Our Dad was mad on Buck Jones the cowboy when he was a kid, so much so that he was given the nickname of Buck. It was what most people would call him for most of his life – although his oldest pals from his childhood days knew him as Alf. So too did Our Mom’s family. That was because when Our Dad was introduced to them Our Mom did so with his Christian names of Alfred William.

Before he was nicknamed Buck, Our Dad was often spoken of as Westcut. As a toddler and a bit older he used to go about wearing one of Our Granddad’s waistcoats. It swamped him but it seems to have been abandoned when Our Dad gained his new nickname.

Our Dad was a proud back-street Brummie from down The Lane, the Ladypool Road. The Brook, as that part of Sparkbrook was also referred to by those who belonged there, played a powerful part in his life – from his beginnings to his recent end.

Born in Loveday Street Maternity Hospital in 1932, Our Dad lived for the first few years of his life in Studley Street. In 1939, the Chinns moved to the next street, Alfred Street, but Our Dad never forgot that he come out of Studley Street. He always belonged to it and its people and was always proud of his relationships with the Stokes, Carey, Preston, Coates and other families of Studley Street. In particular he maintained a lifelong friendship with Rita, Jean and Kathy Carey. I know they were also proud of Our Dad.

Our Dad’s powerful beliefs in family, honour, fair dealing, love of Birmingham and of England, doing good turns and never bad, honesty and doing the right thing were rooted in his childhood growing up in Studley Street, whose people wewe bonded by extended family networks.

Our Granddad, Alf Chinn, was a key figure in the street as the illegal street bookie. He’d grown up locally, as had his own Mom and Dad, and had worked as a wire drawer before joining the 2nd Battalion the Coldstream Guards in 1912. An Old Contemptible, one of the men who belonged to the British Expeditionary Force sent to France at the outbreak of the Great War, Our Granddad was wounded badly in 1915. He was invalided out of the Army and in 1922 he started up full time as a bookie.

As well as his main pitch in Studley Street, Granddad had Harry Hawkes taking for him on the street in Ombersley Road. Another friend, Teddy Gustrey, was his runner at the Tyseley Locomotive Cleaning Shed, whilst my Great Granny Chinn took a few bets at her second-hand clothes shop at 54, Alfred Street. Then in the late 1920s Our Granddad rented the front room of a house in Studley Street. It was by Greenaway’s, the Midnight Baker, and close to the yard where lived the Rounds and Beedons, who were our cousins.

Our Granddad was married twice. His first wife, Ada Weldon, was a bit older than him and had been divorced – something rare in those days. She’d got a divorce as a Poor Person under the rules of the Supreme Court because of the brutality of her first husband, Bummy Derrick, with whom she had a daughter, Maisy. Granddad had a daughter, Violet, with Ada. Sadly Ada died soon after and Granddad went on to marry his step daughter, Maisy. That meant that Dad’s half sister, Vi, was also his aunt.

Granddad and Maisy had eight children: Ronnie, Betty, Bernard, Wal, Our Dad, Mavis, Stella and Donald, who died young. Our Dad idolised his older brother, Ronnie, who died tragically young in 1958, and growing up he was always close to Wally and Bernard as well as his beloved sister, Mavis.

Unfortunately the marriage didn’t work out and Maisy left for another man just as the bombing began. Our Dad rarely saw his mother after that. It must have been a very hard time for him. Our Dad was about eight and as the youngest of four lads he was his mom’s favourite. He recalled that as a toddler he had long black curls and his Mom had cried when Our Granddad said he looked too much like a girl and had to have them cut off.

When he was at school and people asked Our Dad about his mother he would never say that she had died because that would have been telling a lie. He always said he didn’t have a mother, as then people would not ask any more questions. Just before Maisy did die, Our Dad did forgive her for leaving them, but throughout his life Our Dad’s loyalty was always with Our Granddad.

In Our Dad’s eyes there was no-one like Alf Chinn for high principles, integrity and generosity. Our Dad always said if he could come up to Our Granddad’s shoe laces he would have been proud. Well Our Dad, you did more than that. You were your father’s son in every sense of the word and Our Granddad would have been so proud of you.

