There's no place like our home, say families

Last week the Express & Star told the story of Great Bridge great-grandmother Emma May Haines who, at the age of 90, has lived in the same council house for a staggering 82 years.

Now fellow Black Country residents Annie Johnson from Dudley and Ronald Coleman from Bloxwich have come forward to tell their own stories.

Mrs Johnson, 85, has lived at her home on Hawthorne Road for 84 years, moving in when she was 18 months old as the youngest of eight children.

Her parents Harry and Rose Robins had previously had to cram their large family into a two-bedroom house closer to the town centre, where Cousins Furniture now stands.

She said: "There are too many memories here for me to let it go to anyone else and I'll be here until they carry me out.

"It is a good street to live in and we've got good neighbours."

When Mrs Johnson's family moved into their home, she said most of the families on the street were large, with eight or nine children in each house, and she was never short of playmates as she grew up.

She added: "There were children in every house and we all played together in the street with skipping ropes and things.

"Everybody came out of their houses and you could play on the road. It was very different to today. It's a shame you can't turn the clock back."

Mrs Johnson remembers Dudley having a market that would stay open until 10pm on the weekends and a different culture where large families shared small homes and children were more often born at home than in hospital.

When she left school at the age of 14, Mrs Johnson worked in a Smethwick factory and then at bed-makers Vono. At the age of 20 she married Sidney Johnson. Because the family house was so small, however, and already housed various other relatives, including her sister, her sister's husband and two children, the newlyweds had to live apart for about 10 months before someone moved out and there was room for Mr Johnson to live with his new wife. Mr Johnson passed away 24 years ago.

Children Patricia Hughes, now 64, Stephen, 61, and Robert, 57, were born there and Mrs Hughes lived there with her husband before moving to a house of their own on nearby Poplar Crescent after their son was born.

Mrs Johnson who has three children, eight grandchildren, nine great grandchildren and four great great grandchildren added: "I've always said it's a home for everybody and whenever one of them is in trouble they come here.

"It's our house, not my house."

Meanwhile, in Bloxwich Mr Coleman has lived in Somerfield Road, Bloxwich, for almost all of his life describing it as a 'house full of memories'.

From huddling in an Anderson shelter in the garden during the Second World War to listening to his neighbours celebrate the Queen's Coronation as he lay in his sick bed suffering from mumps, the house holds more than eight decades of memories.

The 81-year-old, who celebrates his birthday on Wednesday and has even slept in the same room ever since his birth in 1931, said: "Some people like to pack up their things every few years and move from house to house.

"Not me, I don't like the change. And there's just so many memories here for me."

He is also the proud owner of a shed which is older than he is.

"The shed dates back to about 1929 or 1930," said Mr Coleman, who used to work at Walsall-based firm Albert Jagger. "The council provided sheds to people, which they put up free of charge, and then you had to pay six pence a week charge for it until you'd paid it all back.

"I've still got the same shed and it's still in good condition."

The house has undergone three big renovations since being built in 1929, when Mr Coleman's parents Harry and Lilian moved in.

Mr Coleman's only time away from the house – apart from the three days after his birth at Bloxwich Maternity Hospital – was during his National Service when he travelled to Kenya. He returned and lived at the house with Lilian, who passed away in 1985 aged in her 80s and his father Harry, who died in 2000 at the age of 102.

Mr Coleman, who was named after the famous actor, bought the house around 12 years ago and said he has no intention of ever looking for a new home.