Recently in Chester City Category

The only thing 64-year-old Jim Tarbox (right) knows about his real father is that he was called G Moss and was in Chester during the Second World War. He tells Chester Chronicle ALLISON DICKINSON about the quest to find his roots.

JIM Tarbox only discovered the man he called Dad was not his father after his mother died two years ago.
As he started preparing her eulogy he looked through her papers to find out when Tamar Tarbox, née Garrard, was stationed at Saighton camp with the Auxilliary Territorial Services in Chester.

"I found that some of the dates didn't quite match up," he said.

"I also found two birth certificates for me - one in my mother's maiden name with no entry under the father's name dated 1944, and another dated two years later which gave me the surname of Tarbox, the man she married, and the man I had known as Dad.

"I called my uncle and he asked if I knew Les was not my real dad - it turned out that my aunts, uncles and cousins knew and they had kept this a secret from me for 60 years. I just couldn't believe it.

"Working back the months from my birth date, she was definitely in Chester when I was conceived - and I need to know if my father or any of his family are still in the area. Not to gain an extended family, but to fill the large gap that I have in my life. I simply need to know who my father was."

Jim, born John Montgomery-Garrard in Ongar, Essex in June 1944, discovered his mother had become pregnant while serving with the ATS in 1944. He does not know why the name Montgomery appears on his original birth certificate.

Tamar's Army records revealed she was 18 when she joined the ATS in December 1941. She had been stationed at Saighton from January 1942 to February 1942, when she went AWOL.

She was arrested and brought back to Saighton in March 1942, where she remained until being discharged for "family matters" in December 1943. Jim was born in June 1944.

Court records from June 1944 revealed that Jim's father, identified on court papers as G Moss, had to pay maintenance of 7/6 per week until his 16th birthday in 1960 - and according to elderly relatives, he never missed a payment.

There were rumours among some relatives that his father could have been an American GI at the camp, but Tamar's then best friend Marie Marshall, who is still alive, says the man spoke with a "local accent".
Marie has told Jim she knows nothing about his father except that, on the two occasions she met him, he was in civilian clothing.

Tamar joined the ATS after hearing that her fiancée, John Rennocks, was missing in action in Burma and was believed dead.
Jim, a retired police officer from Stanford Le Hope, Essex, thinks that her affair with the man he knows only as G Moss occurred because she was mourning the loss of that relationship.

Bizarrely, John survived and ended up marrying Tamar's sister when he eventually returned to their home town of Ongar and found her married with two young children.

Jim was at the time living with his grandparents and joined the family when he was six years old. He was eventually to become the oldest of 10 children.

Jim has been unable to gather any information about his biological father, and requests for details from the authorities have proved fruitless. He has even been on the television show Trisha to try and trace him, but to no avail.

He is looking for any information about G Moss, whether he was a local man or an American GI, and whether he is still in Chester or has family in the area.

He is appealing to Cestrians who lived or worked near the camp, or who attended one of the dances there, to search their memories for anything that could help me.

Contact Jim on 01375 403890 or you can post information to him, anonymously if you wish, at 5, Brampton Close, Collingham, Stanford Le Hope, Essex SS17 7NS.

THE Countess of Chester Hospital acquired its present title at a "naming ceremony" in 1984.
And although the West Cheshire Hospital site has been a venue for health care since 1829 it hasn't always had such a flattering name.

The site was first known as the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum when it opened in 1829. The original building, which housed 90 patients, was designed by county architect William Cole Jnr.
In 1855, the first of a number of name changes occurred when it became Cheshire Lunatic Asylum and in 1870, it became Chester County Lunatic Asylum.

In 1889, Cheshire County Council became responsible for the asylum and in 1899 the original name, Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum, was restored.

The early years of the 20th century saw significant advances in the treatment of, as well as changing attitudes towards, mental illness.

These were reflected in developments at the site.
A new pathology laboratory was opened and in 1914, an annex was built.

In 1921, the name "asylum" was dropped and the title, County Mental Hospital, was adopted.
In 1948 the National Health Service took over the running of the hospital from Cheshire County Council and it was renamed Upton Mental Hospital.

In the early 1950s it became the Deva Hospital.

Following the amalgamation of Chester and District Hospital Management Committee and Deva Hospital Management Committee in 1965, it was renamed the West Cheshire Hospital.

In 1983, a new general hospital and an accident unit were opened on the West Cheshire Hospital site and following the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales on May 30, 1984, the present name, Countess of Chester Hospital, was acquired.

Since the closure of Chester Royal Infirmary in 1996 and Chester City Hospital in 1994, the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Trust has become the area's main district general hospital that we know today.

STAFF from Chester's former psychiatric hospital have been invited to a reunion.
Stan Murphy, who worked as a mental health nurse for 49 years, has organised the reunion for all former staff at the Deva Hospital.