Our Dad always praised his big sister, Vi, for helping Our Granddad to raise them and also his Aunt Vi Stokes. She was the aunt of his mother, Maisy, and younger sister to his granny, Ada. Aunt Vi’s oldest daughter, Betsy, helped out as well and Our Dad grew up close to his Stokes cousins, but especially to Jerry.

Both Our Dad and Jerry were short and wiry but both were very tough and would often tussle with each other or other lads. Our Dad recalled one time when Studley Street fought with Queen Street. He said the big kids were at the front fighting with clothes lines and miskin lids and that duckers were thrown over the little ones at the back. But overwhelmingly the fights were one to one, with fists only. There was no thought of kicking or biting or head butting.

Our Dad was always a physical man. As a kid he wrestled with his older brothers; although short he was excellent at the high jump; and he was a keen cyclist. He then went on to be a good boxer at the Morris Commercial. That’s why he loved his time in the Army as a Physical Training Instructor with the Royal Pioneer Corps. But Our Dad was also a romantic. He loved classical music, because of the influence of one of his teachers, and he loved dancing to the big bands.

Just before the Second World War, Our Dad and his brothers and sisters were evacuated with others from Clifton Road School to Coalville. He was put up with a mining family and remembered that he was amazed when the miner came home from work and had a wash in the tin bath in front of the fire before everyone.As with so many other youngsters, Our Dad came home just in time for the Blitz. He had vivid memories of hunting for shrapnel on the bomb pecks and of playing in the bombed buildings. He had as vivid memories of many frightening occasions, like when a high explosive bomb hit Great-Granny Chinn's at 54, Alfred Street. Billy the Fire Watcher from Gorton's Woodyard came chasing down to Our Granddad's at number 19, popped his head round the door and shouted: 'Alf! Alf! Brockton's house has been hit'.

With great-uncle Wal they ran down the road and found that the back of the building had been blown away. Digging furiously through the rubble they found Great-Granny Chinn alive, hidden beneath a sheet of corrugated iron which Our Granddad had put under her stairs to protect her.

Then there were the times that land mines obliterated Alfred Road, when the Lansdowne Laundry in Studley Street was turned into an inferno; when Ten House Row in Queen Street was destroyed; and when Joey Jones of the famed greengrocers down The Lane showed true bravery. On leave from the Royal Navy, Joey saw an incendiary device land upstairs in Mr Frost's house, next door to Our Granddad’s. Straight away Joey shot inside, picked up the boiling-hot bomb and threw it through the window. So badly was he burned that he needed skin grafts.

And there was the tragedy on the Stratford Road, not far from the Piccadilly picture house, when an explosive fell but didn't detonate. Sandbags and barriers were put around the scene, to keep people back whilst the bomb disposal men went to work. The sergeant had just given his officer some tools and was walking away when the UXB blew up, hurtling him back about twenty yards and killing the valiant officer. Later in life Our Dad strove to get a memorial for that gallant officer but he was thwarted by officialdom.

Another time Our Dad and his brothers and sisters were sleeping in the cellar. A water pipe must have been broken in the bombing and water poured in. Our Dad’s oldest brother, Uncle Ron, woke up with a start in the dark and started to shout when he realise what was happening. That set them all off. Fortunately Our Granddad soon came down and sorted things out.

Our Dad and Our Mom were always angry that Birmingham and Brummies did not gain recognition for the pounding they took in the war. They inspired me to write Brum Undaunted. In fact their lives and beliefs have inspired me to write all my books about the people to whom I proudly belong – the people of Birmingham.

Soon after the war, Our Dad left Dennis Road Senior Boys as he was always proud to declare, and where teachers like Tubby Harris had influenced him. It was just before his fourteenth birthday in April 1946. His older brothers, Ronnie, Bernard and Wally, didn’t want to go into the bookmaking at that time but Our Dad had always been involved and started work for Our Granddad.

