betty fores story

7/28/2019 Betty Fores Story

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Mum’s story – Worksop as a childBetty Ormandi nee Fores

Born Worksop 9 June 1933 – passed away in Budapest 17 November 2011aged 78

(Trevor’s notes in italics) Family Life

My earliest memory is of 5 Duke Street. It was where my brother Les shut my thumbin the crack of the door and nearly took it off. I remember going to the hospital withmy hand all wrapped up in a bloody bandage.

When dad left the Army the day he got home he smashed everything in the housethat was breakable.

Violet (Betty’s mum ) – He attacked me once and I had to knock him down with asaucepan to stop him. I though he was going to kill me.

I’m wondering if Aunt Blanche was the wife of Toby Fores? (Toby was Betty’sGrandma Annie Fores’ brother and Blanche, if his wife, her sister in law ). This is thefirst place Jean and I stayed when dad beat mum up and they pushed us out of thedoor and round to Aunt Blanche’s. I remember once I had a boil on my bum and sheput a heated glass on it to get rid of it. Then Jean and I went to live with Aunt Ada

( probably sister of George Pridmore who was married to Betty’s grandmother, AnnieFores’, sister ) and poshy June. Poshy June was adopted by Aunt Ada and herhusband. Ada came from Watford and her brother was a cobbler. Poshy June’s parents were travelling actors, which was looked down on in those days. Theycouldn’t keep her and travel as well.

Les, my brother, went to live with Aunty Dolly (Dorothy Tong ), sister of Aunt Win(Winifred Tong ); Grandad Fores’ stepsisters ( Annie Fores’ children by her third partner, Walter Tong ). Grandad Tong was a miserable bugger and his wife, GrandmaTong (nee Annie Fores), looked like a witch. To this day Les can’t stand the thoughtof plum jam ‘cause she used to make it to feed him. Not just as a treat but all the time.



Winifred Tong

In the meantime my mother had at first gone to stay with her friend who lived abovethe pub and then moved to Stamfrey, where I ended up. She had met Tom (Gibbons)in the pub on the corner of the road were we had lived with dad. Mum had a friendwho lived above the pub. Tom already had two sons and mum wasn’t good to them.

When we moved to London we lived at Iffley Road in Hammersmith. Then we movedto Paddensiwck Road and shared a house with the Indian actor Sabu (Dastagir,famous for his role as Mowgli in Zoltan KLorda’s 1942 Jungle Book ) who wasshooting a film at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd’s Bush (Black Narcissus withMichael Powel and Emeric Pressburger). Me, Jean and dad were living at number 60and Les, Doug and mum at number 14.

(1)

We moved back and forth between London and Worksop about four or five times andwe were eventually evacuated back to Worksop because of the war. It was whileDoug was working at a garage in Goldhawk Road that he got a splinter in his eyefrom a lathe. When he joined the Royal Navy he was limited as to what he could dobecause of it and became a cook.

Doug Fores

During the war dad was stationed in London (with the 15th Bomb Disposal Company).



They were responsible for removing bombs from Buckingham Palace. He said thatwhen the King came to visit with Churchill and offered them a cup of tea he said herather have whisky thank you very much. At one point he was buried alive when thetunnel they were digging collapsed. He was incarcerated for a while in a militarymental health institution and then discharged after carrying a live bomb on the trainfrom London to Worksop.

(2) (3)

One of his mates wrote to the BBC to say that, ‘In 1942 I was a sapper with 15 BombDisposal Company RE and we had dug down to an unexploded bomb in North-WestLondon and, having exposed the fuse, were waiting for our officer, Lieut. Rumsey, tocome and de-fuse it. While we were eating our sandwich lunch, at a distance fromthe bomb, a man came u p and spoke to the sergeant. “Is there really a bomb downthere?” “Yes, the officer is coming to take the fuse out, then we will lift the bomb outand take it away.” “Well be very careful with it, I’ve got a very valuable piano in theflat over there”….. (4)

After the war when he got his medals he went to the Ministry of Defence and toldthem he rather have the ‘f******g money’. He sent them back in the post.

After he died we found his will and he’d cut out his signature from another documentand pasted it in his will…



Life in Worksop

John Street – There was a chip shop just up John Street and we didn’t realise thatthe people who owned it were related. Jean, my sister, said, ‘Oh! If only we’d known!We could’ve got free chips!’ I went to school up John Street, and Doug, my brother,used to drop me and Jean off at the school gates. We’d wait until he’d gone and we’dgo back to Manver Street where we had a swing in the attic.

(5)

Gateford Yards – Ooh! I remember those and the Jennels (passages between thehouses and streets). There were some very poor people living there

(6)

Priorswell Road and the Worksop and Retford Brewery Company – GrandadExton worked at the brewery all his life till he retired and he was teetotal! He was a

miserable bugger! The only person he was happy around was his darling Dorothy(Exton). Her sister Jessie, the one with the humpback who had the operation, wassuch a lovely person.

