Dorothy Grimley was born in Stoke on Trent in 1916. She came to live in Hill Ridware when her father, Samuel Smith, took over the tenancy of the Chadwick arms public house. She was 15 years old. Before then she had lived for four years in Armitage with her Granny Davies, as the country air was better for her health. During those years she met Jack Grimley while walking in the Mill Meadow and later when her parents came to live at the Chadwick Arms she met Jack again.
Life at the public house was not easy as there was no electricity. One of Dolly’s tasks was to fill and clean the 12 oil lamps everyday as well as helping behind the bar. In those days the beer was kept in the cellar, and she had to go down and get a jugful at a time for customers. After a while the brewery put a bar in the main room and pumps, making the work much easier. Dolly was taught how to tap a barrel and how to clean the pipes.
There was no shop in the village then but once a week a man came round with a horse and cart selling coal at two shillings a bag. Another day Mr. Johnson from Armitage came round with a horse and cart selling vegetables. Another chap came round with batteries for the wireless sets. He would take your battery away top it up and return it. All these traders went into the pub for a drink and a cheese sandwich. The worst part of running the pub was the lack of water on tap. The water came a pump in the yard. The toilet was a bucket which men emptied once a week into a big tank pulled by a horse.
In 1935 Dolly married Jack in Saint Nicholas church Mavesyn Ridware and in 1937 their first child Nelly was born. At that time, they lived in a cottage at the top of Church Lane. The cottage was in a row of three the neighbours were Fran and Ellie Brown and Rose and Charlie Poole. There were two toilets between the three families with wooden seats which had to be scrubbed daily by the wives and which were emptied once a week by the men with the horse drawn tank. Washing was done in the shared wash house and the three
women took it in turns to use it and to light the fire underneath the copper and to heat the water. It took at least two hours to get the water hot using coal and slack. Then out would come the tub and the dolly peg and when the clothes had been put through the mangle they were pegged onto the line to dry. The cottages were owned by Mrs Sutton and the rent was a half a crown a week. Mrs Sutton lived in the big house at Mavesyn which until recently was a rest home.
At this time Jack worked at Armitage Shanks (then called Edward Johns) for £2.50 for a six-day week. After two years with another baby expected they decided to move to a bigger house. They moved to Rose Cottage in Rake End where Joan was born in 1939. The rent now increased to 8 shillings a week while Jack’s wages stayed the same.
In 1939 the council built some new houses on the Uttoxeter Road on the eastern side of the village and Dolly and Jack were given one. At long last they had a bathroom and a proper kitchen. Their neighbours either side were Lizzie and Ernie Downing and Nellie and Jack Hancox. War broke out in 1939 and Jack volunteered for the RAF but was only given a grade four after a medical at Stafford, so he joined the Home Guard. On the night of the 9th September 1940 there was a very bad air raid with bombs dropping in Mavesyn Ridware. Dolly’s mother had been buried in Mavesyn Ridware that very day and Dolly and the two children hurried down to check that no graves had been damaged. Luckily the bombs had missed the church and the churchyard. While living in the new council house the family shared an air raid shelter at the end of their garden with Nelly and Jack Hancox. Dolly and Nellie would take the children to the shelter for safety when the siren sounded while the local men went off to the Home Guard. By now Dolly had taken in an evacuee from Margate in Kent named June Weeks who attended the village school. There were several evacuee children in the village at that time.
Around 1943 Samuel Smith remarried and moved out of the Chadwick Arms to run another public house in Rochdale Lancashire. Dolly and Jack found themselves able to buy a house of their own and in 1944 moved to Holly Croft in the centre of the village. This house was only across the field from where Jack was born and where his widowed mother still lived. Jack had not been well and was sent for x-rays at Stafford Hospital. It was discovered that Jack had tuberculosis in his hip and spine which meant him spending the next two years in Hartshill Hospital, Stoke on Trent. They also discovered a third child was on the way. John was born in 1945. While Jack was in hospital one of the village school teachers, Mabel Dutton, lived at Holly Croft with the family and no doubt helped Dolly keep them under control. Every Sunday Dolly went to Stoke on Trent to visit Jack. First cycling to Rugeley, and then travelling by bus to Stoke. it was a very difficult time for her and her good friends Annie and Eric Collier, who lived at Rake End Farm, often looked after Nellie and John on Sundays while Joan stayed with Jack’s mother Lizzie Grimley.
When Jack came out of hospital, they realised that he would not be able to climb stairs due to the stiffness in his hips because of the TB and they decided to move to a bungalow. Mr Webster sold them a plot of land in School Lane, and he also built their bungalow for them. In 1949 the family moved in. Mr and Mrs Froggat, Richard’s grandparents bought Holly Croft. Life settled down. In 1948 Dolly joined the WI. She was proud to be one of the founding members of the local WI. She was an expert at making jam, bottling fruit and pickles as well as stitching suede gloves and making lampshades.
The big garden at Hillcrest was soon full of fruit trees and vegetables. Then in 1951 their fourth child Mary was born. Once Mary started at the village school, Dolly found herself working at the village post office and shop, a job she held for some years. She also shared caretaking and cleaning duties at the school with her neighbour Phyllis Astbury.
Sadly, Jack died in 1974 at the early age of 62. By now their three elder children were all married leaving Dolly with Mary. After Mary married Dolly decided to move to a bungalow with a smaller garden and in 1985 bought one, from her friend Florence Griffiths, in Uttoxeter Rd. She enjoyed her years there tending her lawns and flower borders growing tomatoes and cucumbers in her greenhouse as well as house plants in every room. Once again, she was just across the road from where Jack was born although the row of cottages had been demolished in 1964 to make way for new houses. Even in her eighties Dolly was still a true garden lover and when she had filled every space in her garden, she started collecting tubs and troughs ringing Walter Hammond, who organised the village gardening club, and persuading him to deliver bags of compost and grow bags for her ever expanding collection of plants.
Dolly passed away aged 85 in January 2002 and is buried in St. Nicholas churchyard Mavesyn Ridware with her beloved Jack.
Meryl Mattey