One of his earliest memories, before the war, was of being given a bet by one of his teachers at Clifton Road School to put on with Our Granddad for a big race. Our Dad was shocked and embarrassed. Then as a youngster he would run to Titch, a local newspaper vendor on the Stratford Road by Walford Road, to fetch the 3.30 edition of the Birmingham Evening Mail or the Evening Despatch. These would have the early racing results and they would enable Our Granddad to start settling the day’s bets.

After that Our Dad would go to town, to the offices of the Mail in Cannon Street, to buy several copies of the later editions of that paper. He would deliver these to my Granddad and to the five nearest bookies to him in Sparkbrook; at the end of the week, each would give him between 6d and 1s for his trouble.Our Granddad opened up at about 9.00 each morning to settle up the bets taken the night before on the dog racing. Our Dad would enter the winning bets in ledger books and place them in pigeon holes in alphabetical order according to the first letter of a punter’s nom-de-plume. So Sapper came under S, Jack the Fish under J, and Rose 60 under R. These betting names were essential for hiding the identity of punters from the police if the bookie was pinched and his bets were confiscated.
At 10 o’clock Our Granddad opened up to pay out, which paradoxically was legal, and then closed up from 12.30 till 2 when workers knocked off for their dinner hour. This was the busiest time of the day when street bookies took most of their money. By now the business was moving off the street. Our Dad explained that:

We were still taking them in the street but what we did, they was putting them through the letter box and virtually this is what started to happen at the back end of the war. You had your shop (front room) and what they started to do instead of putting the man on the door you let them put them through the letter box. From when I was a kid it was one of my jobs to sit behind the door and take the bets, so what we used to do was have a chain on the door, this is now going about 1945, just after the war, and the situation was then that Dad used to always stand across the road. If he then got his handkerchief out and blew his nose I’d then gorra close the door as the policeman was about.

Many bookies, Our Granddad included, paid the police to alert them to raids. Not all of the police took such money and the amount paid to those who did varied - but in Birmingham it generally worked out at five shillings a week for the police constable and £2 a month for the plain clothes man, who was responsible for policing illegal betting. This modus viviendi went on till the legalisation of betting shops and cash betting away from racecourses in 1961.

However Our Dad was raided as late as 1958, just three years before betting shops became lawful. He was always angry at when it happened, a couple of days after Uncle Ron had died. He felt strongly that the inspectors showed no respect for Our Granddad’s grief. 

We then started doing our business, this was about 2, 2.30, Uncle Bill had then come into the office and next bloody thing we knew, we could see what was happening because one or two other bookmakers had been raided, there was two inspectors, an Inspector P. and Inspector F., a sergeant and four constables and all of a sudden they was all on the premises. Next thing Dad was across the road, they claimed they didn’t know Ron (Our Dad’s oldest brother) had died. I sez, ‘Well, my God, you people take the cake!’ I sez, ‘Me brother’s just died and you raiding us!’ The sergeant he was terribly upset, but Inspector P, he in my opinion was a b . . ., and to this day I think he was, in my opinion he and Inspector F. both knew Ron had died because it was common knowledge throughout the whole of the Brook (Sparkbrook) but it made no difference to him especially Inspector P., and I believe he finished up as a superintendent with his ‘moral standards’. Because no other person, because the integrity of people in them days, would not have raided us that day, they’d have left it till the following week. Well, Dad come on the step with everything that was happening. He was in a terrible state.

Our Dad and my Uncle Wal, who was also in the business by then, were fined £75 each for contravening the Betting Houses Act of 1853, while because of his age the police did not charge my Great-uncle Bill. Our Dad remained a bookie in The Brook until selling up in 1984. He served for many years as an outstanding chairman of the Racecourse and Starting Price Bookmakers Association in Birmingham and also on the national committee. By this time Our Dad was also active in the affairs of Aston Villa. Our Granddad had used to walk to Villa Park from Sparkbrook and stand on the hill by Aston Hall to see the match in the gap between the Holte End and the Trinity Road. Later on Our Granddad saw the Villa play in the FA Cup Final in 1913 at the Crystal Palace when we beat Sunderland 1-0 and again in 1920 at Stamford Bridge when we beat Huddersfield 1-0.
Our Dad started going down the Villa in the 1940s shortly after the war. He wasn't able to watch them as much as he wanted to because of working in the betting but he started going down again regularly in the late 1960s when me and Our Kid, Darryl, were young. Mom, Sylv, is a big Villa fan from Whitehouse Street, Aston and the four of us would go with our Mom's Mom, Lil and a crowd of family and friends.
When Ron Saunders resigned in 1982 there was real uproar because in the previous season he had led us to the First Division title - the first for decades - and we felt he had been pushed out by the board. Our Dad called a meeting of protestors at the Royal Oak Sparkbrook and he became chairman of the Aston Villa Democracy Group which arose from that meeting. The aim was to get a fan elected democratically on to the board and for the fans to have more say in the running of the club, as well as for the club to think more about the fans. This was a pioneering group.