(7)



(8)



(9)

Jessie born June 1915 aged 17 in 1932. Married a man in later life whose surnamewas Stoppani (my note: Harry – see photo below) who came from a family inDoncaster who made horse drawn funeral carriages. The Stoppani family originallycame from Lake Como in Italy



Union Workhouse (now a school) – the birthplace of William Exton, born out ofwedlock to a destitute woman called Sarah, Great Grandfather of Betty Fores andfather of Betty’s Grandfather Bill Exton. He was fathered by Samuel Exton ofGreetham, Rutland. Because he was illegitimate and his mother destitute and in theworkhouse he went to live with his Uncle Luke Exton and Aunt Elizabeth.

(10)

Worksop Hospital – ‘Me’ dad (David Fores) was working on the extension when hefell from the roof onto a beam. A spike went straight into him between the legs. Whenhe went to the hospital he was such a bad tempered bugger and not happy with thetreatment the nurses were giving him he threw a bowl of water over one of them. After that something had happened to him and we always thought that it was as aresult of the accident. He used to get what we called the spiders. It was like a rashbut in the outline of loads of spiders, when it came out on his skin it would start at hishead and spread all over his body and then when it went it would disappear from hisfeet upwards and the last place it would disappear from was his face and head. Itwas very odd.



(11)

Timber Yards - When I was living with poshy June and her parents they used tokeep piglets and I used to have to go to the Timber Yards to get sawdust, you know,for bedding and to make it easier to muck them out.

(12)

I used to have to push a one wheeled wheelbarrow all the way and I was only 10. Itwas very hard. I used to pick up bales of straw along the way as well. On the wayback I used to avoid one lane where one of the houses kept geese. I was afraid ofthem. I used to throw the bales of straw over a fence and then push the wheelbarrowthrough the fence.

(13)

Sandhill Street off Sandy Lane – I used to collect pig food at Sandy Lane and Iremember Aunt Amelia (nee Fores, Betty’s Grandmother Fores’ sister ), whose( possibly second ) maiden name was Pridmore, was beaten up by her husband DonCalvert who managed the quarry works there. She used to go and stay with hersister’s Annie’s mother in law Sarah (… Ann Stenton nee Varley ). It was a big houseand she used to have a larder there that was semi underground where she used to



bake cakes. When I went to collect the pig food she used to give me a cake. Iremember the gypsy site and the gypsies that used to live there. They were never aproblem. No problem at all. Nelly Fores (another of Betty’s Grandmother Fores’sisters) also lived in Sandy Lane.

(14)

Sarah Ann Stenton neeVarley

Grandad (Leonard ) Stenton never married Annie Fores which is why GranddadFores was born out of wedlock. In about 1953 he had sold his business to the Co-Op.He worked for them in the shop in Central Worksop. I think it was opposite M&S andWoolworths, possibly on Bridge Street. I was waiting at the bus stop outside and sawhim and said, ‘Hello Grandad’. He never really had anything to do with us

(15)

Leonard Stenton with his wife Mary at their shop12 Eastgate, Worksop, in about 1910



Leonard, many years later when he worked for the Co-Op, at a flower show

Years later when we had settled in London I remember the shop Les had in NapierRoad, between Brook Green and Shepherd’s Bush. It used to belong to a Hungarian

lady. I used to work there sometimes and park Trevor outside in the pram

David (Grandad) Fores with Lucy ‘Mum’, Napier Road References

(1) http://www.cinefania.com/persona.php/Sabu/

(2) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/410155.stm

(3) http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/1940SOND.html

(4) http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/60/a2790560.shtml

(5 – 7) Jackson, Michael J., The Worksop Archaeological and Historical Society, Victorian Worksop,1992, printed by Peter Spiegel & Co. Stamford, Lincs

(8 – 9) Worksop Guardian, 1932

(10) http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?Oakham/Oakham.shtml

(11 – 13) Jackson, op cit

(14) MacFadyen, M. A., Bygone Bassetlaw , 1983, pub. Bassetlaw District Council, Worksop, Notts

(15) Bassetlaw Museum, Welchman Archivehttp://www.bassetlawmuseum.org.uk/bassetlaw.asp?page=photo&itemId=RETBM%20:%202001.1010

http://www.cinefania.com/persona.php/Sabu/



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/410155.stm


http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/1940SOND.html


http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/60/a2790560.shtml


http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?Oakham/Oakham.shtml



http://www.bassetlawmuseum.org.uk/bassetlaw.asp?page=photo&itemId=RETBM%20:%202001.1010








betty fores story

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