.21” “We used to joke about our friends wearing vests because we never used to wear vests…We couldn’t really afford vests and underpants…We had friends who…and they had vests and woollies on and all sorts of things…we used to be spartan…and we never used to get colds or anything like that… and they were always down with the slightest thing…”
1.45” Describes sleeping arrangements – beds etc. “The sleeping arrangements were top and tail really…”
2.19” “We had no toilet inside, we used to have to…well we had to use a commode really… the alternative was to go out of the house up the yard to a shared toilet…” Describes conditions.
3.20” Was 10 months when moved to Carlisle Street. Describes growing up.
4.23” Describes other families living in area.
4.46” That was 1952-53…they started putting electric in down Carlisle street…”
4.58” Recalling electricity been put in. “We remember it well because…”
04
Continues anecdote
“…By the time 1953 came round, next door to us, they had a television set…and we used to look through the curtains at it, and everyone used to be invited to go round their house…and it was marvellous. It was miraculous really…we hadn’t even got electricity…”
32” Remembering Coronation.
1.10” Running errands to get money.
3.40” Visiting Birmingham – naming landmarks etc. “We used to go to Birmingham, the centre of Birmingham and we used to try…to go on the train from Winson Green…we used to get a return ticket for threppance and that used to take us all way into the city centre to New Street…and then we used to go all round places like…”
4.32” Didn’t buy anything, just looked in all the big stores.
4.40” Liked going to the museums.
05
Describes going around with a gang of 4 boys and 4 girls.
32” Describes their parents’ occupations etc.
53”Saving bus tickets.
06
Playing marbles.
56” Story about playing with cigarette packets in the street as one of their main activities. “We also used to play with cigarette packets…the wide variety of cigarette packets you could find just walking round the streets…we used to find…really looked nice, that had a picture on them…”
2.24” Making bows and arrows in Summerfield Park, Winson Green.
4.00” Hit a boy from another gang in the eye with his arrow.
07
17” Describes battles in streets between children.
2.00” Usually stayed in the streets until about 9pm as they had to keep out of the house.
2.48” “There were no washing facilities, there was an old…sink on top of the stairs that went down to the cellar and that was stone…with just a cold water tap…there was always slugs in there first thing in the morning…and you used to have to wash in that…”
3.44” Going to bed.
4.49” Talks about neighbours arguing.
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20” Talks about lots of “happy drinking”, children sitting outside the pub trying to get a packet of crisps and a drink of pop.
1.03” Fetching bottles of beer for adults, allowed to get beer from the outdoor. Having a sip, tasting horrible but pretending it was nice.
1.55” Parents didn’t really have any social life. Mother used to go to the cinema occasionally.
2.40” Going to see ‘King Kong’.
2.46” “This was around about 1950”.
3.33” Selling marbles to go to the cinema.
4.27” Description of cinemas.
09
Continues describing cinemas
10
4” Role of Catholicism in his life. Having ash put on foreheads on Ash Wednesday.
1.12” Prejudice against Catholics. Picked on by other children.
1.49” Going to Mass – teachers would see which children went.
2.22” Being an altar boy.
3.08” Describes going on a retreat to learn more about the Catholic faith.
3.33” Talks about the priests at St. Patrick’s.
4.29” Talks about the church being Irish. Built in 1895-1905. School built in 1920.
4.57” Religious assemblies every morning at school (singing hymns etc.)
11
Continues
12
Talks about memories of parents.
13” Lovely sentimental anecdote about mother. “My mother was the most gentle… and awe-inspiring person you could ever hope to meet. She tolerated a lot. We heard lots of rows that went on with Dad when he came home late at night because he’d spent all his money in the pub and we had no money for food…”
1.04” Describes how father used to spend all the family’s money. “…fathers in those days, they never used to hand pay packets over like they do today, where you have shared bank accounts…I think in those days a man was in charge of his own money and he gave the wife…what he thought was what she needed to manage on…”
Describes father’s drinking problem.
3.04” Describes doing errands for the lady in the shop next door to help pay for their food bills.
4.38” Going without food.
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26” Describes Sunday dinners.