He took up nursing at the outbreak of the Second World War and began work as an auxiliary in June 1940 at nearby Upton Emergency Hospital, near Chester.
He said: "Part of the annexe of Deva Hospital, Chester was taken over by the military on the outbreak of war. "When we went there it was empty, everything was spotless and all the beds just waiting.
"We had to go through the main building to get to the pathology lab, pharmacy, and canteen, meeting mental patients, which made me a little bit scared because I was not used to them at that time.
"When the badly wounded military patients arrived from Dunkirk in the summer of 1940 it was so different.
"It was like a station, it was just crammed, and most of them went to theatre. We really had a 'baptism of fire' when we saw the gruesome sights, but just had to get on with the work without flinching. There were two theatres, one for operating and the other for plastering limbs.
"I was told to give an enema to one man; they all had to have enemas before theatre in those days.
"I had never undressed anyone never mind give an enema; I was shaking and upset the wretched thing in the bed.
"I was embarrassed, I was only 19 and led a rather sheltered life, but the poor man was too ill to care if a donkey had attended to him.
"When he had gone to theatre, I had to take the mattress off quick and change it with one from a side ward while it dried. After that I was very blasé.
"We were responsible for 56 beds. We nursed military and naval casualties, British, Czech, and Poles.
"Convalescents wore bright blue serge suits, white shirts, and red ties, and plimsolls so as not to damage the wooden floors of the hospital.
"The staffs were severe at times. Military personnel measured the spaces between each bed with a measuring stick.
"Later on when the raids were bad in Southampton, and over London, and Liverpool, we had civilian patients, men, women, and children, some as young as five and six on the wards.
"The most upsetting part for me was when we knew they weren't going to get better. There were two small girls, heart patients, and there was no real treatment. It was heartbreaking to think that they wouldn't improve at all."
The staff reunion is on Friday, April 18 from noon-2pm in Upton Royal British Legion Club. Call 01244 340753 for details.

An infant school is going full circle in time for its 40th anniversary celebrations.
Belgrave Infant School, Five Ashes Road, Westminster Park, will re-start life as a primary school this September, 40 years after it originally opened its doors.

Headteacher Deanne Garratt said: "We have been through life as a primary school, been a first school then an infant school and now we are going back as a primary school again.
"It just happens to be when it's the school's 40th birthday, there's a nice synergy.

"The Year 3 pupils will be the pioneers. We are making a lot of changes to the building to accommodate it and to make sure we have got everything we need. The staff are all very excited."

To celebrate the school opening in 1968 they will be compiling two books, a book of memories donated by former pupils and staff with photographs and a book looking where former pupils are now.
And an exhibition will be held in September to mark the anniversary.

"We are having a celebratory fun day on Friday, September 12, with entertainment and events for the children at the school.
"Then there will be a tea after school for past pupils and staff, so get in contact if you want to come," added Mrs Garratt.

She added: "The next big project, apart from new toilets and a group room, is to have a new playground. We've also got new signage which the children have been involved in designing the new logo.
"It's a great school to work in and most of the teachers have worked here for their whole careers. We have got a bank of staff who have worked here the whole way through."

The school will be having photo in June to commemorate its last year as an infant school.
Any former staff or pupils that would like to contact the school or make contributions can write to Belgrave Infant School, Five Ashes Road, Westminster Park, Chester CH4 7QS, or e-mail to admin @belgraveinf.cheshire.sch.uk.

FOR two decades, writer Ian Skidmore was a familiar figure in Chester. He pounded a beat that took in the law courts, cathedral, and Army barracks, the Boot, Bear and Billet, Swan, the King's Arms kitchen and the bottom bar of the Grosvenor, the police headquarters and the zoo.

He spent part of last summer on a nostalgic visit to his old stamping ground and now he has published a book about it - his 25th publication in 25 years.

Forgive Us Our Press Passes, published this month, is a comic biographical account of his career as a writer and broadcaster in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ian, 79, who used to live at Picton Hall, Mickle Trafford, and now lives in Cambridgeshire, said: "The memories immediately came flooding back to me - the people, the places, the stories.
"A few of the landmarks, most noticeably and regrettably some of the pubs, the Garret Anderson Luncheon and Supper Rooms (the Chester Dining Club), had disappeared.

"Some, despite my best efforts to support them, had actually disappeared while I was there. And some appeared to have been moved. But it was a wonderful visit, and I can't wait for the opportunity to return."
After revisiting his old haunts, Ian revisited his book, revising it and more than doubling its length by adding more anecdotes about the surreal personalities - crooks and policemen, judges, bishops and bookmakers among them - that he encountered during his career covering Chester and the surrounding counties as a freelance journalist.

Forgive Us Our Press Passes was actually first written and published as a slim volume of biography in 1983. It was chosen as the BBC Book of the Year, had the highest listening figures of any book broadcast on Radio Four, and was read twice, in its entirety, on the BBC Overseas Service.
Actor Ian Carmichael described it as "a comic masterpiece" and said he hoped it would be turned into a TV series so that he could play the role of Ian.

One reviewer described the author as "the successor to Tom Sharpe", and another as "a great eccentric".
Ian, married to award-winning children's writer Celia Lucas, has one more book coming out this year - a biography of the Welsh painter Sir Kyffin Williams RA - which will make his total 26 in 25 years.
He has a few more - at least four, he says - that he describes as "works in progress".
After that, says Ian: "I am hanging up my word processor.

"The Royal Literary Fund has been kind enough to award me a pension for my contribution to Welsh culture - two of my books are on the curriculum of the Welsh universities, one for students of history, one for geography - and I will try to exist on that.

"Thereafter my only activity will be to write my blog: www.skidmoresisland.blogspot.com.
"I don't get paid for doing it, but I can write what I like, when I like."
Forgive Us Our Press Passes by Ian Skidmore is published in paperback by Revel Barker Publishing at £9.95