ALEX SELINA & TONY SELINA
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Alex c.1927 Brother Tony c.1927
E-MAIL HOWARD SELINA

I guess I should start this page by saying that it's a little 'one-sided' and mainly about Alex Selina - rather than both of the brothers...

That's partly because he was to become my father... but also because I don't have that much information about the person my dad always referred to as 'Brother Tony'...

However - what I do know is that 'Brother Tony' did get married, and he had a daughter - Annette, who I believe now lives out near Blackpool...
He then emigrated to Canada - sometime around 1950 I think - and I don't know very much about the rest of his life out there, apart from a few disjointed facts...

I know that he remarried in Canada, and that he had another daughter... and also that he lived in Windsor, Ontario for most of his time there - though Sarnia and Montreal were also places I remember hearing...

About the only other thing I know is that he worked as a Commercial Ventilation Systems designer... - But if any more information does come to light - as a result of this site perhaps - I will revise these pages and include it here...


The two brothers spent their early years at a house in Legal Row, Leeds - which is where the photograph on the right was taken - though I haven't been able to come up with a link to it on the Leodis.net site...

I know that Alex went on to Night School - after finishing his regular education - to take a course in Engineering Drawing... and that he worked at the Blackburn Aircraft Company, just before the war, and as an Aircraft Fitter in the RAF, during the war - in England, Australia, and West Africa...

But most of his time - before he met Helena Batty in 1937 - seems to have been spent on a bicycle...!

Brother Tony & Alex outside the house in Legal Row c.1927

Alex and bicycle in the late 1930's
Alex - on a busy main road in Ilkley - c.1936...

The photograph on the left was taken in Ilkley in 1936, when Alex may have been on his way out to... or back from... Sherwood House Farm just north of Stainforth, near Settle, in what was then the North Riding of Yorkshire...

Alex - and a close friend of the time, Frank Knight - spent a lot of their spare time exploring the Yorkshire Dales by bicycle... and Sherwood House Farm seems to have been a popular destination... perhaps because - and I'm only guessing - the owners had two daughters...

Thirty years later - with an introduction from Dad - I got to spend a week camping at Sherwood House Farm myself, with a school friend of mine at the time, John Porter...

By that time the daughters seem to have moved on... - But there was still a slightly disconcerting 'double-seated' outside toilet... and a large farm cat - that would draw blood from an outstretched hand without a second thought... and steam trains, that huffed and pistoned by... throwing off lumps of coal for our 'camp fire'...

I don't know why or when Dad 'gave up' his bike... but I took up the cycling mantle myself, around 1957...

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One of the great pleasures of growing up in Leeds is that only have to travel a few miles north-west from the city to find yourself by the River Wharfe, and the borders of the Yorkshire Dales National Park...

Even as a twelve year old in 1960, I could peddle out to Otley - alone or with friends - and pick up the A65, which would take me out through Ilkley, and Skipton, towards Settle and the Lake District beyond... and it's difficult to imagine just how quiet the roads must have been for Alex in the late 1930's... - though the picture above gives some impression...

I did at one time know the name of the family at Sherwood House Farm in the 30's and 40's... but I can't find any record of it at the moment... So if any one out there can shed any light on the two women that Alex and Frank knew all those years ago, it would be really nice to hear from you...

Alex sitting on a gate with the two daughters c.1937
Alex at Sherwood House Farm c. 1937

Frank Knight with the two daughters Two images... from old and forgotten negatives...
One of the daughters (I think), and both daughters, with Frank Knight...

OS map of Sherwood House Farm location
The spot Alex used to camp in the late 1930's - and where I stayed, around 1965 - was between the railway line and the river.
The railway line is actually part of the now quite famous Settle to Carlisle route... - and I've only just noticed the name of the wood on the west side of the river...

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Alex at the piano c.1937
Alex at the piano, 50 Oak Tree Crescent, sometime about 1937.

I don't have very much information about Alex and Tony's childhood in Leeds in the 20's and 30's...

I did manage to find a photograph of Scott St., where they were born, but Legal Row - their second address - seems to have disappeared from any records...

Alex must have been working at Blackburn Aircraft near Leeds by 1937 as it was through Maurice Batty - who was also working there - that he first met Helena...

From what little I know, Dad's main interests before the war were cycling and photography, and many of the older photographs have the development and printing details on the back - or, in the case of the one on the right - a slightly dismissive 'D & P by Chemist'!

Frank Knight seems to have been his most regular cycling companion, but I don't have any information about him at the moment... Again - if anyone does know anything, etc...

I don't know what camera Dad had in the 1930's but I do know that he later dreamed of owning a Kodak Retina IIc... and was finally bought one as a Christmas present by my brother Tony in 1968... and that his other photographic joy was a Meridian 5'' x 4'' Plate Camera, with an f 4.7 127mm Kodak Ektar lens...

