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4273778 9th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers
1 February 1920 – 3 September 1974
Today, on Remembrance Day, we look at the life of Ken Johnston; a gentleman we have had the privilege to get to know posthumously this year, through the eyes of his children and the memorabilia he left behind…
Earlier this year, we collected a deposit of papers and textiles from the shop J.M. Johnston & Son, Ironmongers & Plumbers, in Glanton, near Alnwick. Amongst the items we brought back with us to the Archives was the Second World War uniform of Kenneth William Johnston.
Ken was born on 1 February 1920 to John and Mary Johnston, and lived at Norfolk House, Glanton, along with his brother, Reg. John worked in the business known as William Douglas (and before that Wilkin and Dickman), before later purchasing it. Attending Glanton Primary School and then the Duke’s School in Alnwick, Ken went on to work in his fathers’ business. He was a well-known character throughout the county, playing in the Coronation Dance Band from its formation in 1937.
He enlisted with the 9th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers in 1939, and they were transported to Norfolk to defend the coast before sailing to France. He was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940, having to leave his accordion behind, which didn’t bode well for the band back home! After Dunkirk, Ken carried out training throughout the UK before sailing towards the Middle East in October 1941. After Pearl Harbour and America’s entrance into the War, the troops instead headed to the Far East, sailing to Bombay for training, before arriving in Singapore in January 1942.
At this point, the Japanese army were only 30 miles from Singapore, and when the island fell, allied troops were taken prisoner. Ken served time at various camps in Singapore and Thailand including Changi and Tha Muang on the Thailand/Burma Death Railway. They were liberated by American Marines in 1945, and Ken began a long journey home via the Phillippines, Hawaii and Vancouver, reaching Southampton on 8 November 1945 – home at last.
Ken met his wife-to-be, Margaret Frater, at the VE and VJ dance held in Glanton Memorial Hall, to celebrate the men who had returned from War. They went on to have three children, Pamela, Dianne & Robert and continued to successfully run the family business, living in several properties in the village, before moving to Crag View, above the shop, in 1971. Â
Within the thriving business, Ken carried out the day to day work – electrical, TV rentals and office admin – while his brother Reg worked alongside Arthur Thompson as the businesses plumbers. Ken’s children remember their dad starting work at 7am and working until late, six days a week, although he was on call 24/7 – he was once called out to a TV problem on Christmas Day!
Ken continued playing music as part of the local band, ‘The Vagabonds’, but loved spending time with his family and travelling to France and Belgium for family holidays. They also had a caravan at Seaton Point where they spent most summer weekends.
As a result of his treatment as a Japanese Prisoner of War, Ken suffered with poor health and died in 1974, leaving Margaret a widow at just 46.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Ken. The Johnston family collection of family and business papers are as yet uncatalogued, so access in not available within our Study Centre at Woodhorn. [AccNo. NRO 12934]
This blog has been researched and written by Dee Love, one of the volunteers on our maternity care project. Project volunteers are researching maternity care in Northumberland with particular focus on Castle Hills Maternity Home, Berwick, and Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. The blog is based on wider research exploring maternity provision in Northumberland.
NRO 5283/C/8/2
As late as October 1972 discussions were still ongoing about the future of the Thomas Knight Memorial Hospital. The House Committee had been told no proposals had been made for replacing the hospital but it’s functions may change in the light of circumstances.
The Committee were adamant that the Beulah House Maternity Hospital should continue to function until the new and extended maternity hospital that was promised for Blyth was in place, then there would be opportunities for all interested parties to have time to express their views re any possible changes for the use or closure of any hospital within the group.
It would appear that, according to figures released by the Hospital Management Board, there was a decline in the number of patients at Beulah House. This may have been due to the G.P.s referring patients to the new maternity unit in Ashington.
Beulah House Maternity Hospital
Service usage 1972 July August September
Admissions 24 23 23
Outpatients 0 14 3
Average no. of patients per day 3.6 4.6 2.9
Service Usage October 1973
Admissions 17
Average no of patients per day 3.5
Questions were asked in the House of Commons on 4 April 1973 about hospital provision in Blyth by Eddie Milne the M.P. for Blyth. It was obviously a topic which was very much on the minds of Blyth’s residents.
Eddie Milne: What would Secretary of State for Social Services, Keith Josephs’ policy be towards G.P. run Cottage Hospitals to supplement coverage of patients provided by District General Hospitals?
Keith Josephs: A decision has been made that this would happen – that Community Hospitals would be complementary to District Hospitals.
They would provide supplementary care which didn’t need the highly specialized care facilities of a District Hospital.
Eddie Milne: Would they provide Maternity Care or would that be centred on the District Hospitals?
Keith Josephs:Â Community Hospitals will cater for a variety of patients and will differ from the traditional Cottage Hospitals.
The end finally came for Beulah House on 31 October 1973. On 14 May 1973 the Hospital Board stated that it would inform the public of the closure of Beulah House. They also said that full use of the facilities should be made right up to the closing date and that all those directly concerned would be informed.
