Joseph Smith, 1905– ?
Joe Smith was the husband of renowned singer Phoebe Smith. He sang, and played fiddle, mouth-organ and melodeon.
The 1939 Register gives his date of birth as 4th February 1905. When he married Phoebe in October 1930 his father was shown as Manuel (presumably short for Emmanuel) Smith, Labourer, Deceased. Possibly this was the Manuel Smith who, as a six-year-old, was found by census enumerators residing with his parents and four brothers at Hintons Cottages, Barnes, in Surrey. The older members of the family were all listed as “Travellers (Hawkers)”.
Joe met Phoebe at hop-picking time in 1929.
Joe: Well, round the campfire at night after we finished hop-picking. She come down to see my sister-in-law, you see, to have a word or two with her, I suppose. And I sat there playing the violin. And we started speaking, and…
Phoebe: My husband, he started to talk about the hop picking, and I was rather bashful and shy. And I didn’t know much to say at all. As a matter of fact, I was afraid, really, to speak to him, thinking my father and mother would hear me.
Joe: Well… I thought you were shy and so was I.
Phoebe: I were really smiling at him playing the fiddle, you know, and his brother, you see. Keep looking at me and he keep nodding his head, you see, ‘awards ‘im playing this fiddle, because his brother just couldn’t stand the row. We were grinning at each other, you know, but at the time being I never had any more thought of courting or marrying him than flying. And then he said to me “I’d like to write to you when I go home, would you like to write to me?” I said “Well, you can write and I’ll answer your letters”. And then next year, they come down hop-picking and you said to me, “Would you marry me?” I said, “Well, I’m not old enough really. I’m only seventeen”. So he said there’s lots of girls and boys get married at seventeen and eighteen.
Joe: She was a trouble. I kept writing, you know? And she kept saying she’d see, and all this sort of thing and I got fed up. And every weekend I had off I used to go down there. Never used to go down home because I wouldn’t dare, you see. Her father wouldn’t let her out if I went down home. She say to me “Well, I’ll meet you at the bus stop at Canterbury”, which was the nearest point, you see, where the buses come in, and that’s how we done our courting, and we never did go to the pictures. 1
After a year of this rather frustrating courtship, they ran off together and settled at West Tilbury in Essex. They were married on 27th October 1930, and their first son, Joseph (later to be known as ‘Big Joe’) was born in 1932.
Phoebe recalled
We had our babies in the first year we were married and I was very ill for quite a long time after the baby was born. His name was Joe. I remember when he were borned, the doctor said to me “You’ve got a lovely baby boy”. He goes “8 pound and a quarter”. Of course, I was thrilled to death. He had long black hair, you know, and beautiful red, rosy cheeks, lovely pink complexion. And I said “Can I hold him?” He said “Yes” and ‘course I hold him for a little while and they brought the cot in, put him to bed. But oh, he was a lovely babe. But he never did cry. And the nurses used to call him ‘Peaceful Joe’.
And, all at once, you know, as I stopped there having my breakfast the nurse come running in and she said “I’ve just had your husband on the phone, Mrs. Smith”, she said. “My goodness”, she said., “I thought”, she said, “he were going to come right down the phone when I told him you had a lovely boy”.
To which Joe added
Well, I didn’t know anything about it, you see. I was working and I know she went to hospital because I went with her, practically. And she was ill overnight, you see. Well next morning I rang through, at the time when the babe was born… First time being a father, I didn’t know what to make of it.
In course of time Joe and Phoebe had seven sons: Joe, Henry, Israel (Nick), John, Emmanuel (Manny), Fred and Tom. Joe’s birth was registered in the Croydon district. The births of subsequent children were registered in the Billericay, Orsett, Thurrock or Chelmsford districts of Essex, with the youngest, Thomas being registered at Ipswich, Suffolk in 1953.
