The Lickey Hills Society

Dr Cath Elliott, MBE

One of the stalwarts, and an actively involved member of the Society is Cath Elliott. You will recall that in the last LHS Newsletter we had the pleasure of congratulating Cath on the award of an MBE for her work with the Save the Children Fund. Knowing of her long residence in the Lickey area, we prevailed upon Cath to let us have a potted autobiography.

I was the eldest of four children but sadly only my sister and I remain. In 1925 we moved from Clent to Chadwich Manor, which was the background to an idyllically happy childhood. For 29 years our parents rented this house from Bournville Village Trust for £50 pa and rates were £18 pa! (Mr & Mrs Edward Cadbury kindly had the house wired for electricity to celebrate our parents' Silver Wedding in 1945.) In 1954 my parents bought 93, Monument Lane for £5000 where I have lived ever since!

I was educated at a Froebel kindergarten in Bromsgrove – I could save a halfpenny a day by walking to Lydiate Ash to catch the 144 bus to Bromsgrove. At eleven, I went to Edgbaston High School for Girls –then in Hagley Road– until 1939 when I took an external 1st MB for B'ham Medical School (and the same for London which I couldn't possibly have afforded). It was planned that I should have gone to Birmingham University in 1941, after a year of learning some domestic skills and topping up my culture, but WW 2 intervened and I started nursing. One year became six, and I ended my nursing as senior Staff Nurse on the Gyno Ward at QE Hospital. A few weeks after VJ Day, I started in B'ham
Medical School and I qualified at 29 in 1950, having earned only a pound a week till then – a staff nurse at the QEH got £50 pa –.granted, "all found". I spent two years in B'ham hospitals: the General, Loveday St, Children's; and 9 months at the Babies' Hospital in New York in 1951; and finally landed up with the job I had always wanted, as a GP in Bromsgrove. I count myself very lucky to have been part of such an amicable partnership for 26 years. We were lucky enough to have had that marvellous Cottage Hospital and at that time the NHS kept its distance, trusted the GPs and so the system worked well! The patients reckoned they knew their doctors and vice versa but sadly with increased deputising so much goodwill seems to have been lost.

Since retiring in 1981 at 60, I have tried to ignore computers but am now trying desperately to catch up. I have also become involved with the Bromsgrove branch of the Save the Children which started in 1972. The committee ganged up behind my back and engineered for me to receive an MBE. I shall pick it up at the Palace on 23rd October but only under duress and on their behalf as they do 99% of the hard work of fund raising.

Recent Events
Our thanks to member George Gascoyne, who, in September, led us on another of his interesting walks along the highways and byways of Waseley. A delightful walk was enlivened by George's awesome knowledge of the area.

To our Chairman, Mike Brooke, for arranging our joint visit to the Black Country Living Museum with the Lickey Hills Local History Society. Our number ensured a guide, who brought the place to life and filled in the gaps!

And to the Rev Colin Corke, vicar of St John the Baptist in Longbridge and former work's chaplain of Rover, for his very entertaining and informative talk about Car Making at Longbridge. The enthusiastic audience of some 80+ people had to be almost thrown out of
the Hall at the end to get them to go home, such was their interest and enthusiasm!