The edited transcript of a tape-recorded conversation Danny Howell made with Cyril Lapham, at his home, at Bradley Road, Warminster, on Monday 22nd June 1998. First published in Remember Warminster, Volume Five, by Danny Howell, published by Bedeguar Books in October 1998.
Cyril Lapham said:
“My dad was Albert George Lapham. He came from Sutton Veny. He was born there and his father before him was born there. My dad, when he was boy, used to work out on the hills looking after the sheep from early in the morning until late at night for sixpence a week. He used to give his mother five pence and keep a penny for himself. He saved those pennies up and bought himself a penny-farthing bike which he had seen hung up in a blacksmith’s shop.”
“Dad’s father, my grandfather, was Uriah Lapham. I never knew him. He had a coal business but I can’t remember whereabouts in Sutton Veny it was. Grandfather had horses and wagons and he used to go to Radstock to get the coal. My father used to go with my grandfather to Radstock. They used to take two horses and two wagons. They’d go off at night to get to Radstock when the colliery first opened in the morning. They’d load up and come back to Sutton Veny, bag the coal up, and deliver it for ten old pence a hundredweight.”
“Grandfather had a blind mare called Blind Dement. She would walk to Radstock and back without any reins but she couldn’t see. They reckoned in years gone by that the carters used to put arsenic in the feed to make the horses’ coats shine. The minute a horse puts his nose down into the feed he do blow, and of course the arsenic got blowed up into its eyes and blinded it.”
“My parents got married at Sutton Veny. My mother was Ethel Parker. She was an ordinary looking woman but she was a lovely person. She was quiet and you never heard a harsh word from her.”
“I never knew mother’s father but I knew her mother. Her name was Caroline Parker and we called her Granny Parker. She lived in Sutton Veny. There used to be a Congregational Chapel in the village and there were two cottages next to it. Granny Parker lived in one of them. I think it was No.91. I don’t know what her husband did for a living when he was alive.”
“Granny Parker had two sons called George and Edgar. That was my mum’s brothers. They were plumbers and decorators. Uncle George bought a car when the first Fords came out. I can always remember the car number. It was AM 5422. George lived where Dr. Strangeways later lived. George and Edgar were away in the army all through the First World War. Granny Parker had nobody there. Every Saturday, when I was a schoolboy, I used to go down to the Co-op shop in Warminster to get her groceries. She shopped there to get the divvy. That was important. I’d get the groceries and take them out to granny. I would walk from Warminster to Sutton Veny. I would stay there all day and do her gardening. Sometimes I would walk back home the same day, sometimes I would stay out there all day Sunday as well and walk back to school in Warminster on Monday morning.”
“I didn’t mind going in the Co-op but there was one shop I didn’t like going in for Granny Parker. She would ask me to go into Hibberd’s shop, which was in the Market Place in Warminster, next to where the Midland Bank is now. Hibberd’s was where Bateman’s, the opticians, are now. Granny would get me to go in Hibberd’s to get a pair of divided skirts for her. That was her unmentionables. I used to go in and the girls used to look at me and giggle to one another. I used to hate that.”
“Very often, when I was a boy, we would go to granny’s at Sutton Veny on a Sunday afternoon. That was mother, father and all us children. We would have tea and afterwards father used to ring the bells at Sutton Veny Church. Someone would stand down so that he could have a go. He enjoyed that.”
“Father used to do a lot of running. He used to take part in the races at Sutton Veny Fete every year. He took part in races elsewhere. He used to win money from the races to keep himself in clothes for the year. He had a brother Bill who ran as well.”
“Uncle Bill worked at Gillingham for a gentleman, a lord. Bill used to drive a horse and trap, and later on a car for him. Then Bill came to Warminster to live and he worked with my father for a time. Then he ran a guest house on Town Hall Hill. There was a big house called Melrose, almost opposite the Athenaeum. It’s converted into shops now. There’s an optician’s [Haine & Smith] and a picture framing shop [The Gallery] there now. Uncle Bill ran Melrose as a guest house for a while but all of a sudden he went away to Bath to live and ran a place there. That was the last I ever heard of him. Later on, Mr. Cornelius had Melrose. Dr. Blackley lived nearly opposite there at one time.”
“I had three sisters and a brother. Doris was the oldest. She didn’t ever marry. I came next and then Beryl. She became Mrs. Taylor. She’s still alive and lives in Manchester. Bill was the next one. He worked at the Electric Light Company for years and later on he went up the Camp or the REME, working with Ernie Tanswell. Eva was the youngest but she’s dead now. She was Mrs. Hodgkinson.”
“I was born on 2nd November 1905 at Sutton Veny. I don’t know where exactly in the village. I wasn’t very old when my family moved to Warminster. That’s why I can’t remember living at Sutton Veny. We moved when I was very young to a little house at North Row in Warminster. It was called Rose Cottage. It’s a house on its own next to the Baptist Chapel. I think it belonged to the Chapel.”
“I can very faintly remember North Row because that’s where I started school from. My sister Doris was two years older than me and she wouldn’t go to school without me. I started school when I was three. That was at the infants school in the Close. The school has gone now. They’ve built a block of flats called Kyngeston Court where the school was. They had lady teachers at the infants school but I can’t remember their names. There was also a boys’ school, the Congregational Chapel and what they called the Lecture Hall. The infants school was behind that.”
“We used to go to the Congregational Chapel. We all went together as a family. First of all the vicar was the Reverend Uppington. Later on it was the Reverend Manning. It wasn’t particularly grand in the Congregational Chapel. It was just ordinary.”
“When we were children we used to go to Sunday School at ten o’clock. It was held in the Boys’ School at The Close. When we came out we went into the Chapel. Then we went home to dinner. We went back to Sunday School in the afternoon and then we went back to the Chapel again at night with father and mother. My parents regularly went to Chapel but they didn’t take religion to extreme. They didn’t preach to others.”
“I liked Sunday School. Mr. Jebby Lucas, who had a gents’ outfitter’s shop in the Market Place, was in charge. The Sunday School teacher was Miss Trollope. The Sunday School had an annual outing. Sometimes we used to go to the Priory Gardens at Edington. We went by train to there. Sometimes we went to Heaven’s Gate on the Longleat Estate. We went by horse and wagon to Heaven’s Gate. Those occasions were well looked forward to.”
“We didn’t live at North Row for very long. We moved to 11 Boreham Road, the house to the left of what is now the entrance to Gibbs’ Yard. Up that yard were big sheds. That was a foundry with a blast furnace there. The furnace was tall and wide with a big chimney. At the bottom was a hole with a chute. They used to get old scrap iron and they used to get bars of pig iron and that was broken up and put in and smelted. The chute was stopped up with a big wad of clay on the end of a long poker. They’d push that in. Two men with a bucket, one on each side holding the handles, would fill the chute with molten iron and pour it into different casts to make things.”
“They used to make all sorts of things out of iron there. They made cast iron wheels and cogs and parts. I think they used to make hay elevators for the farms. They had a stationery steam engine to drive all the different machines for doing the ironwork. Over the other side of the foundry was a big shed where they kept all the machinery. It was a very busy place. It wasn’t noisy, well, not that I can remember but quite a few men worked there.”
“The foundry belonged to a man called John Hooper. We knew him as Johnny Hooper. He wasn’t very tall and he wore knicker-bockers as we used to call them and long socks. He lived at Portway Villas. Later on, Arthur White took over the old Boreham Road foundry and used the place for his haulage business. He used to transport stuff about with lorries. He had a bungalow built at the top end where the stables used to be. Gibbs’ now use that old bungalow as their office.”
“My parents rented the house at Boreham Road off John Hooper. The house was up together fairly well. There was a flagstone floor in the kitchen. You could go out of the kitchen into a scullery which had a brick floor. Up a couple of steps was a wash house. The toilet was beyond that. The house had a tap inside for water and my parents had oil lamps for lighting.”
“Next door was the Beeches. Two ladies called Smallpiece lived there. They weren’t married. I don’t remember much about them because I was only young but I think they lived with their father.”
“Mother got most of our clothes from Lucas & Foot’s and she got our shoes from Frisby’s in the Market Place or Mills’ at East Street. Mother got her milk at one time from Mr. Dowding at Smallbrook Farm. Later on she got it from Tom Carter at the Common. They brought it round in a churn on the back of a horsedrawn cart. They used to dip it out with a measure into your bucket or jug.”
“Mother used to wash the family’s clothes with a washboard in the bath. She used Sunlight soap and soda. She always did her washing on Mondays. We kids had to help out in home with the chores. In the living room, the kitchen as we used to call it, there was a big range. I had to get up on Saturday mornings and polish the range. My oldest sister used to wash the floor and then we would polish the floor between us. There was a scullery with a concrete floor and we had to wash that as well. There were no fridges. Mother had what they called a meat safe. It had a door with perforated holes. It was kept on a wall out in the back house. That’s how they kept food cool and fresh in those days. Bread was kept in a big earthenware bin with a wooden lid. My mother cooked on the range. She was a good cook. We used to have some lovely meals and we always had a roast dinner on Sundays. Always.”