I remember that particularly well as around 1955 I spent about two hours one evening in bed, dropping a pile of playing cards... so that Dad could try out an 'electronic flash' he'd borrowed from someone at work...

Two horses and plough at  Sherwood House Farm c.1937
A photograph taken by Alex at Sherwood House Farm around 1937.



Alex playing mouth organ c1936
The reverse side reads:
Myself playing a mouth organ. July 26 1936
D & P by Chemist.

Although Alex would never have called himself 'a pianist'... my brother Tony remembers that he often spent time at Grandma's house entertaining himself at the piano in the front room...

'The Soldier Boy' and something about 'Drake' being 'in his hammock, and a thousand miles away...- Captain art thou sleepin' there below...' are about the only bits I remember... though there was also an old accordion and a trumpet at Grandma's - but I've no idea who, if anyone, played them...


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RAF group photograph in Morecambe

Left:
Some of Dad's Squadron outside 44 West End Road, Morecambe on April 3rd, 1940. Alex is far left, front row.


I've included an image of the reverse side of the card below, as it has a couple names that might be familiar to anyone either over the age of fifty...! - or with an interest in British Music History...

Amongst the group were: George Chisholm (Trombone), and Ronnie Aldrich (Piano)...

[If anyone has any information about other people 'on the site'... it would be really nice to hear from you...]

Alex preparing for a flying lesson
Alex, probably getting ready for a flying lesson...

Apart from his time in with the RAF in Morecambe - and probably quite a few other places in England... - Alex also spent time out in West Africa and Australia during the war, working on the maintenance of aircraft...

He had initially applied to be a pilot... but apparently failed the tests because his reaction times weren't quite fast enough...

I sometimes think it's strange to have it illustrated - so specifically - how fractions of a second can change the course of history - both on a family level - and sometimes for the rest of the world...

Postcard back with signatures
Alex in West Africa or Australia
West Africa or Australia, c.1941...
Is the plane a Dakota ?
Alex at St. Athans
At RAF St.Athan's in South Wales, where we think he was treated for TB... (c.1943)...

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Dad seems to have graduated from a bicycle to a motor-bike sometime around 1940... and he was discharge from the RAF in 1947...

I
don't know if he went to work straight away at Hathorn Davey in Leeds, but I don't recall him ever mentioning anywhere else...

Hathorn Davey were an old established engineering company specialising in Water Pumps, and at some time in the 1960's, they were taken over by Sulzer Brothers - a pump and engineering company based in Switzerland...

Alex work as a draughtsman in the drawing office for most of my childhood, and apart from a regular supply of clutch-pencils, paper, rulers, and drawing implements arriving at the house, I also remember occasional visits to the office, where I could climb up onto a high-chair and 'draw', using one of the (to me at the time) enormous parallel-motion drawing boards...

At some point Dad's job title changed to 'Estimating Engineer', and I remember that he worked on projects like the Tan-y-Grisiau, Pumped Water Power Station, in North Wales... which caused the route of the fFestiniog Narrow-gauge Railway to be altered...

Hathorn Davy's offices
Hathorn Davy's Offices in Jack Lane, Leeds c.1937

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Tony in the street
Brother Tony around 1940 I would guess, and probably in England...

Brother Tony...

I'll try to dig up a bit more information on 'Brother Tony' over the coming weeks and months...

The daughter - Annette - that he had with his first wife, lives somewhere near Blackpool I think, and I'm fairly certain I have an address for her somewhere...

After Tony moved to Canada he remarried and he had another daughter... but I don't have the name of his second wife, or the daughter, though they did come to England to visit us at least on one occasion because I remember a day trip to Knaresborough that we all had around 1956...

I only met Brother Tony on a couple of occasions that I recall, but I remember after the war in the early 1950's, he used to send over parcels of food to Alex and Helena - stuff that was still maybe rationed in England... and there were always a few 'Bugs Bunny' or other comics for me and Tony... (I'm sure there was one about a skunk...! - but I can't remember anything else about it...)

He also seems to have moved house in Canada quite a lot, and the address's I've found for him so far are: 607 Sauve Avenue, Montreal; 2296 Meighen Road, Windsor; 2628 Turner Road, Windsor; and 696 Odel Avenue, Sarnia...

I think there are quite a lot of colour photographs of Tony and his travels that I still have to go through... so some more bits of info might emerge with that lot...

Group photo at Knaresborough

Brother Tony by a wooden house
Brother Tony in Canada, probably around 1975...


Left:

Tony's Canadian wife and daughter on a visit to Knaresborough c.1955


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