Harold-Tivey-1887-1967
Harold
Tivey was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England in 1887 to
parents Louisa Teresa Prince and Tom Brown Tivey (Senior). He
spent his childhood years in Birmingham, Walsall, Wolstanton and
Newcastle-Under-Lyme, as his father was commercial salesman for a
printing company. The family settled in Alsager, Cheshire. Harold
qualified as a pupil teacher and by 1911 he was teaching at a school
in Worsborough Dale, Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire and
lodging with Mrs Sarah Allen (formerley Dunwell) at No 6 Clarkson
Street in the village. There he met his future wife May Dunwell who
was also Sarah's daughter, born in Heckmondwike she worked as a
waitress in a cafe. Sometime between 1911 and 1914 Harlod travelled
to Antwerp, Belgium it is thought he was still on the continent when
the first world war broke out. He was arrested and imprisoned
as a civilian in the Ruhleben camp near to Berlin. The site was
originally a racecourse and the inmates were housed in the stable
blocks. According to
http://www.centenarynews.com
each stable contained 27 horse boxes measuring 11 foot square
(roughly 3½ meters) and in this space were 6 field beds, three on
top of each other on two sides of the box. Each bed had a
straw-filled sack as mattress, a pillow and two blankets. It was all
done in such haste that some of the boxes still had horse-dung on
the floor. However, the number of prisoners arriving was so woefully
underestimated, that there was not enough bedding to go round.
Eventually 365 men were crammed into each so-called ‘barrack’ and
the ones who couldn’t secure a bed in one of the horse-boxes, had to
sleep in the hayloft. There was no heating and very little lighting,
Washing facilities in each barrack consisted of two stand-pipes and
15 bowls. Even so, every prisoner was expected to be washed and
dressed and on parade by 6.30 am. A tin bowl was provided for food,
but no cutlery or mugs for drinking. Certain items could be bought
at the canteen, but many of the prisoners had arrived with little or
no money. For several weeks these men were forced to spend all day
in the barracks. Inevitably, owing to overcrowding and an
infestation of rats, hygiene became a huge problem. Military
latrines had to be hastily installed and there were facilities
outside the camp near the railway station, where prisoners could
have a hot bath and delouse their underwear. However, owing to the
vast numbers, these visits could only be very infrequent. There was
a military hospital, also outside the camp, which was made available
to anyone falling ill, but it was extremely basic and badly run. A
field kitchen had been installed under one of the grandstands a
quarter of a mile away and in order to get to it, the prisoners had
to cross the stable yard, usually a quagmire due to lack of
drainage. Their daily exercise consisted of the three trips to
the kitchen, to collect a meal that was wholly inadequate, which
they had to bring back to the barracks to eat. I have still to
discover whther Harold spent the entire war there as one of the
magazines published by the prisoners states that he wrote a play and
the reviewer was sad to hear that he wouldnt be "with them much
longer" he may have been released or transferred to another
camp. On his return after the war, Harold married May Dunwell in
Barnsley 1919, they didnt have any children and later lived in Streatham,
London where he died in 1967.