“I had toys when I was a child. I had a toy railway engine that went round in a circle on some track. I had a wooden stable with two little wooden horses and carts. I had an iron hoop. I used to get the bit for driving it made at Mr. Fitz’s forge. I also had a spinning top. That was fun. You could do some damage with one of them. You could get one, a different shaped top, which was known as a window-breaker. You could give them a slap with the whip and he’d fly. You could buy tops from a shop at the bottom of East Street called Faulkner’s Bazaar. On one side of Faulkner’s shop you could buy sweets and on the other side you could get toys. Faulkner’s was behind the Post Office, where they’ve built that block of flats [Chatham Court] now. There was another shop at George Street, where the Baby Shop is now. There was a little shop there ran by Miss White and she sold toys.”
“At Christmas we used to hang our stockings up. We would get an orange and a few nuts. I believed in Father Christmas up until I was a certain age. We always used to have a Christmas tree. I can remember my mother got me to dress up as Father Christmas once. I wore her dressing gown with cotton wool round the neck and the cuffs. I had to cut things off the Christmas tree. As I did so I caught the cotton wool on the cuff of my arm on fire. The flames shot up and burnt me. Big blisters came up on my fingers. I had to go to the doctor. When I went back to school I couldn’t use my right hand. I told the schoolteacher Harold Dewey. He said ‘Use your left hand then.’ I didn’t get any sympathy from him.”
“Dad used to buy a few fireworks when it was Guy Fawkes Night. About the only other thing we had to look forward to was the fair. The October Fair was a good one. It was held all down through the streets. It was really something.”
“If I wanted a haircut when I was a boy I used to go to a barber called Tom Bellew at East Street. Dad would give me two pence. He’d say ‘Ere, take this, go and see Tom Bellew or we’ll soon be able to plait your hair.’ I would go in Tom Bellew’s. He did bicycle repairs as well as hair cutting. His hands would be covered with bicycle oil. He’d rub his hands on his apron and then start cutting your hair. I used to get on alright with him. He kept pigs up the top of his garden behind his shop.”
“Next to Tom Bellew’s place was the Masons Arms. The landlord was Mr. Kitley and his son, Len, used to drive the lorry for Marshman’s, the corn merchants. There was a chap called Dick Moxham. He used to help out at the Masons Arms, cleaning up. His feet were bent over in a heap like an elephant’s, and he walked along slowly, putting one foot gingerly in front of the other. There were some big stables at the back of the pub. Dick Moxham used to sleep in the stables, where the hay was kept. Father used to hire those stables at one time.”
“Dad was not quite so tall as me. He wasn’t very big. He had dark hair to begin with and he had a moustache. He was a smaller version of me with a moustache. I suppose you could say I’m a chip off the old block.”
“Father was a strong Liberal. I can always remember once, when there was an election on, he took me down to the Market Place. There was a crowd of people outside the Bath Arms. They had gathered there for an election do. The Liberal candidate was Mr. John Fuller. People were singing a song. It went ‘Vote vote vote for Johnny Fuller, drive old Palmer out of town, for Fuller is the man, we’ll have him if we can, if we only put our shoulders to the wheel.’ I remember that to this day.”
“My dad worked for his own father at Sutton Veny to start off with and then he went to work for Bryer Ash, the coal merchant, in Warminster. That’s why we moved from Sutton Veny to Warminster. Bryer Ash lived in Weymouth and he had coal businesses in several towns including Weymouth, Warminster, Trowbridge, Melksham, Verwood, Bath, and Bournemouth. The head office was at Weymouth, George Bryer Ash didn’t come to Warminster very often. He kept in touch with father by telephone. Bryer Ash wasn’t a particularly big man. He and father got on alright. He used to send father a turkey every Christmas. That was our Christmas dinner.”
“Dad was the manager for Bryer Ash. He had to keep the books up together and he banked the money from the sale of coal. He took it into Lloyds Bank. Dad also supplied the horses and carts for delivering the coal. He also did other haulage work on his own account. He hauled corn, cattle feed, building materials, and anything like that, with horses and carts. When Beckford Lodge was built at Gipsy Lane my father hauled most of the stone and stuff from the Railway Station up to there. It all came in by rail. I used to ride on the wagon with dad when he was hauling up to there but I was only about nine years old then. The two Pitt-Rivers sisters had that house built. They started building Beckford Lodge in 1913.”
“To begin with Bryer Ash used to have a little wooden hut at the goods yard at Warminster Railway Station. That’s where my dad originally managed the business from. Eventually Bryer Ash bought a piece of ground at Station Road, near the Post Office. Bryer Ash had a house built there. It’s the one which is now used as a dentist’s surgery. That land used to be a big walled-in garden. I can remember it but I don’t know who it had belonged to. It was surrounded by a big stone wall. Bryer Ash had the house built, with a yard and stables. There was also an office next to the house (it’s now the little building to the left of the entrance to the Post Office yard) and there was a weighbridge in the pavement outside the office. The carts of coal were weighed on that. It was operated from inside the office. Other people and hauliers could weigh their carts on the weighbridge too. Dad only used to charge three pence or sixpence for weighing a cart. Big lorries were too long to fit on the weighbridge, so they used to weigh the front axle first and the back axle afterwards. How that worked I’m not sure but that’s what they used to do.”
“There was another weighbridge at Emwell Street. Albert Dewey, the blacksmith, ran that one. He was the brother of Harold Dewey, the schoolteacher. The weighbridge at Emwell Street was competition for the one at Station Road but that never bothered my father.”
“It must have been just before the First World War when Bryer Ash had the house and office built. That’s when we moved from Boreham Road to live in that house at Station Road. I was about eight years old then. The house had gas lights and there was lino in the kitchen and a carpet in the front room. Mother and father had a settee and some chairs in the front room. They were made of leather. To begin with my mother and father had an American pedal organ in the front room. My sister Doris started to learn to play it. After a while father bought a piano from Duckson and Pinker. I think it cost £45, which was a lot of money. Doris, my oldest sister, played the piano. My mother could play the piano too. My sister Beryl could play as well but it was mostly Doris. I used to very often buy some sheet music for Doris. I bought it in Siminson’s, the music shop near the corner of Market Place and Station Road. Mr. Siminson sold musical instruments. He sold trumpets and mouth organs and all sorts of things. Doris could play the music straight away. There was no hanging about, studying it. She’d put it up on the piano in front of her and play it just like that. She could read music. She had lessons from Mrs. Rothwell who lived with her father John Neat near the corner of Carson & Toone’s Yard. Mr. Neat was a painter and decorator, and he was also in the Fire Brigade. After a while Doris passed her music exams with Mrs. Rothwell. When Doris went away up to Manchester she used to play the piano for a lady singer.”
“There were lots of soldiers round Warminster during the First World War. In the field next to the house at Station Road the Army had ovens out there for baking bread. At the back of the Railway Station there was the Royal Army Service Corps. I can remember the RASC having horses, big cart horses, and they had what they called GS wagons. They didn’t have shafts. They had a pole with a horse each side of it. Once or twice the horses ran away down Station Road. They ran straight across into Everett’s shop and smashed everything inside to pieces. They had to get the horses out. Another time a couple of horses ran away and they ran into Knight’s, the jeweller’s shop. There were watches and clocks and rings all over the place. A policeman arrived on the scene in no time to stop people picking the stuff up and pinching it.”
“Dad had the contract to deliver the grub to the army canteens around Warminster. The food for the soldiers came in by rail to Warminster Station. You never knew when it was going to come in until it arrived. It didn’t matter what time the food came in, even if it were midnight, dad had to collect it and take it out to the canteens straight away. I can remember once a load of fish came in and it had to go to the canteen at Sand Hill Camp, Longbridge Deverill. Dad took it out. I went with dad when he delivered it. The manager of the canteen said to dad ‘What have you got for your breakfast in the morning?’ Dad said ‘We haven’t got nothing, have us? We’re rationed like.’ The manager gave dad a great big smoked haddock. He said ‘Take that home. Have that between you for your Sunday morning breakfast.’ That was alright.”
“There were hundreds and hundreds of soldiers in the camps around Warminster. A lot of them died when the influenza epidemic happened. They used to carry the coffins to Sutton Veny Church on a gun carriage. They buried ’em in Sutton Veny Churchyard. They always had a band to play the Dead March In Saul. They had to play it so often, because of all these deaths, it got on people’s nerves and they had to stop. People found it too depressing and it made them bad.”
“Dad got called up to go in the Army during the First World War. He had his papers but Bryer Ash got a deferment order. Dad had to stay working in the coal business at Warminster but he had to join the army volunteers. He had to go to the Drill Hall every Sunday and practice drill. He also joined the Fire Brigade. The fire engine was horse-drawn and dad supplied the horses. The firemen wore brass helmets. Me and my brother and sisters used to squabble over who was going to polish dad’s helmet. We loved cleaning that. When the First World War ended Warminster people celebrated peace with a procession, like a carnival, through the town. This was in 1919. Warminster Fire Brigade took part in the procession. I was in it too. My dad got me a fireman’s suit and I rode on a two-wheeled cart which carried the hosepipes and pumps. It was drawn by a pony. I was a fireman for a day.”
