Linden Lea Tennis Club a Presentation by Neville Barratt

Linden Lea Tennis Club – A presentation by Neville Barratt

I really feel that I ought to apologise to you, here you are celebrating and looking forward to what I know will be a hugely successful future and I am going to take you back 75 years. That is when, I 75 years ago to the day after an extremely cold winter, I looked out of my bedroom window and saw on the horizon the barrage balloons guarding wartime Midlands but it was the foreground that dismayed me; there were two derelict tennis courts, what was left of Linden Lea Tennis Club. The courts had been red gravel, but now they were green, covered in moss and weeds. Thenets were rotting in a corner and the lead lines were disintegrating having been raised three inches by frost.

I asked my father, who had been Treasurer of the old Linden Lea Tennis Club for many years, what was to become of the courts and he could only reply that all the previous members were now either serving in HM Forces or working day and night in reserved occupations, tennis balls were now unobtainable, all rubber being required for the war effort, he could only say that another hard Winter would see the courts becoming part of the surrounding fields.

I was sorry to hear this – but came up with the idea that I, and a couple of school friends, could weed, rake and roll at least one court, get it in to really good order and then perhaps we would start a junior tennis club there. He was pleasantly surprised and said that I ought to have a word with Mrs Davis Green who, of course owned all the land, this I did and obviously my father had outlined my plan to her. She was delighted and added that if we did start a club for youngsters, she would not charge us any rent, nor did she for the next 20 years!

We raked, ho-oed and bought a load of top dressing from Goughs, the local builders and this is where Mr Howes comes in to my story. Mr Howes owned a sports shop at Snow Hill and was extremely helpful to us. Firstly, I took the nets to him and he arranged for them to be repaired and re-tarred and when I collected these, he asked how our lead lines were wearing. On hearing that they were rotting and disintegrating he told me that he had two sets of the latest plastic lines and nails, the war at that stage was going very badly for us and he feared that it would be years before he could sell them he said we could have them at cost price, a handsome gesture which I accepted, although it emptied the old Linden Lea Club’s little bank account. Time after time I pestered him hoping that we could buy some tennis balls but without success then one day he was very pleased to tell me that one of his suppliers was accepting all worn out tennis balls and recovering them and reinflating them so that they were once again almost new. They were very successful and we used this hand to mouth existence for several years.

Tennis racquets were a persistent worry and in very short supply. They were, of course, the old wooden framed ones and I was very taken aback one day when we were at Wimbledon and rain caused us to visit their museum. There, in a glass case was a wooden Dunlop Maxply racquet exactly the same one I treasured with the label that such racquets were used by players “in the olden days”. It made me feel even older than I was.

We restored one court, nailed down all the new plastic lines and four of us lads started to play again, when a letter arrived from Miss Rosemary Mortimer. She had heard that we were using one court again and that we may be starting a club for youngsters of our own age – could she and a few of her friends join us, if so what was the subscription. We were delighted – girls joining us, we welcomed them literally with open arms. I fixed a subscription of £1.00: you may smile but that was quite a sum in those days when I was earning £1.43 a week as a junior bank clerk, and we certainly got our money’s worth, we had “double summer time” so in June and July we were playing until 10:30 and 10:45pm in daylight.

New members were joining, brothers, sisters, cousins, in no time we had a membership of thirty and we had funds to spend so the first thing was to contact Linden Lea Tennis Club’s grounds man before the war. “Mr Jordan” his name was, I never knew his Christian name, he was a Boer War veteran and I never saw him without him smoking his beloved “Park Drive” cigarettes. He agreed to come and brush, roll and water our courts one afternoon a week and on Saturday mornings, he served us wonderfully well for many years. I say courts because we had, by this time, restored No 2 court into really good order.

All went well, but we were continually running short of lads who were all called up as soon as we were eighteen. My turn came and I was undecided what to do (up until then I had been running the club myself with the help of my father as Treasurer) but I remembered the old joke about the two Englishmen, complete strangers, who met in the middle of the Sahara desert and the first thing they did was to form a committee. So, I formed a little committee mostly girls and they most ably kept the club going until the war was ended.

When we all returned, Linden Lea Tennis Club was a hive of activity. The first thing we did was to insist that every player wore “whites”, up until then there had been clothing coupons and in any case all coupons were needed for necessities, not sports gear. Then we reserved a week for club championships, we had a men’s champion, a ladies champion and mixed doubles champions. Incidentally, I remember presenting the club with a rather expensive solid silver cup for themen’s competition but I will not embarrass you by asking what happened to it.

By now we had 40 members and very enterprising we were. We had a members’ coach trip to Tretham Gardens, another to Blackpool and at Christmas we all went carol singing, recorders were found in old school satchels and we hopefully gave pleasure as well as raising funds for charities. We certainly all enjoyed it. But that year by far the most important step we took was to enter the South Staffordshire Leagues; we entered one team in the Ladies sector and one in the Mens, we made new friends and incidentally the standard of play rose. Surprisingly it caused us a problem; amongst the teams we played were Quarry Bank and Rubery Owen and Rubery Owen’s two courts were surrounded by factories and chimneys belching black smoke day and night. When their teams visited Linden Lea they were pleasantly surprised, our two courts were surrounded by meadows full of flowers, there were hawthorn and damson hedges, not to mention George Robert’s acres of apple trees which in early Summer were a wonderful sight, one mass of blossom; there was not a house to be seen –now, of course, it is all built upon. Our friends from Rubery Owen loved it all, it was like being on holiday for them and they bought their families who loved playing in the fields. We felt obliged to give them all refreshments but how? For the first year, we used my parents’ kitchen but soon it became too small, so we built a little kitchen onto out pavilion but this was typical of the problem we has, we increased our limit of members to 50 and increased our subscription but even the we had a waiting list of ten members.

