MEMORIES OF THE TWENTIES AND THIRTIES

(written by Myffy Parsons (nee Hotchkiss))

One of my most treasured possessions is the medal my father was given by Knowle Bowling Club in 1919 to commemorate his winning the Victory Cup that year. This was just two years after he had come to Knowle as licencee of the White Swan in the High Street. For those who do not remember it I must tell you that the White Swan was an inn of probably 15th century origin which stood quite near to the Red Lion, and it was a great loss to the village scene when it was demolished in the late l930's.

The pub had a crown green which was reached by crossing a large yard behind the pub, walking up a long garden path which wound around the duck pond and went on to end at what seemed to me as a child to be an enormous bowling green surrounded by high privet hedges. There was a black painted wooden pavilion placed high on four brick piers where the woods, jacks, mats, beer and glasses were kept and then a lean-to open fronted shed next to the pavilion where the bowling club teas were served. Bowling club teas always seemed to me to mean ham sandwiches and I can still picture my father slicing the big York ham all covered in golden bread crumbs and my mother supplying cups of strong brown tea from the copper urn.

Ralph Allen, a plump and happy man, looked after the green with great devotion and he also helped to carry up from the pub the essential supplies of bottles of beer, lemonade and ginger beer as well as small barrels for those who liked their brew straight from the wood. Bowling always was thirsty work! There were no motor mowers to make grass cutting easy and another hard task I used to be fascinated to watch was when Ralph or my father swished the green with a long bamboo cane I think to remove the worm casts.

How long the green had been in existence there I don't know, but certainly the Club was popular and the happy spirit of the bowlers in those days before the war was quite apparent even to a child. The photograph that now hangs in the pavilion at the Red Lion shows all the members I remember well. My uncles, Harry and Harold (Lal) Baulcombe are on it and I can recall the great excitement one year when Lal won the Merit and also remember the celebration that lasted for a long time after.

The Swan was closed in 1936 as Ansells Brewery wanted to use the licence to open a pub in one of the developing suburbs of Birmingham and we hadalready moved to the newly renovated Red Lion.The bowling club transferred to the Greswolde green, and it was not until after the war that Ansells agreed to lay a new green at the Red Lion. So, to the great pleasure of my Father and Mother, the Knowle Bowling Club — renamed Ye Olde Knowle Bowling Club — came back to their pub.

An old map shows, I believe, that there was a bowling green on the triangle of land on which the Berrow Homes now stand. Was that where the club had its beginnings 200 years ago ? If so, it is a happy thought that it is still flourishing not far from where it first began and I wish it all success for the next 200 years.