Moreen
Withers-Lancashire
Moreen was born to Reginald Hicks and
Ada on 15 August 1923 at 33 Norton Gardens
in Norbury.
Moreen was rarely called by her birth name. The
spelling of Moreen is unusual but it is the other name which she was originally called by
her baby sister Tina, that stuck with her for the rest of
her life. “Nina” or "Nin" were the names
most family and friends knew her by.
Tina was born at the end of 1929 and at some point between 1930 and 1939 Hick, Ada moved to 16 Elgar Avenue, Pollards Wood, Norbury where they lived for the rest of their lives.
In 1940 Moreen was 17 years old
At the end of the War in 1945 Moreen married Ronald William Cole (Ron) at St Phillips Church Norbury.
Ron had been training as a carpenter prior to the second World War but this was disrupted when he joined the RAF. He got married within a year of being demobbed from the air force but this was a difficult time to be finding work. The country was all but bankrupted by the war and most returning forces men were also looking for work. Ron and Nin's brother Gordon got on well and looked for work together and for a time they worked at the same firm in Purley Way, Croydon. Trying to support a family during this time was difficult. Housing was in very short supply and it took nearly a year before Ron and Nin were allocated council housing on a new estate built near Addington village. During that time they alternated between living with Rons parents in Brook Road Merstham, Surrey and Nins parents at 16 Elgar Avenue, Norbury. The marriage had its difficulties from the start. Society was still very class conscious at this time and Rons parents thought he had married into a posh family and Nin's family thought she had married beneath her class. It turned out in the end that Rons family were much more difficult to Nin than hers were to Ron.
In 1949 their first child Roger Vernon Cole was born at Mayday hospital, Croydon.
In the end it was the difficulties with Rons parents that put so much strain on their marriage that they temporarily split up. Nin and baby Roger living with her mother and father and Ron with his. It was the offer of the maisonette in New Addington that saved the marriage.
Late in 1949 Ronald (Ron) and Moreen (Nin) moved into a ground floor maisonette at 87 King Henrys Drive, New Addington, Surrey.
In 1953 Their second child Stephen Martin Cole was born at home in 87 King Henrys Drive.
Both Roger and Stephen went to Wolsley infants School which was about 300 yds from their home and then into Wolsley Junior School.
The attitude of Rons family towards Nin resulted in that sometime just before Roger finished at Wolsley Junior school in 1960 Ron permanently split from his family. Nin Roger and Stephen never saw them again. The one last time that Ron met his family was at his fathers funeral.
Roger then went to Overbury secondary school but during his second year there (1962) the family moved to 37 Hamden Road, Beckenham Kent, which they had acquired leasehold.
By this time Ron was working as a shop manager in the Marley Tile shop in Kingston upon Thames.
Ron and Nin decided to let Roger complete his schooling to 16 at Overbury but as Stephen was halfway through Wolsley Junior they decided to move him to Balgowan Junior school which backed onto the wall at the end of the new garden.
Stephen finished at Balgowan and obtained a place at Beckenham and Penge Grammar School where he attended until the age of 16 (1969)
Once both boys were at secondary schools Nin decided she could go back to work. She worked in Central London employment agencies.
Later after both boys had left school Nin and Ada met an old friend of Ada's who she knew from the IPF (The Infantile Paralysis Fellowship which eventually became The British Polio Fellowship ). This connection was through Tina who had contracted Poliomyelitis at the age of 16. The friend, known as Miss White, lived with a companion, known as Miss Spite at 85 St James Avenue in Beckenham. Miss Spite owned the house but she died within a year of this meeting and Ron and Nin offered to buy St James Avenue with the condition that Miss White had residency for the rest of her life. A year later Ron and Nin sold the house to Roger and Stephen with the same condition attached for lifelong residency for Miss White. Miss White died within 3 years and Roger and Stephen had unencumbered ownership.
Ron and Nin had been on holidays in Cornwall and they fell in love with that part of the country. They decided to move to Cornwall. They bought off plan a bungalow on a new estate on a hill overlooking Polzeath. This bungalow was to become Thalassa. Ron started looking for jobs and was successful in interview for a warehouse manager at Bambergers builders merchant in Wadebridge. The move to Cornwall meant Nin had to give up her job so she had a lot of spare time. Cornwall was really a passion of Rons but the drawback for Nin was that it made her remote from her family and grandchildren. In the end it was redundancy from Bambergers when the company got into difficulty that prompted a move back to 11 Pollards Wood, Norbury.
Nins Father Reginald Hicks was in deteriorating health and died in 1974. Her mother Ada survived Her husband by 9 years. Ada died in 1983.
Meanwhile back in Cornwall Jewsons had bough out Bambergers and Ron was invited to come down for an interview. Ron got a job back at his old place of work and the hunt for a place to live was on. Nin and Ron found Tregail, a bungalow on the road between Polzeath and Trebetheric.
Unfortunately Rons eyesight was beginning to deteriorate and this first exhibited as night blindness. Ron could no longer drive in the dark so he became dependant on Nin to drive him to and from work in the winter months.
Things were not going so well for Jewsons in Wadebridge and eventually Ron was made redundant again. This time Nin and Ron did not move back to the London area they decided instead to go into the B&B business and had several successful years doing this.
Eventually three factors made them leave Cornwall. Firstly through illness they discovered how far away the main hospital was and how long emergency services took to arrive. Truro was a long way to go in an ambulance and a long way to go for hospital appointments. Secondly the isolation from her grandchildren was becoming a problem for Nin since the drive from London meant there could be no day visits. Thirdly the area was very hilly and with advancing age this became increasingly difficult to cope with.
Nin and Ron decided to move up to Barton on Sea, New Milton in the New Forest area. Nin had nieces and nephews and their children living not far away in Bournemouth and it was near enough to receive day visits from her grandchildren. The move from Cornwall brought them to a house at 4 Carlton Avenue, Barton on Sea. They lived there for about 4 years before deciding a house without stairs would be easier. they moved 2 roads away to a bungalow at 44 Sea Road. It was here in 2001 that Nin was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The symptoms were very misleading to start with as the tumor was in such a position as to mimic a stroke.
Nina died in 2002 and was buried in Hinton Park Woodland Burial Ground.
Ron outlived her for another 14 years and was eventually buried in a grave next to Nina(Moreen) in December 2016.