Marjorie and Albert
This plaque is in the Remembrance Room at Carmountside Crematorium in Stoke-on-Trent.
Thanks to Brother Steve for the photograph.
The following unsolicited tribute from an old friend, John Burston, came to brother Steve in a message to his website in 2013:
Hello Steve, I hope you can remember me I used to run the football team and you played in goal for me. A lot of people in the potteries looked down on us because we lived on Coalville but I hope you don't mind but I never tired of telling those who tried to put us down of your family. You were all so clever a real example to us all. I thought your Mum was a smashing lady and your Dad a very hardworking man who was rightly very proud of his family. Best wishes Steve John b.
Albert Ernest Morse 1902 - 1989
Taken , I believe, in the early 1950s, the photograph above is a personal favourite. The setting is the garden at 10, Severn View Road in Yorkley. I believe this would have been the 'front' garden but that is academic as both the front and rear garden areas were given over to vegetable growing, a necessity in post war Britain. 'm not sure if Dad enjoyed gardening or suffered it as a means of putting food on the table. To this end Mum & Dad also kept chickens for their eggs and meat, a thought which probably now disgusts my twin brothers, Martin and Gordon. Gardening took up the majority of Dad's spare time, both at home and on his allotments, and was something that he continued to do when he moved the family to Stoke-on-Trent. This link shows perhaps, one of the last photographs of Mum & Dad before they moved to Staffordshire.
ALBERT MORSE REMEMBERS
It was interesting to hear last week of an Old Forester who left this area over 30 years ago, but still has fond memories of people and places he left behind. As Albert celebrates his 85th birthday this month in his Stoke-on-Trent home, he looks back on a life which began just as the Boer war was drawing to a close.
Born in a cottage adjoining the Old Nag's Head in Yorkley, he was one of 10 children. His father William, was a coalminer, and his mother, Lucy, a local beauty known as the "Belle of Yorkley". Albert attended Viney Hill School, where he recalls that the curriculum was soundly based on the three R's, Shakespeare and the Bible! He worshipped at All Saints Church , Viney Hill, and was an enthusiastic member of the choir, whose photograph, taken in 1922, still hangs in the church.
At the age of 14, as the Great War raged, Albert left school to become a coalminer, although he also found time to attend night school to further his education. In those days it was often necessary to walk long distances to find work, and to move from pit to pit. With many others he expeArienced the bitter privations of the 1936 miners strike.
He married Marjorie Cooper of Viney Hill, and by the fifties they had raised a family of 6 sons. Originally living in Plum Tree Cottage, Viney Hill, they later moved to Severn View Road , Yorkley. With growing responsibilities, and aware of the decline of the local mining industry.
Marjorie Morse (nee Cooper) 1916-2000
The following was the tribute read out at Marjorie's funeral, prepared by son Stephen James Morse:
Marjorie was born in the village of Yorkley, near Lydney in Gloucestershire, to Walter and Beatrice Cooper. She was the sixth of 12 children (7 girls and 5 boys), and at some point in her childhood, the family moved to the nearby village of Viney Hill.
She attended the village school and local Sunday schools. At some time during the General/Miners' strike, she lived for a period with a family at Woking in Surrey, arranged probably by the N.U.M or its equivalent, as financial help to mining families. This would have been around 1926, when she was 10 years old.
Upon leaving school, probably at the age of 14, she entered domestic service with a family in Caerphilly in South Wales. Subsequently she had a similar position with at least one family in the North London area. Having moved back to Gloucestershire during the war, she met and married Albert Morse, a widower whose young wife had died some 10 years earlier. Marjorie also had wartime employment at a munitions factory in Hereford.
Albert was a miner and on 18th February 1955 the family, now with six sons, moved to Stoke-on-Trent, and a more secure employment outlook. Kathleen, the only daughter, was born in October 1955.
Towards the end of 1963, Marjorie became ill, culminating in an operation to remove a brain tumour in 1964, at the age of 48. She made a complete recovery from this and in the early 70's, and following Albert's early retirement, she started a part-time job , initially as domestic help and then as cook at the Parkside residential home for the elderly, in Weston Coyney. In 1984, she was again taken ill, but once again recovered fully after an operation to remove a blood clot from her brain.
Albert and Marjorie were long-time members of the Over-60's Club in Weston Coyney and she continued her activities with them after Albert died in 1989 at the age of 87. Marjorie remained fit and well for the majority of her remaining years, and spent many happy hours in her garden. She was even able to join some family holidays, visiting at various times Spain, Minorca, Jersey and Florida, U.S.A.
In January 1999, she left the house in Weston Coyney that had been her home for more than 40 years, and moved to Berry Hill Retirement Village in Eaton Park. She never really settled in, and following a fall, and hospitalisation, she moved to Fashoda House Retirement Home in Longton where she spent her final 6 months of life, content and well cared-for.
Contact Ken Morse -kenmorse@kenmorse.co.uk - Thank you
The following is an article published in the Lydney Observer ( a Gloucestershire local newspaper) on Friday March 13 1987, Albert's 85th birthday. The article was prepared by my brother Roland Albert Morse:
Albert and Marjorie sadly decided they would have to leave the Forest. So, in 1954, Albert departed his post as pit deputy at Norchard Colliery and left to seek work in the thriving North Staffordshire coalfields. Marjorie and the family joined him in February 1955 (an event which the Lydney Observer reported at the time).
During his life Albert has been a keen member of the St.John's Ambulance Brigade and the Royal Ancient Order of Buffaloes, and well after his retirement was able to continue his interest in gardening, music and cricket. On many occasions Albert and Marjorie have revisited friends, relations and old Forest haunts and are still regular readers of the Lydney Observer. Their sons, Allan, Kenneth, Roland, Stephen, Martin, Gordon, and daughter Kathleen, who was born in Stoke, are now grown up and they have 12 grandchildren. Without doubt, Albert and Marjorie can happily look back on their busy life and as they enjoy their retirement, we are glad to pass on their good wishes to all who remember them.
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Contact me at kenmorse@kenmorse.co.uk
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