“Along Station Road were big hoardings with posters on. There was a big one just past our house and there was another one up by the Railway Station on the opposite side of the road. To begin with there was a man called Smart who did the bill posting. Later on there was a man named Fox. He used to live at East Street where the Chinese take-away is now. He was the bill poster. He worked for Billing Read & Jarrett.”
“Where the Police Station is now, used to be a big high wall along there with a big row of chestnut trees. When Tanswell had a garage where Kwik Save is now, he used to have that ground behind the wall. I think he used to let people drive up and down there, learning to drive cars. The Police Station used to be up Ash Walk. They built the new Police Station at Station Road about 1930.”
“The cattle market was at Fairfield Road. There were cowstalls on one side of the market, and sheds where they sold the calves. On the other side was where they sold the deadstock. The market was held on Mondays. A lot of the cattle came in on the railway. It was a regular sight on Monday mornings to see farmers and drovers walking cattle and sheep up Station Road to the market.”
“There was another coal merchant called Bird at the top of Station Road, opposite Sammy Smart’s scrapyard, near the Railway Station. Later on, they merged with Bryer Ash and the business became known as Bird’s and Bryer Ash.”
“The coal came from Radstock but father didn’t have to go and collect it. It came in by train. Dad used to wear a suit when he was working as the manager in the office at Bryer Ash. He used to operate the weighbridge. As far as I can remember, Bill Smith drove one horse and cart, and Billy Whatley had the other one. Bill Smith lived at Bread Street and Billy Whatley lived at King Street. Harry Ball, from Woodcock, also drove a horse and cart for my dad. He had several brothers. I can remember Percy, Bert, Eddie, and Leonard, and he also had a couple of sisters, Gladys and Nellie. Their father, Walter Ball, used to drive a horse and cart for Marshman’s, delivering corn but later on he drove the dust cart.”
“The horses were kept in the stables at Station Road. Dad had four horses at one time. He had one called Tommy. He was a cob, not a heavy horse. There was another one called Mac. It was named after a general in the South African War [Hector MacDonald]. Father bought Mac when he was a colt running with his mother and brought him up. He’d do anything. He’d pull the coal wagon, pull the grass cutter, and he’d work on the plough. He’d do anything. We had another horse called Boxer.”
“There used to be a man named Jones lived at Horningsham. He was known as Pecker Jones. He used to have a horse and wagonette, as they called it, and he used to bring Horningsham people into town for shopping. He came into Warminster on Monday market day and he also used to take people to Frome. He got had up, one time, for having too many people on the wagonette. I forget how many he had on board. He got summoned for it. He wasn’t keen after that, he wanted to sell the pony, so he asked father if he wanted to buy it. Father said ‘I don’t know whether he would do our work or not.’ Eventually father bought the pony for £5 and it turned out to be one of the best horses we ever had.”
“Dad used a farrier called Fitz at Button’s Yard, off East Street, for shoeing his horses. There were two Fitzs, father and son, called Ephraim and Alec. They had an old man working for them who was known as Daddy but I don’t know why.”
“Father used to keep a stock of medicines for the horses and if they were sick he used to drench them. He didn’t use a vet, well not very much. Dad didn’t get many problems with the horses. The feed for the horses came from Marshman’s, the corn merchants in the Market Place. The horses were fed in the morning before they went out, and they used to take a nosebag with them full of chaff and corn for them to have during the day time. The harnesses and bridles were repaired by a man named Rice Everett, who had a place next to the Bath Arms in the Market Place.”
“Dad rented a field at Weymouth Street, just below the football field. He rented it from the council. Very often, when the horses had finished work and had been fed at night, I would take them to that field. I would ride on one and have another horse each side of the one I was riding.”
“Father had several carts. He had four or five. Most of them were flat-bottomed carts. I think he got them from Corsley Wagon Works. If he wanted any repairs done he would take them to the wagon works where the Marsh & Chalfont garage is at Boreham now. That was a big wagon works there and a man called Down had that. He did repairs and painting when you wanted a cart re-painted. Father kept the carts at the yard at Station Road. There was a cart shed there, next to the stables. There was stabling for three or four horses.”
“The coal was delivered in hessian sacks. I don’t know where those sacks came from. The sacks were used over and over again for a long time. Father also delivered corn in sacks and those sacks came from the West Of England Sack Hiring Company. Dad had the agency for them. When the empty sacks came back to the yard, after corn had been delivered to the farms and mills, there would always be some grains of corn left in the bottom of them. Those grains were tipped out. A funny old chap called Edwin Wickham had the job of emptying that corn out. He lived at Oxford Terrace, off East Street. He used to empty that corn out, sweep it up, and bag it, so that my father could have it for his chickens.”
“When we lived at Station Road father had an Airedale cross dog called Jack. That dog followed my brother Bill and my father everywhere but he wouldn’t follow me. He would follow father up to the Station, go in the Station and cross the line. That dog would stop when he got down by the line and look both ways before crossing. I can remember there was a little space between dad’s office and the yard gates. Somebody hired that space off father to have a tea van there during the First World War. They had a little dog. It was a miserable little thing. One day my brother Bill walked past and that little dog jumped up and nipped his finger. Our dog Jack came on behind and he nearly killed that dog. Uncle Edgar was working in the office. He heard what was happening and he had to come out and get those dogs apart.”
“Very often Jack used to sleep in the porch of the house, outside the front door. One morning father went out, he was going somewhere, and he found the dog dead. If I remember rightly father found a brick with the dog. He reckoned someone had thrown a brick at the dog and killed it. There were some bad people about in them days. We buried the dog in the garden at Station Road.”
“My mother died on 29th July 1919. She was only 36. She had cancer of the breasts. My mum is buried at St. John’s at Boreham Road. We were living at Station Road when she died. I hadn’t left school. That was in July. Little did I know it at the time but in the following autumn I was to meet with death again.”
“Father also rented a field or two at the top of Carson’s Yard. He kept a couple of house cows up there. One was a Guernsey and she gave lovely milk. Father showed me how to milk the cows. I could do it. We milked them by hand. We used to take the milk down home and pour it into a big setting dish. We used to let the cream rise and skim it off. We used to make butter. Father used to shake it about in a sweet jar. If it wouldn’t turn straight away he’d put half a crown in with it and that would start it off. It would help stir it. Eventually father went to a sale somewhere and got something for rolling the butter out on. He’d pat it and cut it up. It was lovely butter.”
“Father kept a lot of chicken and fowls in the field at the top of Carson’s Yard. Every dinnertime, about half past twelve, when I come out of school I used to go up there to pick up the hens’ eggs, otherwise the rats and rooks would have them. There was a cowstall facing down to the park. In there was a cow manger. Cow mangers are low down. I put my hand in the manger to feel for eggs and caught hold of a double-barrelled gun. Being nosey I broke the barrel and saw there were two cartridges in it. I went off and found my father and told him. He said ‘Oh, I expect I know whose that is. That’s Mr. Everett’s. He goes up there taking shots at the rooks and things. I’ll go and see him. I’ll tell him not to leave the gun where my children might get hold of it. It could cause some damage.’ My father went to see Mr. Everett and told him. Mr. Everett talked very fast. He said, as fast as he could, ‘I’m very sorry, so sorry, I won’t do it again, I won’t do it again.’ The matter was forgotten.”
“Mr. Everett had a grocery shop in the Market Place, where Robbins the butcher is now. His name was William Stuart Everett. He rented a stable at Carson’s Yard and he had a horse and trap for taking his groceries round the villages. His shop was later taken over by Mr. O’Malley who had been a soldier. There was a man named Nelson Elkins who worked for Mr. Everett. Nelson was a fairly biggish bloke and he lived at the Furlong.”
“The next day [Tuesday 14th October 1919] I went up the field again and I went in the first cowstall. There was Mr. Everett sat lifeless on the edge of the manger with the gun stuck up under his chin. The gun was propped between his legs. He must have reached down to pull the trigger. He was sat exactly where he had shot himself. He had taken his hat off and taken his teeth out. His hat and teeth were beside him on top of the milking stool. All I could see were a few red spots on his cheeks where some of the shot had come out.”
“Of course I took to my heels. I ran off down the yard. I found Nelson Elkins outside the stable sawing up wood. I told him what I had seen. I said ‘I think he’s dead and there’s a gun in front of him.’ Nelson said he hadn’t heard a gun going off. I raced off and found my father and he got the police to come up there.”
“A couple of days later, on the Thursday, I had to go to the inquest. The inquest was held above Mr. Waddington’s offices in the Market Place. He was an auctioneer. Waddington’s old place is now a fabric shop, where you can buy materials for curtains and things. It’s called J&M Fabrics. The inquest was held up above there. The first thing they asked me was ‘Was he dead when you found him?’ I said ‘I don’t know. I didn’t stop to find out.’ They eventually decided at the inquest that Mr. Everett had taken his own life when his mind was unsound. He had been depressed and had financial worries. When I came out the Coroner, Mr. Sylvester, gave me nine pence for attending. You could get a lot of sweets in those days with that. Sweets were four ounces for a penny. You could buy pear drops and bull’s eyes and things like that.”
