Honouring Our Heroes
Mavis Brack was born in Sunderland in 1920, one of 7 children. She and her future husband, the splendidly named Henry Smiles Griffiths, or Harry as he was known, spent their courtship at Roker Park, in the club’s halcyon days leading up to World War 2, as Raich Carter and Bobby Gurney tore through the top sides. Harry was already a skilled bricklayer and was spared the horrors of war.
Instead he was sent around the north of England, building and rebuilding, with Mavis accompanying him. Their daughter Beryl was born in 1943, and was always a proud Sunderland lass, despite being born in Warrington, where her father was building a factory. After the war, Harry, Mavis and Beryl Griffiths returned to settle back in Sunderland.
Sadly, it was a brief period of happiness, as Harry succumbed to a heart attack at a terribly young age, leaving Mavis to bring up their daughter alone. There were no more trips to Roker Park for the football. Instead, Mavis had to settle for vicariously following the Lads.
She found work at Brown’s Post Office at the bottom of Mere Knolls Road, just a stone’s throw from Roker Park. She loved the throng of match days, and many of you who are old enough to have been regulars at our historic home may have been served by her, if you called in for a bag of sweets before the game or a copy of the Sunderland Echo afterwards. Once the crowds had disappeared into the ground, Mr Brown would turn up the radio and they would follow the game, through a mixture of commentary and from the roar of the crowd that could be heard from the stadium.
As the game edged towards half-time, some of the mounted police would gather on the Post Office forecourt to be served cups of tea. Mavis was a diminutive 5’2” but she was never fazed by the huge horses and happily fussed them while the riders had a break. Then it was into the after-match rush, the pink copies of the Echo arriving with astonishing speed, with all the details of the game.