Hobmoor Croft Yardley

A Memory of Acock's Green.

I was born in 1940 and lived at 27? (it might be another number) Hobmoor Croft. We lived next door to the Lewis family and the other side was the Bessie family. We lived there between 1940 and 1945 when we moved to Erdington. As I was so very young I don't have many memories of the place except that there was some sort of space at the back where they had huge tank shelters and where we kids used to play (illegally I'm sure). In the garden we had an air raid shelter built of corrugated iron and half buried in the ground. I used to love having to go down there at night with my playmates. It all seemed such fun! Little did we know what was going on at the time! My dad used the pub at the bottom of the road. My name is now Jayne Gilbert but I was born Jayne Watson. I went to a nursery in Yardley when I was 2 as my mum ran her own hairdressing salon nearby. Dad worked at the aircraft factory during the war. His name was Chris and my mum was Eileen. They were both hairdressers. I am still in touch with Gillian Lewis who married an American Airforce staff sargeant called Tommy Cooke and they now live in Texas. I eventually attended Lyndhurst Prep School in Erdington folowed by a year at Burcot Grange in Seven Oaks and then King Edward VI Grammar in Handsworth. I lived in London for most of my career (I am a barrister) and now live in Suffolk.