“There was a Mr. Sharp who had a bakery at East Street, next to Cromwell Gardens. He had a shop at the front and he used to sell little squares of broken chocolate. That was cheap. You could get a lot of that for a penny. Sharp’s wasn’t very big. The bakery was out the back. Mr. Sharp had a wife and family. He had a daughter called Gerty and a daughter called May. Unfortunately May wasn’t very mature for her age and she always wanted to catch hold of you. She was a little bit simple. Gerty Sharp married Ernie Weeks who had a little cafe at the top of Station Road, just across from the Railway Station. Before Weeks was there, there was a big old army hut there and Bill Sloper, the taxi man, had that as a cafe. He started it. Ernie Weeks took it over and had that cafe built.”
“My father used to give me a bit of pocket money when I was going to school. When I left the infants school I went to the Boys School at the Close. The headmaster was Mr. Jefferies. The other teachers were Mr. Dunning from Westbury, Harold Dewey and Gussie Greenland. When Mr. Jefferies left Mr. Dewey became the headmaster.”
“I didn’t like Harold Dewey. He was always giving boys the cane. He had me out in front of the class once and caned me for getting my arithmetic wrong twice, two mornings following. He hit me across the right hand. Two of my fingers swelled up. When I got home I showed my father what Mr. Dewey had done. He said ‘What did you do? Were you cheeky or misbehaving?’ I said ‘No, I simply got my arithmetic wrong.’ He said ‘Right.’ He went off to Dewey’s house during the dinner time. Father considered that Mr. Dewey had caned me in excess and had no right to. He told Dewey that. Father said to Dewey ‘If this ever happens again for something like that I’ll have you up at the Town Hall steps for assault.’ It never happened again.”
“Mr. Dewey was very strict. We used to go up on the downs on a Friday afternoon and play cricket. When we dispersed from the downs one Friday some boys pulled down a sign and used it as a sledge. On the following Monday morning Mr. Dewey called us together at school. He had been told about the sign and wanted to know who had done it. He wanted the culprits to own up but no one would. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘You’ll all stop in until someone tells.’ We had to stop in at playtimes and after school for ages but he never found out who did it. He was furious.”
“There was a boy called Frank Brown. His nickname was Bosser Brown. His father drove a wagon for the Co-op. Something went wrong at school. Frank Brown had misbehaved and he was severely dealt with by Mr. Dunning. There were two boys in the class called Jack Webber and Dick Holton. They ran out of school and found Frank’s father. They told him what Mr. Dunning had done. Mr. Brown came to the school with his long-handled horse whip in his hand. He was going to play hell with Mr. Dunning. He said ‘If you ever touch my boy again I’ll put this whip round you.’ That’s the sort of thing that went on years ago.”
“We did reading, writing and arithmetic and we used to have talks on personal hygiene. As soon as we got into school in the morning we used to have to sing a hymn. Gussie Greenland used to play the harmonium. Sometimes Dewey would say ‘That was horrible. You all sang flat as anything.’ He’d keep us in at playtime practising singing. I hated that. I didn’t like Dewey at all.”
“There was no playground at the school. We had to play in the road outside. There was hardly any traffic going along the Close in those days, only the occasional horse and cart. We hadn’t to go any further than the Fire Station one way, or the house, Vernham House, where Miss Whittock lived, the other. Mr. Hicks had a baker’s shop next to the Athenaeum. If I wanted to go there to get a cake for my lunch I had to get permission, and I was told not to be very long. We used to do our exercises out in the road too.”
“There were never any school trips away. There used to be a field by Beckford Lodge called the Co-op Field. The Co-op used to keep their horses in there. When there was a Coronation, and it must have been for the Coronation of George V in 1911, we children were taken in wagons up to the Co-op Field and we had a tea party there. We had tea outside in the field and then played about and had a few games. I was about six years old. I can just remember going up there for that.”
“When it was Empire Day [24th May] all the schools used to gather round the Morgan Memorial Fountain when it was outside the Post Office. We’d stand round the fountain. Father used to let the organisers have a flat-bottomed coal trolley, for someone to stand on and make a speech. We used to sing ‘What can I do for England who does so much for me, One of her faithful children I can and I will be, I love her ancient cities, her villages so small, her cottages and castles and green fields everywhere.’ We all used to wear a big horse daisy. They used to grow wild. There used to be heaps of them growing everywhere. Everybody wore a daisy on Empire Day. We haven’t got an Empire now. We’ve lost it.”
“I think my education was alright. I was never kept back a class. My father and mother didn’t tell me much about the world. We did our learning at school, not home. We didn’t have many books in home but father had a whole set of volumes about the European War. He also had another set of books about horses. I don’t know what happened to them in later years. I never had them.”
“It was sort of taken for granted that I would work for my father when I left school. I always wanted to be a carpenter and my mother said ‘We’ll see to that when the time comes for you to leave school,’ but she was dead before I left. I don’t know really but I might not have worked for my father if my mother had been alive. When I started work for my father he gave me seven shillings and sixpence a week. I was humping coal about all week for that. The first week he gave me my wages he said ‘I expect you to save some of that for your clothes.’
“At the end of the day, after delivering coal, I was as black as could be. I had to have a good wash each night. The house at Station Road had a big porcelain sink. I would fill that up with water and get a wash. There was a bathroom in the house and I would have a bath twice a week.”
“We delivered coal to Boreham, Bishopstrow, Warminster Common and all around. I began by driving a horse and cart. After a while dad bought a little lorry. He bought the lorry just after the First World War. My father was the first to have a Ford Ton truck in Warminster. He bought a chassis and had a body built on to it, at Green Street, in Salisbury. It had a top over so that he could use it for passengers if he wanted to. Can you imagine that? Passengers travelling in a coal wagon! Eventually he bought a bigger lorry. He got an ex-First World War army lorry. it was a two tonner.”
“After he got the lorry we went to Imber with coal. We were the first people to deliver coal by lorry to Imber. It was two shillings a hundredweight delivered to there. We would take 30 hundredweight or two ton on the lorry. Father would say ‘Don’t bring any back if you can help it. If anyone would like to take five hundredweight let them have it for eight shillings. That was two shillings discount.”
“Imber was a pretty little place and the people there were quite nice. All of them were nice. There was a little stream running beside the road in the village and it was known as Imber Docks. That was because of all the dock leaves that grew there.”
“I can remember when we went to Imber once, the lorry broke down just as we came out of the village. We couldn’t start it again. I didn’t drive. A man named Jim Haskell was driving. He lived at Bishopstrow, in a cottage by the church. Later on he married a girl called Carpenter from down the Marsh. She died and he got married again and went to live out Fonthill. I don’t know what happened to him in the end. Anyway, when the lorry broke down at Imber, I walked right from there, just outside the village, to Warminster, to get someone to go out and see to that lorry. That was a six or seven mile walk.”
“Father got the petrol for the lorry from Tanswell’s Garage, near the corner of Market Place and Station Road, where Kwik Save is now. The petrol came in two-gallon cans. There used to be a man named Harry Perkins. He had a bit of a garage at West Street and he used to repair the lorry for dad. Harry’s son nearly got killed on a motorbike once. He was with another chap. One was driving and one was riding pillion. They had an accident and it very near finished them.”
“When we went out delivering coal to the villages we always carried some scales with us on the cart, in case we were ever stopped by the weights and measures inspector. I don’t remember us ever seeing a weights and measures inspector. The only thing I can remember, like that, is when a policeman stopped us once at Chapmanslade. This policeman had a look round the cart. He said ‘Have you got your scales?’ We said ‘Yes, we have.’ He said ‘Good job, otherwise I’d have you for that.’
“Most customers paid for their coal when we delivered it but one or two had accounts. Mr. Artindale, at East House, the big house where East End Avenue is now, used to have a truck load of coal at a time. He’d have several tons and we’d have to make several trips to deliver that. Mr. Pinckney, who lived at Highbury House on Boreham Road, used to have a truck load at a time as well. It was cheaper for them to buy a big load. Pinckney had a door, up so high, and we had to tip the coal into that. It dropped down into a cellar.”
“Some customers would complain. When we used to go round doing what we called hawking, that was selling hundredweights of coal off the cart, at different places, some people would make comments like ‘That was some rotten coal you brought last week.’ I’ll tell you was one for doing that. My wife’s sister Kate. She was Mrs. Robbins and she lived at South Street. She lived at what was the Isolation Hospital. It’s now two or three little houses and she lived in one of them. She used to complain. I got so wild with her one day when she moaned. I said ‘We’ll have to open up a coal mine on purpose just for you.’ She wouldn’t give you anything. She had a big apple tree in her garden. My wife went there once when my son Tony was a little boy. His hand could just reach one of the apples on the tree. Kate said ‘No, you mustn’t do that. I’ve sold the apples on that tree to a man and he’s coming to pick all those apples tomorrow.’ She would not let that little boy have a single apple.”