Our Dad was always a great organiser, from family day trips to wedding and that flair held him good stead when he became chairman of the Aston Villa Shareholders Association. He led it with passion and pride for over 20 years until a year or so before it was wound up after Randy Lerner became the owner of the club.
Our Dad always stood up for the grass roots fans both in the press and at AGMs and on one occasion he was voted on to the board by a big majority of the large crowd at the AGM. However Doug Ellis overturned the vote by demanding a count of the actual shares. The small shareholders had voted for Our Dad but had few shares, the large shareholders stuck by Doug Ellis.

Each season Our Dad arranged a sports forum when the manager would come and meet the shareholders and their families and he arranged trips to away matches but most of all Our Dad campaigned for fans on the terraces and in the stands. He called for the cost of season tickets to spread over a season and wanted them to be interest free; he fought for concessions for students, the unemployed, and others; he continually spoke out for the need for lifts in the ground for the disabled, the infirm and the elderly; he strove to get the club to do more for fans in areas like Kingstanding and Wyrley Birch, and he wanted them to reach out to the fans who came from further away; and he battled to get the away fans from behind the goal at the Witton. Dad always spoke up for the ordinary fans. He was a true Villa fan.

Work and the Villa were two of three pillars of Our Dad’s life. The other and greatest pillar was made up of his powerful and inextricable love for his family, his city and his country. Our Mom was seventeen when they met at the Swan, Yardley. Our Dad was just 21. Our Mom was a factory worker and says that Our Dad was her officer and a gentleman when he’d turn up after work to meet her when she clocked off at Newton’s in Chester Street, Aston.

They swept each other off their feet and after a magical courtship they married at the Reverend Bodfish’s Emmanuel Church in Alum Rock - because he was the only minister who would marry them on a Sunday. Saturday was out because it was the busiest day of the week for the horse racing.     Our Mom and Our Dad had as magical a honeymoon for a few days in London – and they had a wonderful married life for 55 years.

As kids Our Dad would lead convoys of cousins to the Fleur de Lys in Lowsonford or to the Greswolde Lido in Knowle. He would organise 20 a side matches of football over Sarehole Mill and he would turn up with our Mom to each swimming gala and every rugby match me and Our Darryl played in. No sons could have wished for a better more giving father than Our Dad. He was marvellous a son, a brother, a grandfather, a great grandfather, an uncle and a friend. He gave and never took.

At Our Dad’s funeral, the famed jazz musician, Andy Hamilton, paid tribute to Our Dad and his sisters Vi and Mavis for helping out the early Black immigrants to Birmingham and for being there at the roots of the Black Brummies. Vi was married to our uncle Johnny Brown from Kingston in Jamaica. She had a lodging house in Trafalgar Road and Our Dad would help out selling beer and curried goat at the shebeens they held.

Once in the 1950s they were all going to a do at working men’s club. They wouldn’t let Uncle Johnny in because he was Black. Our Dad made it plain to the chairman that no way was there a colour bar in our family and that if Uncle Johnny was not let in then all the Chinns would walk out. They let Uncle Johnny in.

Our Dad was a man for whom respect and responsibility were two bye-words. Our Dad was strong of body, keen of intellect, sharp of mind, boundless of spirit, passionate of heart, and deep of soul. Our Dad was Buck Chinn of Studley Street, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, England. Our Dad was English born, English bred and English till he died. And when he died we laid Our Dad to rest in England’s green and pleasant land.

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