�OLD JERVIS�
Sometimes during the Summer a weather-beaten, rough-looking fellow would come to the door. His usual request was for some boiling water to make his tea. He had a small milkcan in which he put his tea and sugar. We supplied some hot water and milk. He
never begged for food but was pleased to receive any we might give him. In the summer he did casual work on farms � haymaking, hoeing, harvest work. In the Winter he went into the Union or workhouse at Wombourne. We always knew him as 'Old Jervis'.
�OLD STOCKING�
Whose proper name was Stockton, was a farmworker who worked at several farms, but the remarkable thing about him was that he did any farm job well, managing horses and implements, even though he had only one arm.
Another character was the �tin-whistle man� who came two or three times a year and played his whistle, standing on the wide verge near our group of houses. I remember that some old ladies in the village always wore a black skirt and a black satin blouse with a little lace cap on their hair in the afternoon, having changed out of their working
clothes.
GENERAL ELECTIONS
I remember a General Election campaign in the 1920s. In those days Codsall and Codsall Wood were in the Cannock constituency. On election days my father would spend the day ferrying people backwards and forwards, in the Daimler, to the Polling Station in Codsall Wood.
People tended to vote the way that their parents had voted or to follow the guidance of their local landowner. There was little opportunity for them to learn about the Parties and their policies. There were no local papers sold in the village, no political information on the radio and of course no television.
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