“Father got married again within 12 months of the death of my mother. He married in London. I didn’t go to the wedding. I didn’t agree with it. Father married a woman who was supposed to be a friend of my mother’s. My stepmother’s name was Amy Mary Thorne. She was a Sutton Veny person but she had been to London with her father.”
“Her father was Charles Thorne. He was a Sutton Veny man. He had worked at Carson & Toone’s foundry as a blacksmith. Then he went away to London. He was a porter on the railway at Chapham Junction. After that he came back to Warminster. He was more or less retired but he bought a lorry (after my father gave up haulage) to do the milkround in the Deverills. He bought the lorry off someone in Trowbridge. He asked me to drive it at one time. He did other hauling as well. He had some racks made to go on the back of the lorry and he could then haul pigs about. The lorry was kept at the side of his house at Station Road.”
“His house was Clyde Villa. It was opposite where the Police Station is now. Mr. Thorne had Clyde Villa built and he named it after the street he had lived in when he was in London. He had lived at 91 Clyde Terrace, off Plough Road, near Clapham Junction. He employed two men to build the house. Tiger Scane was one of them but I can’t remember who the brickie was. They built up to the first floor and then he put miniature railways lines across and concreted it. He built it with a reinforced ceiling. He did the same above the bedroom ceilings. That was fireproof. I helped carry the bricks up to the top of the house. Not so long ago, it all fell in. It was lucky no one was in that house at the time or they would have been killed. All that concrete came crashing down. The house had to be completely demolished and they’ve built a couple of new ones there now.’
“Mr. Thorne was a nice old man. We children used to call him Grandad Thorne. We didn’t know his wife. She was dead and gone. He was a widower and he never got married again. He lived to a good old age and he died at Warminster Hospital.”
“”Mr. Thorne used to pay for the licence for the Salvation Army to hold weddings at the Salvation Army Citadel at Chapel Street. They had a citadel next to the school at Chapel Street. My stepmother’s sister Nellie married Joe Cowan. They were both in the Salvation Army. Joe was a Welsh man. He and Nellie lived at the Furlong.”
“We children couldn’t get on with our stepmother. I’m afraid to say father didn’t like it because we wouldn’t call her mother. I used to say to father ‘Well, we can’t have two mothers.’ I wouldn’t bother with her. He said ‘If you make a hard bed you must learn to lay on it.’ That was my father’s reaction, yet he was the best father anyone could have before he married her. He used to take me everywhere he went. When I was a young boy he used to say ‘Coming out with me?’ I think I was his favourite. He was a lovely man. It all changed after he married my stepmother. She altered that. She wanted all the attention.”
“My father smoked and he liked a drink. Dad used to go to the Rose And Crown once in a while. He’d have a pint of stout. He wasn’t a big drinker. When my stepmother came on the scene she stopped all that. She wouldn’t let him have a glass of cider or anything. He gave in to her.”
“My stepmother wouldn’t let us have a roast dinner on Sundays. We had to have a cold dinner instead. That was because she was against work on the Sabbath. My stepmother used to be a religious maniac. She used to say things like ‘I would hate the Lord Jesus Christ to find me in a picture house.’ She wouldn’t have none of that. If my youngest sister Eva did anything wrong, my stepmother would say ‘What will your mother think of you if she could see you now?’ My stepmother hated my brother Bill for some reason. There was quite an atmosphere. A bad one. My stepmother used to try and get round me but I wouldn’t have it. I wouldn’t call her mum or mother.”
“As soon as my sister Doris left school my stepmother packed her off to London to work in a shop where she had worked. Doris came home from London just before Christmas. My stepmother had some friends of her own come for Christmas Day. They were all sat round the table. I happened to go in the front room and Doris was crying. She was breaking her heart. I asked her what the matter was. She said ‘Our stepmother has been playing me up because I’ve left my job. She wants to know what the manager will think of her.’ I asked my stepmother what she meant by upsetting Doris on Christmas Day. I said ‘You call yourself a Christian woman? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ With that I put on my hat and coat and walked out of the house and I didn’t go back in again that Christmas Day. I spent the day walking about. What a Christmas that was.”
“As soon as my second sister was old enough my stepmother packed her off to Manchester. As soon as my youngest sister was old enough she packed her off too. She sent them all away. She wouldn’t keep them at home. She didn’t want them.”
“My stepmother had two children of her own with father. That was Gwendoline and Kenneth. When Gwen was being born father got me out of bed and sent me off to get the midwife at Hillwood Lane. That was Nurse Giles. That was at 12 o’clock at night. I knocked on her door. She came down and I told her what I wanted. She said ‘Wait a minute, I’ll get my bike and come back with you.”
“I got on with Gwen and Kenneth alright. When Gwen was a little girl she got bad and wouldn’t eat. I said to my stepmother ‘Why don’t you get her the same food as we used to have? We did well on it.’ It was called Savoury Mores. She didn’t get it. Of course I went out working all day and I had my cooked meal at teatime when I got home. As soon as I did get in, the little girl would come and sit on my lap and help me eat my dinner. That’s how I got her eating. I loved that girl. She used to wait for me to come home every evening. Eventually she got married. Her boyfriend was a conscientious objector but he was a nice fellow though. She moved London way, to Northolt, where the airfield is.”
“Ken, to begin with, worked in a shop at Heytesbury. At one time he worked at the Co-op in Warminster. Later on he went away up north to work for the REME. I’ve never seen him since. He married a German girl called Christa. She was ever such a nice person. I’ve got a feeling he married her in Germany, when he was out there in the army. I don’t know where he is now. I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with my stepmother in later years. She lived to be 92. In the end she went to live with her daughter at Northolt and that’s where she died. She died on 22nd December 1980. She’s buried round North Row, in the Baptist churchyard, with father.”
“When it came to work my stepmother wouldn’t do anything. She’d rather employ someone. I met my wife when she came to work for my stepmother. Her name was Nora Elsie Curtis. She was one of 21 children. She lived down the Marsh. Her father was Roland Curtis. He was a farm labourer and he worked hard for ten shillings a week. He did a lot of scything and corn cutting. He used to walk from the Marsh in Warminster to Stourton to do a day’s work there. He would get an extra four shillings a week for working at Stourton. That’s why he used to walk out to there. He would go off early in the morning, before it was light, and he would return home at night, after it was dark. His family didn’t see him in the daylight for weeks and weeks. Roland Curtis also used to collect herbs for the chemist Mr. Siminson. He used to know where all the different plants and herbs grew. Mr. Siminson used to make a lot of the medicines he sold.”
“I used to go to the pictures at the Palace Cinema. A gang of us used to go there. They were silent films. A woman called Mrs. Minhinnick used to play the piano accompaniment. I had to be home by a certain time. My stepmother, for some reason, hated my brother. She used to lock him out and not let him in at night. Out in the yard, right under the window of the bedroom where we slept, was a big heap of coal. Bill used to climb up on that and tap the bedroom window. I used to let him in. One night my stepmother locked me out. I couldn’t get in. I shouted and I hammered at the door. Eventually my father came down and let me in. It was only about ten o’clock. Isaid ‘Now look ‘ere. If this happens again to me I’m going to go straight in the Police Station and ask if I can sleep in there for the night because my parents won’t let me in. The police will have to come down and deal with you.’ My parents never locked me out again but poor Bill used to get it happen to him quite a lot. Very often, when I went up to bed, I took some bread and cheese for him to have when he got in.”
“I was out in town one night with a couple of chaps I used to get about with. That was Frank Brown, who was known as Bosser Brown; and Joe Cahill, an Irish chap. He came over from Ireland with a firm that took over the Brewery in the High Street. That was the Casein Works. They used to make things out of milk. I used to have to deliver coal to the Casein Works. We had to carry coal from the front door of the Brewery, on the pavement, up all the steps to the drying room. They used anthracite coal. Joe had a brother who lodged with Mr. Whitmarsh, the painter and the decorator at East Street. I’ve got a feeling that Joe’s brother married Mr. Whitmarsh’s daughter Isobel. I don’t know what become of him. Whether he went back to Ireland or not I don’t know. Joe didn’t. Joe married here and he died here. Anyway, I was with Bosser and Joe when I met Nora out in town. I asked her if she would like to go to the pictures. We went to the pictures that night and after that we went once or twice a week.”
“My stepmother never said anything to me when she knew I was going out with Nora. It wouldn’t have made any difference if she had. I got on with Nora’s father alright. I used to go down to their place most nights. Nora and I would go off out to the pictures or for a walk. Mr. Curtis always used to call me ‘Serill,’ not Cyril. I used to smoke a pipe. He’d say ‘Hey, got a bit of baccy, Serill?’ I used to give him the tin or the pouch of tobacco I had. He used to take loads out and press it into his pipe. After I had gone he would pull half of that out of his pipe, so that he would have some for later. Yes, I got on alright with him. He was known as Bowler because he used to wear a bowler hat.”