When the Blyth Hospital House Committee met on 10 .December 1973Â they put on record their appreciation of the service given by the entire staff of Beulah House. They stated that all staff either accepted alternative employment or resigned voluntarily. The Principal Nursing Officer stated that he had written to all staff and that all staff had been offered alternative employment within the Group. Three out of ten Nurses employed had given written acceptances. Mr. A. J. Lennon P.N.O. undertook to remind staff who had not yet replied. Some staff had replied that they would not be able to accept alternative employment due to domestic problems involving future hours of work and travelling difficulties.
Blyth Hospital House Committee met for the last time on Monday 11 February 1974. The minutes recorded that a Community Hospital was to be built on Laverock Hall Road in Blyth which would have at least 100 beds but no completion dates were given and no specific mention of a maternity unit was made. The minutes end with the stark statement, “Committee disbanded.”
The Development of Ashington Hospital
On February 18 1966, The Northumberland Gazette printed a statement from Mr. J. Bernard, the Secretary to the Wansbeck Hospital Committee.
“After 25 years as a Maternity Home the Mona Taylor Unit at Stannington will beabsorbed into The Thomas Taylor Homes.
Patients and staff will be absorbed into a Maternity Unit planned as part of Ashington Hospital’s £11.4 million extension programme. Until then it will continue to provide a service. The new maternity unit will have 74 beds, a Nurses’ Home and a Midwifery Centre.”
The County Welfare Committee’s Annual Report for 1961 announced that a further record had been established when mothers brought 28240 children to Child Welfare Clinics. This was an increase of 30% (7000 children) since 1951. It also noted that the infant mortality rate was still below the national average and that a major factor in this improvement is close co-operation in antenatal care between Family Doctors, Midwives, and Health Visitors.
When The County Medical Officer of Health published his Annual Report in1962 he reported that the co-operation between the three parts of the Maternity Services was maintained at a high level. The 1962 report also recorded that the birth rate had reached 8,416. Live births had fallen slightly from 19,3% to 18.25% per thousand of registered births. Of the 159 still births recorded in Northumberland, 80 were premature. In 1964, 83% of confinements were in hospital and the infant mortality rate had fallen again.
All of which attests to the success of the NHS approach to joined up Maternity Care but the law of intended consequences struck. The success of hospitals in coping with such a large proportion of confinements in itself raised a problem. Mothers discharged from hospital would then receive post-natal care from Domiciliary Midwives but the number of home confinements has fallen and actual experience of home deliveries was reduced.
The first hospital in Ashington was built in 1913 and served the town until 1993 when Wansbeck General Hospital was built. In the 1960s the hospital underwent extensive redevelopment and after years of campaigning and complaint it was at last to include a maternity unit.
Finally, in 1967 the redevelopment of the Hospital was near completion. The Hospital Secretary’s report on the progress of Phase 2 of the project noted that the Nurses’ Home had been taken over and occupied the previous week. The contractors said they would hand over the new maternity unit building by the end of June and the department would open on 1st August1967. After a very long wait women in and around Ashington finally had a local maternity unit.
While many in Northumberland mourned the loss of the small, local maternity units the centralization off the service in the1960s, did for the most part, improve both ante natal and post-natal care mothers and their children received. No system is perfect but M.O.H reports prove that huge improvements had been made in the provision of Maternity Care in Northumberland.
Berwick Journal and North Northumberland New Special Series
MESSRS KNOX BROS., ELECTRICIANS, BERWICK
“Light, and yet more Light!” That is the cry in these modern times. People cannot get too much of it – some dearly love the dazzling glare of the spot light – but the poor, old out-of-dater, and others, who lived the simple life in far off by-ways, still stumble and stave their toes in the darkness.
But there is a good time a-coming for these dear folks. No more need they nurse their knees in the dim light of the ingle neuk, or pore over the prophets and proverbs of the auld, auld book by the flickering blink of a smoky, ill-smelling, greasy oil lamp or the uncertain glow of the tallow dip. There’s a good time coming, John! Messrs, the Patent Lighting Co., Ltd., New Broad Street, London, have invented and put on the market, a new electric lighting plant, which can be rigged up quite handy in the back yard, and provide ample light for 20 to 30 watt Electric Lamps.
These are great days of progress! One could not have credited such a thing, even a few years ago, but there it is! A few miles from the centre of old Berwick town, just a step beyond the bounds at Canty’s, Mr Robert H. Knox, of Knox Bros., Electrical Engineers, Bridge Street, Berwick, demonstrated this most clearly. Mr Knox is the sale agent for the North of England and the South of Scotland for the Patent Lighting Co. He has had installed in a small bungalow on the banks of the Whitadder a standard electric lighting plant for demonstrating purposes to possible clients.
