During 1987, Albert Saywell, then living in Congleton, Cheshire, wrote and sent the following recollections of his younger days in Warminster, to Danny Howell:
My name is Albert Brazier Saywell. I was born in 1904. As a small boy I came to Warminster from Salisbury living with my parents in a house belonging to James Button, a round venerable old gentleman, complete with beard, a coal merchant and owner of the fire horses which made their own way to the Fire Station when the bell of St. Lawrence rang or later when the fire hooter on Bartlett’s Brewery sounded. I can still see them galloping down East Street often to arrive long before Captain Neate or later Captain Baverstock or any of the part-time firemen (the brother’s Whitmarsh, Reg Sims, Ern Butcher and George Farley are some who spring to mind), or even their driver who I believe was Ern Button.
My father worked at Boreham Mill for Mr Neville Marriage who had taken it over from Mr Bradfield, another of the town’s grand old gentlemen, who on parliamentary election days drove his horse and carriage round the town with yellow and red rosettes on horse and whip.
My early boyhood was spent playing on Battlesbury, swimming in the old baths (baths made by portioning off part of the river at Smallbrook), or playing football on the old Fairfield where the cattle market later stood.
As a boy and later as a young man I eagerly looked forward to the annual Easter Monday Six-a-Side Tournament held on the Town Football Ground, going at nine o’clock in the morning and leaving at dusk, watching with delight this never to be forgotten feast of football, played on three pitches between sixes from Bristol, South Wales, Salisbury Plain, and Somerset, besides countless others from the town and surrounding villages.
Well do I remember the famous Chitterne six, all relations, who on one occasion won the Senior Trophy against the might of senior football from far and near.
Summer time attracted me to Sambourne to watch the feats of the late editor of the Warminster Journal, A. H. Coates; the captain – one Sanderson by name; the Reverend V. R. Rogers and to yell with delight when George Langdon, played for his fast bowling, clouted some unlucky visiting bowler to the bowling green which was situated in the far corner of the ground, scattering venerable bowlers in the persons of perhaps Messrs. Harraway, Butcher and Gregory to shelter.
I remember too the keen rivalry between the Close and Sambourne Schools. Who can ever forget Jimmy Bartlett, the head of Sambourne, a real terror to the ill-behaved, unorthodox in method, but forever the idol of his boys.
The Old Close School and the Secondary School where I spent so many happy hours have both gone. There are many of us scattered to all parts of England, who owe our success in life to the efforts of H. N. Dewey and E. E. Dent, the respective heads. When I look at the well equipped gymnasium of a modern school then I think back to days when as a boy I did my physical exercises in the road at the Close. This too was our playground. I often wonder if the children in today’s schools with their palatial surroundings are as happy as I was performing in the street. Clad in corduroy breeches, hobnailed boots, a Norfolk jacket, long black stockings and a celluloid collar.
The Boy Scout Movement in Warminster owed its origin to the efforts of W. A. Greenland the son of a local painter, who also ran the Town Band. W. A. Greenland was an assistant master at the Close Boys School and helped his mother to run the telephone exchange in a house in East Street, quite near Cromwell Gardens.
The early headquarters were in a loft belonging to a brewery behind the Masons Arms in East Street. During the 1914-18 war the scouts collected waste paper and so great were the proceeds that they were able to equip themselves with a bugle band complete with drums.
Very much later they moved to a hut in Weymouth Street named fittingly after their founder.
When I came back to Warminster from college in the early twenties, I had happy times playing for the old Red and Blacks with the Smiths, the Vincents, the Browns, Dumbo Pearce, Joe Renyard, the Turners (Charlie, Jack and Bill), Shaver Wickham, Frank White, Philip Still, Bert Fox, Sam Davies and Alan Turner. There were others but these are those that spring to mind. Strangely however, the most pleasant memory of my football days is connected with the old Christ Church team, on the occasion when we beat Salisbury City 3 -1 at Victoria Park in the Senior Cup. We were a team of oddments culled together by Lewis Vincent from all parts. Frank Bartram, Podger Day, Chelsea Pinnell, Laurie Smith and Jack Weeks are these I remember who played that memorable day.
Summer saw me in flannels at Sambourne, a very immature cricketer learning all I could from veterans like Billy Waylen, Frank Lovett, Eddie Marriage and E. S. Foreman, the slowest of slow bowlers.
My reminiscences would not be complete without a reference to someone who was dear to us all – the Reverend J. Stuart. Old Jimmy we affectionately called him. His parish work was heavy and varied. He devoted hours each week witnessing marks on pension forms for the many of his parishioners who could neither read nor write. In the many years I knew him, I never saw him angry or even raise his voice. I know there are still many in Warminster who still reverence his memory and remember his kindnesses.