“I never went to any dances. I couldn’t get on with dancing. Mr. and Mrs. Pearce, down at the Mission School at South Street, used to teach dancing. It cost sixpence. I went down there once but I couldn’t get on with it. Nora didn’t want to go to dances in any case, so that was alright.”
“I was 19 when I got married. We got married at Christ Church, Warminster, in September 1924. James Stuart was the Vicar. He was well-liked. I bought my wedding ring from Gray’s, the jewellers, in the Market Place. It wasn’t very big in there. There were two brothers ran it. They lived in a bungalow up the top of the yard behind there. Miss Chambers had a school by the yard. The verger at Christ Church, Mr. Stevens, acted as best man for us. The wife didn’t marry in white. We just got married in our ordinary clothes. We didn’t have a reception. We were just quiet. We had nothing.”
“Nora and I set up home at Crockerton, at Shearcross. That’s where we lived first, for a couple of years. There was a biggish cottage with a little one on the end of it. Some people named Sheppard lived in the big one and they rented us the little one on the end. I think we found out about it through my wife’s father. He used to go to the pub out Crockerton. Nora and I got a bit of furniture from Turner & Willoughby’s in Warminster. They used to sell some secondhand stuff and that’s what we got. We managed. My wife was a good cook. She used to peel potatoes and the peel came off so thin you could see through it. Someone said to her once, before she was married, that she would make someone a good wife one day. They were right.”
“After I was married I used to mend all our own shoes. There was a lady at George Street who had a little shop which sold leather and hobs and things. That was Miss Francis. You could go in there and tell her how much leather you wanted. She would cut a piece out of a big side of leather. She’d weigh it and sell it to you for a few pence. Her shop was next to Mr. Vallis, the fishmonger. Fishy Vallis’ place was next door to the White Hart pub.”
“I worked for my father for a long while. When father bought his lorry he had a contract to go out the Deverills and pick up the milk from the farms. It had to be taken to Warminster Railway Station to catch the 5.10 train in the afternoon. We’d put the milk on the trains and load up the empty churns for the next day.”
“Dad eventually sold the lorry, the one that he had bought as a chassis and had the body put on at Green Street, Salisbury. Sam Smart, the scrap man at Station Road, kept on at him about selling it. Sam wanted it. Father wouldn’t sell it for a long time. I suppose Sam kept on and on at him all the time. In the finish father sold it to Sam for more money than he gave for it new. Father must have been a wily old bird.”
“Father made a good living but he lost it all. I’ll tell you what sort of man he was. If someone wanted some coal and he delivered them, say, half a ton, and they didn’t pay, Bryer Ash would threaten to sue them. My father would pay Bryer Ash for them. He paid for many a person’s coal. He couldn’t really afford to do that but that’s what he used to do. There used to be a farmer called Bill Hurd out at Crockerton, and he used to do some coal hauling. My father would send him an invoice for the coal he’d had but he wouldn’t come in to Warminster to pay father. My father had to go out to Crockerton to fetch the cheque. It wasn’t always easy.”
“Father got nothing when he finished for Bryer Ash. Something went wrong. They had a row and they fell out about something. I don’t know whether father resigned or had the sack. A man called Hankey became the new manager for Bryer Ash. After a while we had to get out of the house at Station Road. Dad moved to Park Street at Heytesbury. He did little jobs for Miss Bouverie. She lived at Bunters with her sister, the other Miss Bouverie. The house dad lived in at Park Street was in a row of houses just before you got to U-ey White’s forge. Uriah White was a blacksmith there. The houses backed on to the Heytesbury Estate Yard. I don’t know who owned the house. It might have been Miss Bouverie but I’m not sure. Father had to look after some donkeys and goats for Miss Bouverie. He got on alright working for her. This is after I had left home.”
“Dad was friendly with Lord Heytesbury. My daughter Beryl wanted my dad to read that book A Shepherd’s Life. Before she could get it for him, Lord Heytesbury had took him a copy. Dad could remember some of the things that had happened, that had been written about in that book.”
“Dad moved from Park Street to a council house at Little London in Heytesbury. Later on he moved from Little London to North Row in Warminster. There was a little alley went off from North Row. You had to go round there to get to the house dad moved to. There were a couple of houses together there.”
“When father gave up his milkround and went to Heytesbury to work for Miss Bouverie I went to work for a farmer at Longbridge Deverill. His name was Arthur Edwin Hinton and he was my cousin. He said ‘If I buy a lorry will you come and drive it for me?’ I was glad to. I said ‘Yes,’ because I didn’t want to be out of work. I had to work on the farm as well as driving the lorry. This was at Sturgess Farm. I got 38 shillings a week. I had to pay for the milk we had and we had to pay four bob a week for our cottage at the Marsh, Longbridge Deverill. We had moved from Shearcross to No.37 The Marsh. That cottage didn’t belong to Sturgess Farm. It belonged to the farm next door, Manor Farm.”
“Arthur Hinton was married. His wife was Elsie Cluett. She was nothing out of the ordinary to look at. They had a son called Gordon who got killed in Italy during the Second World War. He had another son called Ivor. I never knew what happened to him. Arthur also had two daughters, Dorothy and Barbara. The youngest one was Barbara.”
“I wasn’t the only one working for Arthur Hinton. A man called Harry Ball was the carter there. Arthur’s father-in-law Mr. Cluett also worked there. He was a nice old chap. He was as good as a vet when it came to looking after the cows.”
“Eventually Mr. Hinton gave up the farm and took another one at West Knoyle. It was called Broadmead Farm. He got me to go over there with him. That was a horrible place. I had to hand milk nearly 40 cows. They were all different breeds but mostly Shorthorns. I lived over there for a while.”
“Arthur was alright to work for, up to a certain point. While I was working for him at West Knoyle I had to come into town and have my teeth out. Arthur stopped my wages. He didn’t pay me for that day. Soon after, on a Saturday, I had to go and collect my false teeth. Another chap who worked for Arthur during the week but not on Saturdays, had to do my work while I went to collect my teeth. Arthur wouldn’t pay him for working on a Saturday, so I had to pay him out of my pocket. Arthur said ‘You must pay him. I’m not going to.’ That was the good old days.”
“There used to be a dentist in Warminster called Mr. Prescott. I can’t remember the name of the dentist who made my teeth. He was a young bloke and he went away to Australia. When he made my teeth he made them crooked. He made them like he thought my teeth were. I said ‘I don’t want them. I’m not having them.’ He said ‘They’re a good set of teeth.’ I wouldn’t have them. Eventually I got what I wanted. The dentist said to me ‘Keep sucking on them. That will hold them up.’ I went straight from the dentist’s up to my wife’s sister at South Street and ate a tea there. Then I push-biked back to West Knoyle.’
“While I was at West Knoyle I got double pneumonia. They said it was very dangerous but if you got over it, it would be the making of you. I recovered and the doctor said to me ‘I should get away from this place if I was you as quick as you can.’ I did want to get away from there. I didn’t like it and I had to work on the farm Sundays and all.”
“I finished on the farm. I couldn’t get a job anywhere so I had to go back to farm work again. I got a job on a farm at Chalford. The farmer was Mr. Corp. I lived at Chalford and while I was there someone got up an outing to Tidworth Tattoo. I went on this outing. We went by charabanc. That was the only time I ever went to a tattoo. At the close they played Abide With Me and when the last verse was sung ‘Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes,’ they lit up a big cross on a hill in the background. I can remember that.”
“I stopped at Chalford for a while but I was absolutely fed up with farm work. One day I gave in my notice. I told the farmer I was going to leave but I didn’t have another job to go to. On the Friday night, as I finished, I came into Warminster and I asked at Butcher’s, Curtis’, and other places, trying to get a job. I happened to be talking to somebody and I told them I was looking for a job but couldn’t get one. They said ‘Have you tried Harraway’s, the nurserymen?’ I said ‘No.’ They said ‘I expect he’ll give you a job.’ I went and saw Mr. Harraway. I asked him if he could give me a job. He said ‘Can you use a spade?’ I said ‘I expect so.’ He said ‘Alright, you can start on Monday but don’t forget it’s only agricultural wages.’ I had 31 and ninepence a week. I used to give the wife the 31 shillings and keep nine pence for myself. I used to smoke then. I could buy half an ounce of cigarette tobacco, a packet of papers, and a box of matches. That’s all I did have out of my money.”
“I had a daughter and two sons and was living at Pound Street in Warminster then. We had moved from Chalford to 17 Pound Street. We rented it. A man called Harris used to collect the rent. I think the house belonged to Mr. Turner of Turner & Willoughby. The house at Pound Street was near the Malthouse, and was was on the same side of the road as the Malthouse. Coming up from Vicarage Street and West Street, past where the turning for the Maltings is now, was a big house on the corner where the Vineys lived. Next to them was Curtis’, then Mrs. Cundick and then us. Top side of us was the Pearces and the Fears, and then there was the Malthouse. There was a Wesleyan Mission Hall behind the houses. You got to that up a little alleyway between the cottages. Our house was on the town side of that alley.”
