Biography of Cathie Wilson (nee Ross)

CATHERINE ISABEL ROSS

Cathie Ross was born at 21 Penzance Street, West Hartlepool, the third child and only daughter of Walter Malcolm Ross and his wife Isabella (nee Almond) on the 29^th of December, 1929.  Owing to her father’s tuberculosis, contracted whilst serving with the army in India, the family knew considerable hardship and Cathie grew up to be a charity scheme away from being a bare-foot kid.  Parcels were received from Cathie’s aunts in Canada, usually containing clothes, and these were very welcome. 

Cath first attended Avenue Road School (headmistress Miss Colewray?) and remembers how, as a pre-school infant, she would sit in the back-street on a small wooden chair made by her father, there to watch the older children coming out of school.  On her first day the children were given a small strip of leather with holes punched into it and with this they learnt how to tie shoelaces.

Cathie has written that he house in Penzance Street consisted of “a living room and kitchen and a back yard (in which was kept a zinc bath), containing a toilet and coal house.  My father slept in one bedroom (because of his illness), my mother and I, plus my two brothers slept in one bed in the other bedroom, mother and I at one end of the bed, and my two brothers at the other end.

“A lot of people in those days believed that TB ran in the family (my mother did not), but this was because they did not know how infectious it was and my mother realised this and was very particular – keeping all his things separate, including his clothing, his washing and his crockery etc.  As my brothers and I got older we were allocated a three bedroom council house, with living room, kitchen (containing coal house and pantry), separate toilet next to the back door and a bathroom, with front and back gardens.  I was then 7 years of age. . . .”  This was 31 Wordsworth Avenue.

Cath’s next school was St. Aidan’s, where the headmistress was Miss Mary Baty, who dressed in “widow’s weeds” (black) having been engaged to marry Mr. Theo Jones, a fellow teacher but also the first British soldier to have been killed on home soil during the Great War, a victim of the Bombardment of the Hartlepools in December 1914.

Upon leaving St. Aidan’s, Cathie attended Elwick Road School, passing “half-way” for her scholarship.  In consequence she went to the Commercial Day School, situated on the top floor of the old Technical College in Lauder Street.  There she gained RSA qualifications in English, Typewriting and Shorthand and Pitman’s theory and speed certificates, also in shorthand.  Cathie had great praise for this progressive school and admitted that she “didn’t want to leave!”  A great reader in her youth, her favourite author was Henry Rider Haggard and Cathie particularly enjoyed his “She” trilogy.

On leaving school she worked (briefly) as a shorthand typist at an  accountancy practice in Church Street, at the Regent Travel and Traffic Bureau in York Road and for the Hartlepools Co-operative Society Ltd, Education Department, in Victoria Road.  In 1948 she joined the Womens’ Royal Army Corps.  After basic training with No. 3 Platoon, 3 Company, Auxiliary Territorial Service Training Centre, Cathie was posted to the 26^th Independent Company stationed in barracks at Bushey Heath, Herefordshire.

Cathie served as a clerk-typist with No. 3 Platoon, later working as a stenographer on the compilation of a signals manual in co-operation with RAF Stanmore (Fighter Command).  She was also based at Gresford in North Wales and served as a courier, transporting “Top secret” documents to Edinburgh Castle.  Cath travelled by train in company with armed Military Policemen.  Private C. I. Ross (Service No. W/353665) left the army on termination of her enlistment after serving a year and 348 days with “the Colours.”  She was recommended for promotion but, like her father, didn’t want to accept it, and also turned down a posting to Egypt on account of her mother’s failing health.

Following her military service Cathie worked as a clerk-typist at the Brierton Hospital and Chest Clinic (the “isolation hospital”) in Brierton Lane from 12^th February 1951 to 28^th October 1952.  Following this she took a position as a civilian clerk-typist with Durham County Constabulary, working for the Criminal Investigation Department based at the West Hartlepool Police Station.  During Cathie’s tenure CID was headed by Detective Inspector Jack Waiton.  He was assisted by Detective Sergeant Fred Bennett.  Mr. Harold Coyne was Chief Inspector and the Superintendent was Mr. Reg Hammond.

 It was while working at the Police Station that Cath made a lifelong friend, Mrs Minnie Boyle (nee Baines), a descendant of the founder of J. J. Hardy’s brass foundry where Cath’s husband had his first job as a 14-year old boy.  Minnie, of Linden Grove, worked on the switchboard and was an ex-WREN.  She later became a social worker, married (an ICI chemist and former Lieutenant in the Royal Navy) and moved to Millom in Cumbria. 

Cathie Ross met Jim Wilson (1927-94), a marine engineer, at the local Queen’s Rink dancehall. Their eyes met across a crowded dance floor, Jim cut in and that was that.  The couple married at All Saints Church, Stranton, on the 28^th of August, 1954.  The bride was given away by her eldest brother, Walter, her dress was made for her by her mother and the marriage was witnessed by Jim’s brother-in-law, Bill Fawley, and Cathie’s cousin, Lil Jervis (daughter of Bill and Lil).  Jim and Cathie had one son, Stuart James Wilson (born 17^th November, 1964).  Jim Wilson had a distinguished career in engineering, both at sea and ashore, and his biography is given separately.

The couple lived first, for a short time, with Cathie’s mother at 31 Wordsworth Avenue, before moving to their own home at 125 Raby Road.  In the early Sixties they moved to & Bournemouth Drive, Hart station, moving again in 1967 to the Fens Estate.  All of their homes were privately owned and the latter two were newly built.  Both Jim and Cath were talented amateur artists, taking up the hobby in earnest from the early 1970s.  They both became members of the local art club with paintings shown in the local open art exhibitions.  Cath attended leisure classes at the Hartlepool College of Art.

Source: (1) “The Ross family and Others” by Stuart James Wilson; (2) “The Wilsons of Whitby and West Hartlepool,” Vol. 6 by Stuart James Wilson.

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