Sidney and Martha Stow were quite remarkable individuals. Both were profoundly deaf but still managed to hold down jobs, raise two children and survive the Blitz!
Sidney was born in 1879 in Aspinden Road and initially took up employment as a junior tea packer before buying a chisel to train as a wheelwright. He was always a very fit man and in his youth he played sports at the Bermondsey Settlement in Farncombe Street. In fact, his woodworking skills came in very handy – the family still have a pair of wooden clubs he made to use in weight training at the settlement!
Martha worked in a laundry but also carried out close work as a seamstress, working her stitches from home. She made intricate and very detailed crochet work which was used in mantle covers – a Victorian invention that covered the mantelpiece. Both of the jobs required little communication skills, which must have been a relief as this was long before the days of tiny, technological hearing aids. They both learned sign language and attended what they called ‘the deaf and dumb church’ in Evelyn Street, Deptford (Deptford Methodist Mission).
“During the war, when the air raid warden pulled the doorbell, it released a bale of straw hanging above the bed to wake
them up.”
The couple had two children, Sidney Jnr and Doris, but there was also another loved and very valuable family member: Dolly, their pet dog. In Sidney’s words, she was their ears! Dolly is pictured outside the family home in Slipper’s Place (around ten years old when the photo was taken). The doorbell behind was a real piece of innovative engineering. How did they know when someone was at the door? There was a pull at the street door attached to string, which threaded into the room. It had on the end of it a ping-pong ball, which sat on a platform. When a visitor pulled it, the string lifted the ball off the platform and it swung across the room. Even if they missed it Dolly would soon be up to tell them! The same principal was applied during the war when the air raid sounded. A straw bale was hung above the bed with string, and when the air raid warden pulled the doorbell it released the bale, which fell on top of them to wake them up. Ingenious!
When Sidney retired from the wheelwrights he supplemented his pension by collecting old newspapers and bottles which he’d sell on for a few coppers. He was a familiar figure in the area and people admired his work ethic and presumed he was too poor to stop working. Despite his disability, Sidney lived to the ripe old age of 86.
In 1965, Knox Brothers of Rotherhithe New Road conducted his funeral, where he was conveyed to Nunhead and reunited with Martha, Doris and dear old Dolly. After the service, the family began the sad and final process of clearing out Sidney’s house. As they lifted the mattress off the old iron bedstead it came as a surprise (and a delight) to find a whole wad of old-style white five pound notes stuffed beneath. They added up to a thousand pounds and Sidney had been saving them for decades – that’s a lot of old newspapers!
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