The main features of this plant are simple, in fact, they are actually, what one might describe as “fool proof.” The owner of the installation needs no mechanical knowledge, whatever the generating system, like the humble bee, gathers its electric current in a simple automatic way. A standard, made of special, hard creosotic wood, about 16 feet high, is firmly planted in the ground, and supported by four strong steel “guys” to the ground. On the top of the standard is the dynamo, attached to which is a propeller, consisting of two blades, fashioned, from 3 ply mahogany, like the propeller of an airplane. These blades are about 3ft. square, and the span is about 8ft. Everything connected with the propeller is worked on the ball-bearing principle so that all that is required is a little grease, now and then, to keep them running.
Fitted to the propeller is a “governor”-vane. Like most governors we know, this governor takes care, when one gets the “wind up” rather nasty, that no pranks can be played by the propeller. When the wind rises to a speed of over 25 miles an hour, the vane is automatically thrown over and turns the blades of the propeller so that they are edge on to the wind. This allows the dynamo to work at a nominal speed.
The dynamo which works on a bevelled gear begins to generate on a wind of from 5 to 7 miles per hour – just the slightest of puffs. The dynamo is connected by wires to a Ventimotor Switchboard. This is an important part of the outfit. It is nicely proportioned and takes up little room, yet it is strongly made of iron and so securely fastened that inquisitive, little fingers could not tamper with it. The voltage is shown in a simple manner by colour bands, the white band showing when fully charged (30 volts). When the dynamo is out of action there is an automatic “cut off” which prevents the electric current, generated in the batteries, from flowing back to the dynamo. Thus, while preventing any mischance to the dynamo, it also provides a store of current for a windless day.
The batteries (12 cells) are also constructed on a simple plane. There is no occasion for testing with volt meters. Each cell has a gravity ball, showing clearly the state of the battery. These batteries are guaranteed a storage sufficient to supply a lighting system from 8 to 10 days with recharging. As there is scarcely a day passes without a capfull of wind, there seems to be no doubt of an ample lighting system. Calm days moreover generally occur when the light of day is in its plenitude.
The cost of these plants is estimated to be about £140. This outlay covers all the initial cost, and, thereafter, the upkeep is a mere bagatelle – a matter of a handful of grease each month. The lamps used are the ordinary 30 candle power type which with an appropriate reflector, has sufficient power to light a large room. Larger plants can be supplied, if necessary, but this stock size is more than ample for the farmer’s needs.
MR ROBERT H. KNOX
Mr Robert H. Knox, the sole partner now of Knox Bros., is a young Berwick man, who gives promise of going far in the electrical trade still at the dawning stage. Educated at Berwick Grammar School, Mr Knox in his school days showed a proclivity for football, favouring the carrying code. He, however, had little time to spend on Britain’s playing fields. Of a mechanical bent, he served his apprenticeship with the Berwick and District Electrical Supply Co.
Like so many more of our young lads, Mr Knox saw active service in the Great War. He was in the very thick of the fighting and came through many a ghastly carnage. Enlisting into the Machine Gun Corps, he was a unit in that desperate fight at Delville Wood on the Somme River. What a carnage was there! It was a death trap! Out of the whole company that went into that fight, only 17 survived the day. Robert Knox was one of those, shall we say, lucky ones, who came through. But he did not come scatheless. He found himself transported to hospital in the south of England. There was more adventure awaiting this Berwick lad. He was transferred, after recovery, to the Tank Corps in 1916. In 1917 he was back once more in the holocaust, this time at Cambrai. In November 1917, came that stupendous feat of arms, which spell bound the nations of the world. The “impregnable” Hindenburgh Line was battered and broken through by the attack of the “Tanks”. Mr Knox took part in that engagement, and in that heroic achievement. What an experience to come through! But Mr Knox does not care to dwell upon that. He says he prefers to forget the war!
Returning to civil life again, he completed his electrical training with the Supply Co. at Berwick. But he had still to adventure in life, this time in business life. He started the business of an electrical engineer in partnership with his brother Douglas, as Knox Brothers in Bridge Street, Berwick, in March 1921. The partnership was split, however, two years ago, his brother going into the motor trade in London. Mr Knox is now sole partner and has gradually developed the business to its present high state of utility. He specialises in lighting, heating, and power electric plants, and at present, he has the contract for the installation of the electric light plant in the buildings of the Liverpool and Martin Bank in Hide Hill, Berwick, which are under reconstruction. Mr Knox is the official agent in the North of England for the C. A. V. Coy., Ltd., Acton, London, and, in his works, repairs C. A.V. batteries and fits new plates. He makes a feature of the equipment of Wireless sets of all kinds, and being an expert in that branch of electricity, the novitiate in the “listening in “pastimes is in safe hands when he trusts Mr Knox for his crystal or valve set. Mr Knox will only rest content when he has positive proof that the best possible results are obtained. In his premises is an experimenting wireless call station – official call No. 5IP – on which he makes frequent tests for wave lengths, etc. A tireless worker – from early dawn to dewy eve – he is ever at the beck and call of them he serves. With him the old saw is gospel truth – “It is never TOO LATE to MEND!”