By the time of the September 1939 Register Joe had found them a home at 57 St Chad’s Road, Tilbury, Essex. His occupation was given as “Caterpillar Driver – Oil Co”. He was navvying with pick and shovel at the start of the war, but then moved on to operating a D8 Caterpillar for around eighteen months:
And of course working one day and this machine come on there, this new machine. And it’s only about the second one in the country then. The D8 Caterpillar, a big Caterpillar, the D8 Caterpillar with a 12 yard scraper at the back. And we was cutting chalk, you see. And I stood looking at this machine and the foreman says to me, then – well I was interested in it – he said, “Do you think you could make a go of that?” And I said “Yes”. “Well,” he said, “go on, get on with it”.
This may have been a sedentary job, but it was physically demanding, and with a 180 horse power engine constantly revving it was so loud that Joe had to get off and walk away from the machine before he could hear what anyone was saying to him.
I have come ‘ome of a night time with, with my arms aching so I could hardly make a cigarette. Arm work all the time. It’s a sitting down job, but you have a strain on your arms all the time.
He also got diesel rash from working on the machine.
I had diesel rash. And your face all comes out. So I couldn’t shave about six weeks.
His war work for the Air Ministry took him to Scotland at one point.
So I went to Scotland. I thought it was beautiful. I used to walk down Princes Street Garden. I think it was the wonderfullest place I ever been.
The work was even harder, however, as the frosty ground was so hard “we have to rip it up with the rippers before we can pick it up”.
At some point around 1943 Phoebe and Joe moved to Melton near Woodbridge, and this is where they remained for the rest of their lives. An obituary of his son Nick recalled that
It wasn’t a particularly easy childhood, the family were bombed out of 2 houses during the war, which led his father Joe, to come up to Suffolk and buy some land in Melton – now named Smithfields – just opp Fairhead and Sawyer. Following the family tradition, they moved out of the home each spring, to work in the fields and come harvest time, Nick would be fruit picking and hop picking, before returning to Melton for the winter.2
In 1952 Joe was fined £2 for keeping two dogs without a licence. Reporting this, the local newspaper described him as a firewood merchant,3 but his main business was as a scrap-metal dealer. He also continued to do seasonal agricultural work, but his main business was as a scrap-metal dealer. Frank Purslow, writing in 1970, said:
Near a small Suffolk market town is a well-conducted scrap metal business run by Joe Smith and some of his sons. Next to the yard, in a neat garden, stands the Smiths’ bungalow (built mostly by family labour) surrounded by the trailers of the Smith boys and their families.4
Mike Yates, who began to visit the Smiths a little later in the 1970s wrote:
In those days Phoebe and her husband Joe were living in a bungalow at the side of a moderately busy road. There was a small scrap yard at the side of their home, where Joe and his sons worked.5
They had also kept a caravan some eighty miles away at Potton in Bedfordshire, as reported in the Biggleswade Chronicle, 22nd October 1971:
Wants to keep his caravan on Potton site
Pressing his case to be allowed to keep his caravan on land at Myers Road, Potton, a man told a planning inquiry recently he had nowhere else to go, if he had to leave the site.
Mr. Joseph Smith had asked Biggleswade RDC for permission to station his caravan on the land, but the council, acting for the county council, have refused.
Mr. Smith said he lived in the caravan with his wife and two children. For 28 years he lived at Woodbridge, Suffolk, but he frequently came to the Potton area to work in agriculture in the summer. In the winter he dealt in wood, scrap metal, and did casual farm work. He would rather have a base in Bedfordshire than move back to Woodbridge each winter.
“I have tried to buy a house in this area but I have been unsuccessful, as I am unable to get a mortgage. I have no regular income,” he said.
He bought the land in 1970, and at the time there was a caravan on it, occupied by a Mr. Ward.
SCREENED
His caravan cost £1,450, and it has mains water, bathroom, basin and flush toilet, it is not connected to the mains. There was also an outside toilet, and a soakaway dealt with surface water.
A hedge at the front of the site screened it from the road, and there was a railway embankment at the rear. He did not bring to the site any scrap metal and it was not his intention to do so.
Mr. A. W. Dennis, 2 Blackbird Street, Potton, county councillor for Potton, said the nearest approved caravan site was at Henlow. There was one at Stratton Park, Biggleswade, but that had numerous restrictions, and the county council been unsuccessful in attempts to get people on to this site.