“Harraway’s nurseries were situated where they’ve built the Sambourne Gardens estate of houses and bungalows now. There were quite a few men working in the gardens. They included Harold Sanger, Bill Scott, and a fellow called Holton who lived down the Common.”
“I had to do all sorts in the gardens, like hoeing and digging. One job Mr. Harraway gave me was to earth up some potatoes. He thought what I did was wonderful. He said he had never seen potatoes earthed up like I did. Then he asked me if I could use a scythe. I said ‘I can use one but I’m no expert at it.’ He said ‘I’ve got a lot of grass over at my house at Sambourne Road that wants cutting down. If you would like to have a go at that you come over for an hour or a couple of hours each night and get some overtime.’ That’s what I did. I was glad to get some overtime. Mr. Harraway’s house was near the cricket field. It’s used as a nursing home today. I got on alright at Harraway’s. I got on famous with Mr. Harraway. I rather liked working for him but it would have been nicer if the money had been a bit better.”
“I knew a man in those days who had a lorry and did the hauling for the brickworks at Crockerton. He came and saw me one day. He said ‘Ere, do you want a better job?’ I said ‘Yes, I could do with one. What is it?’ He said ‘It’s a lorry driver’s job. The brickyard at Crockerton is going to buy a lorry and they’re going to do their own hauling.’ So I went and saw the foreman at the brickyard, Jim Pinchin. He was alright. He said ‘There’s a lorry coming, it’s a Commer. You can have the job.’ I told Mr. Harraway I had been offered a better job with more money. You probably won’t believe me but Mr. Harraway said ‘That’s alright, I understand but if you can’t get on with the job you’re going to, come back here. I’ll have you back.”
“A lot of people worked at the brickyard. Mr. Hankey was the manager. I think he lived at Victoria Road, Warminster. The brickyard was where Normans Supermarket is now. Those lakes in the garden centre, out at Normans, is where they used to dig out the clay for making the bricks. They put the clay in little skips on a miniature railway which took it to the top of a big hopper. The clay was ground down in the hopper and it came out of there in brick shapes. They were in long pieces and someone had a thing to cut it in brick sizes. They were then put on a concrete floor which was heated by steam. The bricks were stacked on there like a chimney. They were stacked up high to dry. The bricks were dried outside in an open-sided shed with hurdles around. If they wanted to dry the bricks quicker they took the hurdles away. If they dried them too quick the bricks would crack or burn. That’s how they dried them and then they went upstairs into the kiln to be baked.”
“They made thousands and thousands of bricks. The staff used to push about 80 bricks on a trolley at a time. They’d stack the bricks up outside. It was hard work. That was nearly all Welsh men doing that. They had come from Wales to work there.”
“The brick-yard got took over by a firm and this firm had a German kiln built. It used to bake hundreds of bricks at a time. The kiln was a big thing. It was nearly as long as this rank of houses I’m living in. Actually, this house, where I live now, at Bradley Road, is made of Crockerton bricks.”
“I drove the lorry for a while. Jim Pinchin and his wife lived at Christ Church Terrace in Warminster. They didn’t have any children of their own but they had a girl that they brought up. She got married and her husband, Jim Pinchin’s son-in-law, kept on about how he wanted to drive the lorry. Eventually Jim come and saw me and he spoke to me very nicely. He said ‘I shall have to let him drive the lorry. You know what it is, he’s married to my daughter and I shall have to agree to it.’ The son-in-law was Don Miles. He lived up West Street or Victoria Road way. Jim said to me ‘We shan’t sack you. You won’t be out of work. We’ll give you another job, looking after the boiler at night times.’
“I had no choice. I didn’t want to be out of work. So I had about a year looking after the boiler. That was the boiler for drying the bricks before they went in the kiln. Nobody showed me what to do. I simply had to keep the steam at a certain pressure. On the side of the boiler was what they called an injector. If the current did go back I switched the injector on and filled it up with water again. One morning, early, I couldn’t get that injector to work and the boiler started blowing the danger whistle. I had to rake the fire out. The day man came before I left. His name was George Blagdon. When he arrived I went and saw Jim Pinchen and told him how I couldn’t get the injector to work. He said ‘That’s alright.’ He sorted it out. They got water in with a hosepipe. Another man came. He was an engineer. Near the boiler was running water. This man fixed up a pump to pump water into the boiler all the time, very steady. That ensured the problem wouldn’t happen again.”
“The boiler was fired with small coal. That was kept in a big high place and there were channels to run the coal through. A man named Charlie Payne worked at night, seeing to the coal, and he had like a scoop, a bucket with a scoop on. He used to walk around, take the cover off, tip some coal in, and move on to the next one, and so on. He was continually keeping it stocked up with coal.”
“I looked after the boiler from six in the evening until seven o’clock the next morning. The manager, Mr. Hankey, wasn’t very nice towards me. He was the boss and he never let me forget that. He would come down every night and find me something else to do. He thought I didn’t do anything at night. He’d say ‘When you’ve got time I want you to do this and I want you to do that.’ Eventually it got round to boiler cleaning. It had to be shut down and we had to get inside to check it. We had to climb up the flues to clean them. Another bloke came to help. He was new. He only had to look on while I did all the graft. When it came to being paid extra for cleaning the boiler I never had half so much as him. I went and saw Hankey. He said ‘If you’re not satisfied you know what you can do.’ I said ‘Yes, I do, I’ll leave now, right now.’ He said ‘I can’t give you your cards right at this moment, you’ll have to come back for them.’ I said ‘That’s alright, I’ll come back for them.’
“I went up Warminster Camp. Chivers were building the camp and I got a job straight away. I saw young Chivers. I asked for a lorry driver’s job. He said ‘We haven’t got a lorry here at the moment but there’s one coming any day and you can drive that if you want.’ I went on for Chivers labouring for a few days. I operated a concrete paver, doing the parade grounds. Then the lorry came. I drove that for a little while and then they bought one of the first big caterpillar tractors with a scraper. It was called a D7. Chivers came to me and said he wanted me to drive it. I said ‘I’ve never drove a tractor like that.’ He said ‘You’ve done everything else we asked you to do.’ They were ready to prepare the site to build the REME Workshops. They said ‘There’s a man down there who will show you what to do.’ I went down and had a go with the tractor. An instructor came with the machine. They had two drivers lined up but they chose me. The foreman said ‘You’ll do. Go home and have your tea and come back and start the night shift.’ I had to drive that tractor and scraper on night shifts. I took to it okay. I levelled the site. It was all chalk in what was just fields. You picked up a scraper-full in a few minutes. There was a handle with a wire rope you pulled when you wanted to tip it. The rope went to the back of the scraper. The front lifted up and dropped the load out. As it went down it would go bang. There was a man called Major Channer living at Woodcock House. He kicked up a fuss. He said the banging was keeping him awake at night. We had to stop for a bit, not to upset him, and then we carried on.”
“After that they wanted to build the mobilisation stores. I had to go there. Again this was working nights. I got there with the scraper and the gateway wasn’t wide enough. They said ‘We’ll get someone to dig the gateposts out.’ I said ‘You don’t want to bother with that.’ I stuck the bull nose of the scraper against the posts and pushed ’em out, just like that. I went on night shifts levelling the site. There was another chap, called Snowy, who drove the tractor during the day. The foreman told me I was better than Snowy. He said I did more at night than he did during the day. There was a line of pollarded trees which had to come out. I pushed them out the way with no difficulty.”
“Eventually Chivers wanted me to go away. They finished building the camp and the work was done. I had to go driving the tractor at Bulford. They wouldn’t pay no lodgings. I had to pay my own lodgings and I had a family at home to feed. Eventually I said ‘I’m going home.’ Snowy went up there to do it but he wasn’t there very long before Chivers sent me for again. I had to go to Weyhill, near Andover. That was building an airforce place. Then we went on to various places and eventually I got to near Shrewsbury, to a place called Condover. I lodged in a little village called Bayston Hill. I was there for ten months. I returned home once every eight weeks. That was supposed to be from Friday night until Monday morning. I didn’t go back on Monday mornings. I always went back on Tuesday mornings. They were going to sack me and do all sorts because of that. I used to send money home to my wife by registered post. She wasn’t happy about me being away. It was war time and she was ill a lot of the time. My daughter Beryl had to look after her.”
“Eventually Chivers bought a bigger caterpillar tractor. It was a D8 and it had a 15 yard scraper. I was still near Shrewsbury when Chivers sent word to me. I had to drive the D8. Lots of blokes wanted to drive it but I got the job. It picked up 15 cubic yards of top soil in a matter of minutes and we dumped it where it was wanted.”
“I had to go to lots of different places including Northampton. I’ve lost count of the places I went to. I finished up in Cornwall, at Helston. The wife was ill and I was away from home. I couldn’t leave of my own accord because I was on essential works. The doctor got me released from Chivers. I came home and my son David was working at John Wallis Titt’s. He got me a job there. That helped me with my release, because that was essential works too. I worked on the waterworks side at Titt’s and I was there 25 years.”