There was only one solution; somehow we had to acquire a third court. I went to see Mrs Davis Green and she said we could have a suitable plot adjoining No 2 court, even adding that if there was anything she could do to help, just let her know. I went to see the Local Authority explaining rather vaguely that we had used the proposed site upon which to practice and coach (I dare not admit that we only used it once when a member nearly broke his leg stepping down a rabbit hole). “Then there is no change of use” said the official “is there any problem with parking?” How pleased I was to tell him that there was no problem at all because only one member, Malcolm Sutton, had a car and only one rather dashing member, Eric Fry, who had a splendid blue motor bike.

Then came a disappointment; we contacted the brand leader of tennis court construction in those days, En Tout Cas of Leicester and they quoted us £750.00, a sum which was far beyond our reach, indeed you could buy a nice house for that much. Gough’s has been very helpful to us selling us top dressing which had been in short supply, their figure was £500.00, still beyond our modest financial mark but we began to bargain with them. What if we stripped off the turf and levelled the area on which the new court was to be built, under their supervision of course; Malcolm Sutton said he couldsupply us with “Angle Iron”. We had not a clue what Angle Iron was but at our Committee meeting we all clapped and gave him a well deserved vote of thanks. (We soon discovered that Angle Iron was what was supporting the chain netting around the court). If we looked after all this, Gough’s said they would build a new court for £300.00 and we agreed. Now if the levelling was required today we would hire a mini bulldozer and have the job done in half a day but we only had 3 wheelbarrows and about 20 spades, shovels and willing helpers and we worked every Sunday that winter, hail, rain or shine at the end of which we only needed one item to complete our task, yes, it was the £300.00.

What about Mrs Davis Green, after all she had offered to help us in any way she could, so my father (still Treasurer) briefed her on the context of a visit I arranged and I was rather taken aback when she greeted me with the remark “I’m not going to lend you £300.00” happily she added “I’m going to write to my Bank Manger and ask him to mark an overdraft limit of £300.00 on your account and after 5 years it can be cancelled, the security will be my guarantee”, a generous offer indeed.

By a strange coincidence, I was at the time working at the branch of Barclays at Colmore Row, Birmingham, where her account was domiciled and I had, of course, taken the modest Linden Lea Tennis Club account there with me. One morning the Manger sent for me and explained rather ruefully that he had had a letter from Mrs Davis Green asking him to lend my tennis club £300.00. I feared the worst until he added “of course I have got to do it”. Mrs Davis Green as well as being an extremely rich VIP customer virtually owned Lockerby and Wilkinson Limited which was one of the branch’s best accounts. My spirits fell once again when he added “I’ve got one small anxiety, how on earth will you repay it, you’ve already increased your membership and your subscriptions”. It may have been a small anxiety to him but it was a very nasty nose-dive if things went wrong but I’d foreseen this thorny question and our committee had, after long and numerous meetings, decided that the best way to produce reductions was to run a series ofdances which hopefully would produce handsome profits. The manager admired our enterprise and we got our £300.00 overdraft limit, the aim being complete repayment in five years’ time.

We had never organised dances for youngsters of our age before but we worked hard, hiring Compton Parish Hall and I wrote to the tennis clubs which had junior sections asking for support (the Albert always sent a sizeable party). Those days were long before The Beatles, long before disc jockeys, we had to hire bands”! We alternated with John Carter and his band and William D Hawthorne and his broadcasting orchestra! John and Bill did us proud, not only did they conduct the bands but acted as MC’s keeping us on a very tight rein. The girls rose to the occasion and did all the catering and as for dancing there was a tremendous variety, quicksteps, ladies excuse me, even the “Palaise Glide” and even the “Hockey Cokey”. A man representing the chain of local butchers even contacted us after the first dance and asked if his company could sponsor us as they admired our enterprise. Naturally, we accepted and at their suggestion they sold our tickets to youngsters in their shops, they also gave us some really good spot prizes, even including some of their own specialities on one occasion. I well remember winning a handsome black sausage once! You can laugh but not in five years but in two years from the profit of those dances, we had completely repaid that £300.00 and derived a great deal of pleasure ourselves.

But we were just a little older by now and suddenly members began to get engaged and even married, myself included. I am delighted to see Pete and Joyce Wakeman here today and, of course, your very own, Alan and Jenny.

And there, with everyone, like in all good stories living happily ever afterwards, I must leave you, for as members careers developed we travelled away from Wolverhampton and left the club.

But before I go I must congratulate you on your wonderful achievements here and it does not need my good wishes for you all to enjoy the wonderful future of Linden Lea Tennis Club here in these unique surroundings. I have one further wish of my own, I do hope that you will have as much pleasure, real happiness and make as many lifetime friends as we did in those golden days of all too long ago.