Happy Tom Hickman

Recently we published a 1920's photograph of a group of buddies known as 'The Bucket Brigade' (click here) , outside the Five Ways pub on the Himley Road. We were delighted this week to receive the following email from Toni Barker: I am absolutely amazed because you have a photo of what I assume to be my great great great grandfather "Happy" Tom Hickman! That's him on the left, on the Five Ways Bucket Brigade photo. My grandfather (d.1995) always said that his own grandad was known as Happy Tom Hickman, and I know that he was born in Gornal in about 1849, which seems to fit in with the chap in the photo. Also, I can see the family resemblance as he is the absolute spitting image of my father! Toni, aged 27, has been tracing her family tree for eighteen years and her roots include well known local surnames such as Marsh, Rollason, Turner, Hickman, Parkes, Round, Woodall, Edwards, Jewkes, and others. She is currently working on the mammoth task of untangling all of the Black Country Hickmans. It is fortunate that we happened to include the 'Happy' nickname when we listed the Bucket Brigade characters, as 'Tom Hickman' on its own may not have appeared significant. Toni informs us that Happy Tom lived for many years after the Bucket Brigade photo, and died in 1934 aged 84, an amazing age in those days (good advert for the beer at the 'Widows'!), Since Toni contacted us we have confirmed for certain that she has found her great great great grandfather, by identifying another noted Gornal character, Ebenezer Turner, as being Tom's grandson. Happy Tom Hickman married Rachel Witton, and Ebenezer was the son of their daughter Mary. Ebenezer was once a piano tuner - both he and brother Stan were blind - but also worked as a coalman for famous local writer Archie Williams, who penned Eb's story in The Blackcountryman: "Gornal's Blind Coalman and his BEM". We hope to reprint that article soon if we can get permission, Toni has plans to create a Hickmans web site, and she has also unearthed a family tree containing hundreds of Gornal names. It was compiled in 1964 by her great great uncle John Marsh, who emigrated to Michigan in the 1920's. We look forward to seeing these exciting internet projects come to fruition. Toni can be contacted at antonia_barker@hotmail.com