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.
In 1994, Beryl and her husband emigrated to South Carolina, taking Mavis with them. But, through the magic of cable TV, she was still able to follow her beloved Sunderland. She was absolutely delighted when, a few years later, her two York-born great-grandsons received their first season tickets, and started following ‘her’ team.
Everyone who knew Mavis was convinced that she would easily live long enough to receive a telegram from the Queen, but, sadly, she passed away in 2015 at the age of 95.
I know a lot about Mavis because she was my Gran. In fact, she was ‘Gran’ to everyone in the family, of every generation. More than that, she became ‘Gran’ to a whole bunch of my family’s new friends in the city of Anderson, South Carolina.
The last time I saw her was in the spring of 2015 – she was less sprightly and I wheeled her around the streets of Greenville and the parks of Anderson. By that time, Mum was deep in the throes of dementia and struggling even to recognise her own family members. But when the two of them began reminiscing about Mum’s childhood, the memories of the beaches at Seaburn and Roker, the Cat and Dog steps and the Cannonball Rocks came flooding back.
Gran was a daughter of Sunderland and never lost her devotion to her beloved team. So it is fitting that when the club constructs Legends Way, she will have her own stone, somewhere between Bob Stokoe and the homegrown goalkeeper she always had a soft spot for. We debated whether to just have ‘Gran’ inscribed on the stone but we hope that there will still be some supporters who remember her behind the Post Office counter on a match day, as they headed to the game.
Legends Way is yet another example of how the hierarchy that Kyril Louis Dreyfus has carefully constructed demonstrates that they understand the importance of the connection between the institution that they lead, and the generations of Sunderland supporters that have made this such a special club. We all have our footballing Sunderland legends, who will rightfully be commemorated on the approach to the Stadium of Light. But Mavis Griffiths, ‘Gran’, will always be a legend in our family, and fully deserves her place too.
