大象传媒

20 May 2005

In 1931, my father Gilbert Taylor who was born in 1900 and my mother Violet House who was born in 1905 married after a seven year courtship, and purchased for the grand sum of 拢300, 25 Clarendon Road, Weston super Mare. They bought it from Mr. Frampton, Ashcombe Road, the then owner of the Weston Mercury (or it may have been the Weston Gazette). My mother at that time had been a maid with them. I recall that that Mr. Framptons鈥檚 house had a yellow metal plaque displaying in black relief a map of England and Scotland on the gate pillar and I thought for a long time that the image was of a witch dressed in black, and wearing a bonnet. I think it was a tourist sign or something similar. My parents brought up their family of five children and lived there until they died of old age. Nothing was surprising in that, for in the days of my youth, prior to and during the second world war, communities stayed put, and everyone in the street knew everyone else with an intimacy rarely experienced by today鈥檚 youth.

My own children are grown up now and have their own families, but when they were young, I took them back to Clarendon Road and told them the histories of some of the occupants of the various houses in the street as I remembered them during the 1939-1945 war. I intended for many years to write down what I told them and this I have finally done.

Starting at the top, at number 7, in an adjacent warehouse was a small ice cream factory and after the factory closed down it was occupied by Mr Cornish who ran a small taxi business.

Mr Usher lived at number 15. He was a chimney sweep in the summer, and I see in my mind so clearly, his black and white sign, in his front garden, A.E Usher Clean Sweep, sticking proudly from the front wall. In the winter he chopped sticks in a shed at the rear of number 18, wiring them in bundles and dipping them in naphthalene and shavings before selling them as firelighters to the corner shop. A true entrepreneur, his acumen paid off, as he went on to found Usher鈥檚 Ready-mixed Concrete Company.

Relative newcomers at that time, Bill Howlett and his wife came to live at number 17, after he left the airforce. I remember him as a dapper man with a small moustache, always very smart.

Mrs Watts lived next door with her son and daughters, but I don鈥檛 remember much about them.

At number 21 was Mr. Ward who owned the corner shop, long since converted into a dwelling house. My memory of him is very dim but I can still see the inside of the shop with biscuits displayed in their open tins around the counter and sacks of sugar with the scoop lying within. Why do I see that scoop so clearly? Later, the shop was taken over by Mr. and Mrs Lewis who lived at the back of the shop with their son Edgar. My memory of them is seeing them at the same time each Sunday, in their Sunday best, walking along Milton Road, soberly dressed, arms linked, on their way to Church. A lovely couple! The shop closed each day ay at six o鈥檆lock, but most evenings my mother would remember something she had forgotten to buy whilst the shop was open and I would be sent across to the shop to knock at the back door and where I would duly be served without a grumble.

On one side of our house, on the corner were the Goviers, and on the other side at number 27 were the Nippers. Mr Nipper was a photographer who always amazed me with his breadth of knowledge. He was an inventor and had invented glass records. He had also installed electricity on the old light railway that used to run between Bristol and the terminal at the junction of Ashcombe Road and Milton Road, the site of a flower shop now. He was so proud of the fact that he was the first person in Weston to have a radio aerial in his garden, enabling him to receive the B.B.C in its infancy. I can just remember his father who also lived there and died at the age of 94. Did I really know someone who was born in 1842?

Fred Dimmock lived at number 29 with his aged mother. Prompt at seven o鈥檆lock each night he would walk around to the Ashcombe pub where he would sit in the Bottle and Jug, quaffing his drink. He was a shoe repairer and sat all day and every day in a wooden shed in his garden,about six foot square repairing shoes. He had hands like leather and every few minutes he would throw a handful of nails into his mouth from where he would retrieve them one at a time and unerringly hammer them around the new sole.

I believe that Mr Stevens at number 31 was either a builder or a plumber and he and his wife lived next door to two spinsters, the Miss鈥檚 Shaddick.

The big house at the corner of Clarendon Road and Ashcombe Road has long been converted into flats but during the war it served as billets to American troops. The large double gates at the side, usually open, allowed us kids to clamber over the jeeps parked there, each painted with mottos or girls鈥� names, and to pester the troops with the request, 鈥淕ot any gum chum?鈥�

Number 30 housed a Jewish family, the Morris鈥� who had daughters Marilyn and Francis. I knew that they were Jews because they were our friends and they sometimes shared our table shelter during the blitz. Mr Morris used to promote boxing matches at the Winter Gardens before the family emigrated to America at the end of the war.

Mr. Preece and his housekeeper Miss Smith lived at number 28, and, being kids, we always giggled when we heard her being referred to as his housekeeper. People were prudish about such things in those days.

Miss Cox, a retired headmistress and a lovely lady, lived with her sisters at number 24.

I can only just remember Mr Clarke at number 22, but I recall that he was he was an insurance salesman.

Mr. Board, a builder and decorator lived at number 20. He was in charge of the firewatchers in the street. The German planes used to drop incendiary bombes at night and each street had to form their own teams to deal with resultant fires. All the men in the street had to take their turn working a night shift as fire-watchers and have regular training. A small fire would be started by Mr Board in the middle of the road and the men would take it in turns, lying on their stomachs, dircting the hose at the flames, whilst a second man operated a stirrup pump in a bucket of water. It sounds hilarious now but incendiary bombs fell frequently around the town, and one actually fell through our own roof but failed to ignite.
The boys in the street would be used to run messages between houses and I remember feeling very important and brave as I ran to deliver a message, determined not to be caught by any German spy who may be in the road. At the end of the session Mr Board would gather the boys together, and manipulate a trick box which swallowed up small coloured discs, miraculously disgorging them as hexagonal three-penny pieces to be shared between us.
Although Weston was bombed sporadically we were lucky in that we only experienced occasional blitzes. On those occasions as we sat in our table shelters in pitch darkness, we could actually hear the whistle of the bombs falling and hear the bangs and feel the vibrations as the bombs exploded. We in Clarendon Road were lucky as none of the houses received a hit.

Mr. Price lived at number 18. His only son Gilbert, died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp early in the war. It is only now when I look back on those times that I understand the grief that Mr. and Mrs Price must have felt at that time.

Mr. Tyler lived at number 12. A large sign outside proclaimed Clarendon Press. He was a printer and I remember how he would set up the print and read the letters and words backwards, as fast as others could read them forwards. He also charged up radio accumulators for the residents and a regular stream of persons could be seen visiting his workshops carrying the glass containers filled with sulphuric acid that were essential for the radios of the day.

Finally at number 8, lived Mr. Stuckey the baker, and his wife. His sons Bob and John were in the forces and I think that it was John who died whilst a prisoner of the Japanese. Number 8 was used as one of the bases for the firewatchers. Mr Stuckey was always up by half past four in the morning to light his coke ovens to bake the bread for the day. I can still see those ovens together with the long wooden spades with which he transported the tins of dough far into the ovens, and the single mitt and the bare hand with which he placed the hot tins on the benches when the bread was cooked. How hard he worked, no doubt praying for the day when his sons would come home

During the school holidays I delivered the bread for him in a large handcart. Four-pence, (old pence) for a small loaf, and seven-pence for a large. During the round I would always call in with a hot loaf to my mother, who would cut me off a large, hot, cheese sandwich. Really scrummy.

As far as I know all of those people are dead now, but they are still alive in the memories of those, like me that knew them. I felt the need to resurrect those memories and because I have written those memories down, Clarendon Road lives.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.