1.05” Describes having a nice dinner on a Tuesday after getting Family Allowance.
2.08” Describes shops and shopkeepers of the time.
4.04” Changing accumulators for radios – acid from them sometimes burnt his hands.
4.53” Describes Sports Day at St. Patrick’s.
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1.38” Describes life as a teenager. Interest in dancing.
2.45” Describes dance hall.
3.58” Talks about the introduction of Expresso coffee and going to cafes for coffee. “This was round about 1959-60”
4.45” Talks about his interest in the rock ‘n’ roll scene and entering talent contests at the Tower Ballroom.
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Continues
1.18” Describes Expresso coffee bars.
2.26” Girlfriends.
2.37” Meeting his wife.
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1.10” Describes difficulties he had with his wife being Brethren and him being a Catholic.
2.14” Comments on strictness of church and how he felt that religion shouldn’t have any bearing on his relationship with his wife. “We felt as though life was for living and really church tried to say that you shouldn’t live…it was very strict…they expected that you must do this, you must do that…”
2.47” Got married in Methodist church. Describes wedding. “That year was 1965”.
4.28” Moved into rented rooms.
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28” “1966” First child Stephanie, was born.
1.34” Bought own house in Smethwick, paid £700. “That was in 1968”
2.40” Describes buying a house.
3.00” Wages, overtime.
3.17” Describes first job after leaving school, aged 14. “That was 1958”.
4.25” “There was… education advisory officers in those days that used to set you up with interviews. You used to be able to go and see them, they gave you cards to go and have an interview … and they had rows and rows of vacancies…”
4.42” Got a job as a trainee making spectacles.
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Describes job making spectacles
44” Joined woodwork company.
1.05” Moved from woodwork company and went to work as a maintenance carpenter.
1.46” Decided to get married in ’65.
1.53” Wages too low (£25-£26 per week) and so left to work as a builder for McAlpine.
2.32” Buying cakes from bakery on a Friday.
3.14” McAlpine went to city centre and started building library.
3.58” Describes wanting to change jobs and work inside.
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Continues and describes getting a job as a curator at the library.
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NOTHING
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Describes job in library, what it involved etc.
3.11” Describes changes he has observed in the library.
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55” Describes people who use the library.
2.22” Talks about racial mix of people who use the library.
3.52” Talks about security scares in the library.
3.54” “In 1979 we had a real major problem..” Describes burst boilers, water flooded into library.
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Continues talking about security scares.
2.02” “In 1974” Describes precautions the security staff had to take after the Birmingham pub bombings.
2.59” Describes night of Birmingham pub bombings. “We then had the bomb explosion… at the Mulberry Bush and the Rotunda. I was at home at the time, but I heard the explosion at my home in Harborne…”
3.52” “There was lots of bad feeling about Irish people at that time…” Talks about people he knew who had been threatened after the bombings.
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9” Talks about his pictures he has in his office of the Queen and Winston Churchill and what they mean to him.
1.30” Talks about his affinity with Irish and British people.
4.40” Other memories of his father – going to work with him etc.
25
Continues
1.12” Describes his father’s strictness.
1.20” Story about crust of bread
2.49” Story about bee and crust of bread.
26
Talks about transport.
8” “One of the first memories I have is of owning my own bicycle…We used to make them…This was in 1957…”
3.14” Canals run-down.
3.40” Gives his opinion on the changes made to Birmingham.
3.49” “Going back to 1970”. Talks about working on buildings in Birmingham.
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Continues talking about the changes he has seen made to Birmingham.
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3” Talks about reading and the sorts of books that he likes.
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4” Talks about arson attack on library. “One of the worst things that have occurred at the library…was in 1990 we had an incident…where a person really at odds with the way he had been treated by the Central library decided to burn the library down…”
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MISTAKE
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Talks about remainder of family – daughters, granddaughters. Granddaughter Catherine was born with cerebral palsy. Describes this.
3.20” Reflection of differences between life in the past and life in the present.
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7” Getting an MBE. “The proudest day of my life…”
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“…and I shall never forget that day for as long as I live”.
ENDS |