Memory lane

My big writing project, inspired by my paternal grandparents, was completed (I promise all will be revealed soon, bear with me) and I had tentatively begun a second big writing project. This one was inspired by my mother’s parents. Where my memories of Pappy are still vivid and much of his story was told to me first hand, my memories of Nanny, Laura White, are far more hazy because she died when I was just four. I knew even less about my mother’s father, Leonard White. He died when Mum was barely more than a child and she had never talked about him much.

This time I was working blind but, by the miracle of the internet, I’d discovered quite a bit. The Ancestry membership Commando gave me as a gift told me that Leonard had been brought up in Standford Street in Northam. His parents had later moved to Bitterne Park. It wasn’t a lot to go on and White is a common name, so information wasn’t easy to come by. Then I had a breakthrough. Through the 1925 online edition of Kelly’s Directories, I tracked him down to Melbourne Street, just around the corner from where he grew up. This must have been where my mother lived as a child, the house she talked about with cockroaches and damp. She’d never told me where it was, she may not even have remembered the address because a few years later the family moved to the flower roads in Bassett.

So, armed with this information, I set out on 28 September 2020 to explore the area with new eyes. From the outset I knew I wouldn’t find their old house, slum clearance and Nazi bombs put paid to the Melbourne Street houses many years ago. Still, it was another of those beautiful Indian summer days. The river was like glass reflecting all the wrecks as I came to the bridge. Whatever happened, it would be a nice walk.

Once I’d crossed the bridge I was in Northam. A few minutes later I turned into Graham Street and, after a quick stop to look at the wonderful tiled mural on the corner, I began walking through the modern estate. The area we call Northam today began life as Nordhannwig, named for its relationship to the Saxon port of Hamwic. Until the 18th century, when shipbuilding came to the area, it was a farmstead. The first wharves were built to unload goods transported on the Itchen Navigation. In the 1820’s the gasworks came to Northam, followed a decade later by houses, built for dockers and seamen. When the railway arrived in the 1840’s the area became more and more industrialised.

By 1900, Northam was crowded and down at heel. The people were poor and the small, overcrowded two up two down houses regularly flooded at high tides. In fact, just this weekend I spoke to a man who remembered waiting for the spring tides as a boy. He said the local lads would go out armed with catapults to shoot the rats as they came swarming out of their holes as the water rose. Logs from local schools in the early 1900’s show that many children could not attend in bad weather because they didn’t have shoes. This was the world my mother was born into in 1920. Being so close to the docks meant the area was liberally sprinkled with bombs in the early 1940’s, Melbourne Street itself was bombed on 26 September 1940. In 1956, Northam was declared a slum clearance area and the terraced houses were demolished.

There are hardly any of the original Northam houses left now but the school still remains on Kent Street, along with a handful of victorian terraces so this was my first aim of the morning. Back in 1925 there was a shop or a pub on every street corner and the corner house opposite the school was a shop belonging to Ernest Arthur Street. I stood for a while and imagined my Mum with a penny clutched in her hand going to buy sweets on the way home.

Sadly, in July 2000, despite a long battle to save it, Northam School, the oldest primary school in Southampton, closed its doors for the last time. It seems a terrible shame to me and I hope the beautiful old building will not go the way of so many others. With this in mind I wandered around and took photographs for posterity.

As I walked along Peel Street and turned right to head towards the gasworks I couldn’t help wondering if my Mum had walked this way to school. Perhaps she walked with her big brother? Of course, I can’t be sure she actually went to this school but, being so close to Melbourne Street, it seems fairly likely.

Back in the 1920’s there would have been a railway station behind the gasworks at the end of Melbourne Street. Northam Station began life in 1839 due to a dispute between the London & Southwest Railway and the Northam Bridge Company over how the railway should cross Northam Road. The argument was over whether there should be a level crossing or a bridge. Thankfully common sense won out and a bridge was built. Imagine the chaos if it hadn’t been. These days there’s even an underpass with an attractive tiled mural which I spectacularly failed to capture well.

The station was opened as a Southampton temporary terminus on 4 June 1839. When both bridge and line were completed, and the permanent Southampton Terminus station was opened on 11 May 1840, the Northam station was closed. Northam residents weren’t happy to lose their station and campaigned for it to be reopened. The LSWR were dismissive at first. They felt it would be too close to the new Southampton Terminus Station on Terminus Terrace. In the end though, they capitulated and a new station was built on the south side of the Northam Road bridge, close to where the temporary terminus had stood. It opened on 1 December 1872.

The station only served trains to and from Southampton Terminus and each platform could only be accessed by steps from the Northam Road bridge. At first traffic boomed and, in 1908 the bridge crossing the line was rebuilt. Only one entrance was retained and a new footbridge connecting the platforms was built, along with new station buildings. By the 1960’s though, business at both Northam Station and Southampton Terminus had gone into a sharp decline and both stations closed in 1967. Northam station was demolished two years later.

In 2001, when the new St Mary’s football stadium was built there were calls for a new station to be opened at Northam. To my mind it would have been a sensible option as it would have allowed away fans to travel directly to the stadium and encouraged people to use the trains instead of the roads. Sadly, to date, this hasn’t happened although there is a bridge over the railway line and steps down to the stadium and it wouldn’t need much in the way of change to allow trains to stop here on match days. Maybe it’s just too sensible an option though.

There was no way of telling for sure where Leonard and Laura’s house was, although I do know it was on the railway side of the road and looked out over the gasworks. When I posted on the People Who Grew Up In Old Northam facebook page asking if anyone had any photographs, I was lucky enough to have a lovely message from a gentleman called Roger Stephens. His family lived in 80 Melbourne Street, the house my grandparents lived in and he remembered it well. He described it as dark and remembered the smell of the gasworks as quite strong.

The gasometers are still there today, although they’re no longer in use. Even so, I stood for a while and looked at them, trying hard to imagine what this place would have looked like back when Laura and Leonard lived here. These days, Melbourne Street is nothing but big square sheds occupied by small businesses. I couldn’t help wondering if my Mum would even recognise the place if she was still around.

It was a bittersweet walk and, as I made my way back across the Itchen Bridge towards home, I felt sad that I’d never met Leonard and knew so little about him. It must have been difficult back then, trying so hard to provide for a family in such difficult circumstances. Sadly, he died of TB in 1934, perhaps as a result of the living conditions he had to endure. It was too nice a day to stay sad for long though, and a little dog sitting on the railway bridge brought a smile to may face.

I carried on across Peartree Green thankful that Leonard finally managed to drag his little family away from the gasworks. He spent his last days living in Carnation Road and maybe, if he hadn’t, my Mum wouldn’t have met my Dad and I wouldn’t be here to tell you all about it.

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