The land on which the caravans stand was used as a rubbish dump until Mr. Smith took it, and his use of the land represented an improvement.
He owned the land before Mr. Smith — it was handed down to him in his grandfather’s will. He went to considerable expense to clear the ground and then sold it.
Mr. Peter England, assistant area planning officer, said the county council’s policy for Potton was for rounding off and infilling only within the existing limits. Mr. Smith’s land was outside what was regarded as the present and reasonable future development limits.
Any development outside this limit would have to be in the essential interests of agricultural management, and this had not been shown.
Residential caravans should be located on approved sites, on which suitable facilities were available.
Answering Mr. Timothy Sills, who represented Mr. Smith, Mr. England said this was not a “down” on caravans. The position would have been the same if Mr. Smith had applied to build a house on the site.
Joe is quoted here as saying that he and Phoebe had lived at Woodbridge for 28 years, and from this we can deduce that they had moved there in around 1943.
Peter Kennedy was given Phoebe and Joe’s details by various of her Scamp relations in Kent. He first visited them in 1954:
May 26th Wednesday – May 28th Friday: To Woodbridge Area. To Melton
Called on Smith’s (gypsies) – name given by Scamp’s in Kent — at first told they had moved! Eventually discovered that Joe Smith would be back later but was out scrap-metal dealing.
[…]
Spent evening with Joe Smith and wife (Mrs Smith is sister of Mrs Smith we recorded at Rainham and of Mrs Stanley alias Mrs Bird). Arranged recording evening Sunday. Joe Smith plays reels, hornpipes etc. on the fiddle — our first gipsy fiddler.6
The recording session planned at that time appears not to have taken place, and he was unsuccessful once again in 1955:
JUNE 15th. Left London and collected caravan at Woodbridge. Were not able to record Smiths. (gypsy singer and fiddler) as they were away for a few days 7
Kennedy finally managed to record Phoebe’s singing on Sunday 9th July 1956, although “Joe her husband had unfortunately hurt his hand in the meantime and was unable to play step-dance tunes on fiddle”.8 Joe did contribute to the conversation, however, and can be heard talking on Kennedy’s Folktracks release I am a Romany, (Folktrax FTX100, 1975). Kennedy also recorded Joe singing ‘The Riddle Song’, and playing a hornpipe on the mouth organ for Phoebe to step dance to.
Kennedy returned to make further recordings in 1962. He later wrote
Although Phoebe & Joe were living in a bungalow with hop-plants in the garden, they still had their wagons there, alongside their scrap-metal business, and most of the chat and singing was around the campfire.9
Songs
- Lavender (Roud 854)
- Oxford City (Roud 218)
- The Riddle Song (Roud 330)
- The Squire and the Gypsy (Roud 229)
- This, and subsequent direct quotations are from the cassette I am a Romany, Folktrax FTX100 (1975) ↩︎
- Israel (Nick) Smith, Obituary, The Grundisburgh and District News, Summer 2017, https://www.grundisburghnews.org.uk/Obituaries/IsraelSmith.pdf ↩︎
- Suffolk Chronicle, 23 May 1952 ↩︎
- Frank Purslow, notes to Once I Had a True Love, Topic TSDL193 (1970) ↩︎
- Mike Yates, notes to The Yellow Handkerchief, Veteran VT136CD (2001) ↩︎
- Peter Kennedy, report to Marie Slocombe headed Recording Trip: The Border Country: June-July 1954, https://www.peterkennedyarchive.org/1954-2/northumberland-1954/ ↩︎
- Peter Kennedy, report to Marie Slocombe headed Report: 1955 Scottish trip including Orkney Islands, https://www.peterkennedyarchive.org/1955-2/orkneys-1955/ ↩︎
- Peter Kennedy, Report by Peter Kennedy on collecting trip to East Anglia, July 1956, https://www.peterkennedyarchive.org/1956-2/east-anglia-1956/ ↩︎
- Notes to I am a Romany, Folktracks FTX100 (1975), https://folktrax-archive.org/menus/cassprogs/100smith.htm ↩︎
Leave a Reply