“There was a man called Bill Curtis working at Titt’s when I went there first of all. He was my brother-in-law (one of my wife’s brothers) and he had been there a long time. His son, Hubert, also worked there, and so did Don Miles and Toby Maxfield. Les Price was the foreman. He was alright to work for. He’d say ‘I want you to go so and so place this morning.’ I’d say ‘Where’s that? I don’t know where that is, Les.’ He’d say ‘Yes you do, you’ve been there before.’ I’d say ‘I haven’t. I don’t know where it is.’ So, Les would then draw me a map on the back of an envelope.”
“We had to go round putting the water on the farms. Sometimes someone else would go and dig the trench out and I would go and lay the pipe. On one occasion we had to go out to Tisbury and put in a pipe. That was three-quarters galvanised pipe. The trench was already dug. We had a van with the pipes on top, on a rack. I said to my mate, Victor Powell, who later lived up Cobbett Place, ‘We won’t go out in the field because it’s growing corn. We’ll carry the pipes down two at a time.’ He carried two and dropped them where they were wanted. I carried two and dropped one in place. The other one was the wrong way round for the socket for the joint. I had it on my shoulder. I held it up to turn it round and it touched against an overhead cable. 32,000 volts shot down the pipe and through me. I had a pair of thick boots on which saved me but I was thrown to the floor. The pipe fell on my shoulder and was still burning into me. I thought ‘This is it.’ Vic brought the van down and got me up in it. He could drive. He drove the van into Tisbury and went into a chemist’s shop and asked what he should do. The chemist said ‘I can’t tell you but if you go up the top of the hill to the big house, there’s an old retired doctor lives there and he’ll tell you what to do.’ Vic saw the doctor and told him what had happened. The doctor came out to the van to see me. He said to Vic ‘Get him to hospital as soon as you can but don’t excite him.’ I wasn’t well enough to get excited. Vic drove me to Warminster Hospital. Sister Adcock took me into a little room and I had to lay on a bed. She picked all the material from my vest and shirt out of the burn and put a big plaster over it. She saw to the blisters on my feet. I had survived 32,000 volts. It was a miracle. I was lucky.”
“Later on I had my shoulder dressed. Dr. Bartholomew came in. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘You’re the chap who should be dead.’ None of the doctors could make out how I wasn’t killed. It happened on a Tuesday. On the Friday red streaks came up on my legs. I told the nurse and she told the Sister who told the Doctor. He said ‘Penicillin, so many thousand units.’ I was given penicillin every four hours for eight days. They thought I was going to lose my legs. My feet turned to hard skin.”
“I was in hospital eight weeks. It was a long time before the wound to my shoulder healed up. The bandage on my shoulder had been on for several weeks and it started to smell. I told the nurse. She said ‘I mustn’t touch it. I’ll get sister.’ Nobody came. The same nurse came back just before dinner time. I asked her again about it. She said ‘I’ll go and see Sister again.’ That sister came down in such a huff. She said ‘You’re lucky to get a dinner today because I’m in charge today.’ I said ‘Don’t bother then.’ I told her about the bandage. I said ‘I can smell it and when visitors come they’ll smell it too.’ She said ‘Alright, I’ll change it.’ I said ‘You needn’t bother.’ She went and got a trolley with the dressings. She caught hold of the bandage on my shoulder and pulled that off. I nearly went up through the roof. I’m covered in hairs, so you can imagine what that was like. She never said sorry or anything. That was the worse part. When I came out of hospital I thanked the nurses. I said ‘I hope I haven’t been too much trouble.’ They said ‘You haven’t been a bit of trouble. We only wish we had more like you.”
“I went back to work at Titt’s and eventually I took on the boring machine, boring for water. I drilled a bore hole on Salisbury Racecourse. It was 540 feet deep. While I was there the chisel that went on the bottom of the drill, that did the boring, broke off. It had a tapered thread. He broke off from the bar. It was just as if it had been shaved off. We had to try and get it out. I had to put over 500 feet of two-inch pipe down the hole with a latch tool on the end. Luckily I got hold of it first time. We gradually pulled it up, to take it off the pipe. I said to my mate ‘The minute he comes out of the hole, you push it to one side so that it doesn’t fall down the hole again.’ As it came out of the hole someone said something. That was Mr. Frost, Titt’s boss, come to see what we were doing. He said ‘Well done, Lapham.’ If they had to buy a new one it would have cost them nearly £90. They sent the one I got out back to the firm that made it and they put a new thread on. I don’t know what that cost but it was probably nothing like the price of a new one.”
“I worked at John Wallis Titt’s until I retired. The job was alright but I didn’t earn much money. I did 25 years with Titt’s and they gave me a clock as a leaving present. I was 65 when I retired. I had reached retirement age but I went up Hudson & Martin’s part time, looking after the yard and being a general help. I had to keep the yard tidy. I used to brush it with a long-handled brush. I did all sorts of jobs like cleaning up the showroom. I went up there in the mornings and I enjoyed it. I got on alright. I did that for 13 years. My daughter Beryl was pretty bad and I said I would stop home to look after her. I saw the boss, Owen Dicker, one Saturday morning and told him. I said ‘I want to give my notice in.’ He said ‘You can leave of course but we’d like you to stay and we will never give you the sack.’ I wished I hadn’t had to leave. I could have stopped there I think until now. They reckoned that yard was never the same afterwards.”
“Throughout my life I never ever earned big money and I always worked hard. When I was 14 I had to hump coal about, and corn, and that was two hundredweight sacks. It was hard work. I had to work hard or I would have starved. People have got it easier today. There’s no doubt about that. My generation had to graft for little reward. My father used to say there was never a fortune made out of hard work.”
“Father died on 25th August 1958. He was 84. He died at Alcock Crest. That’s where he was living in the finish. He’s buried in the churchyard at North Row. I don’t know what my father would say if he was alive now. The world is crazy now.”
“I don’t know what to think of the world today. I read the paper and watch tv. The people on the telly are overpaid. I get fed up with it. Like now there’s too much football on television because the World Cup is on. It’s getting on my nerves. I turn it off. I read in the paper today that there’s 50,000 English men gone to France to watch the football. I should think the place will sink. The football they play today is rubbish. I used to enjoy a game of football. I used to watch it. Warminster had a first team, a reserves team, and Christ Church had a team too. Christ Church, one year, won everything. They won the league and they won the six-a-side tournament. They were a good team.”
“I don’t know why I have lived to be nearly 93. I put it down to hard work. I’ve always had good health apart from the pneumonia. I smoked for several years. I smoked a pipe at one time. I had a pipe with a little green stone like an emerald. I used to say it was the eye of the little green god. I used to buy cigarettes at Myall’s shop at Warminster Common. A packet of cigarettes didn’t cost much. I used to smoke a packetful in next to no time. I thought to myself I can’t go on like this. So I decided to give up. I started to have mints instead. Everytime I felt like having a cigarette I had a mint instead. That’s how I gave up and I have never smoked since. That was in 1945. I don’t think smoking had any effect on me. I don’t know what to think about whether smoking is bad or not. Old Tom Payne smoked a pipe. He smoked Black Bell tobacco and that was strong. He smoked all his life. He lived until he was 94. It didn’t do him any harm.”
“I’ve lived here at Bradley Road for 58 years. The house we were living in at Pound Street had only two bedrooms and by 1940 I had two boys and a girl. So we had to get a three-bedroom house. Dr. Graham Campbell got us this house. We had our name down on the council list. Before we came here there was someone called Ovens living here. They moved out and we moved in. The house had only been built about four years when we came here. It was built in 1936 I think. This used to be known as The Tyning. My house was No.7 The Tyning.”
“I can remember who the neighbours were when I first came here. The top house was Barclays, then Foreman, then Mrs. Clifford, and then Jim Biddle and his mother and father and two sisters. The next one was Hutchings. Ingram was next door to us. The other side was Granny Pinnell. The next one was Jiggy Fry, then Sargoods, then Squeaker Hill, and then Mr. and Mrs. Booth and their family. Where my daughter Beryl lives now was somebody called Harrison and next to there was Mr. and Mrs. Payne and family. Down the bottom were the Finchs, the Grists, Mrs. Mead, and Jack Carpenter. Freestones and Farleys looked down Bread Street, and next to them were Nix and Yeates. None of those people are living here now. Only us. Mrs. Yeates was the last one to leave. She’s 94 now and they moved her up to Woodmead.”
“My wife died 23 years ago. She died on 5th April 1975. She was 72 years old. She had been ill for a long time, ever since our son Tony was born. She didn’t have very good health. She had appendicitis when she was a girl. When she was living at Bradley Road she had to have a full hysterectomy. Then she had stones and she had to have an operation on her gall bladder. You should have seen the stones. They gave them to her to bring home. She kept them. You know like this big yellow gravel you can get? They were just like that. There was a very big one they kept because it was so out of the ordinary. It had like a claw on it. She wanted that. She said ‘It’s mine, I’ve got a right to it,’ but they kept it because it was so unusual. When you saw those stones you knew what agony she must have gone through. In the end she didn’t even know us. She had diabetes and it affected the blood to her brain. It was a bit grim. One day she looked at her daughter Beryl. She said ‘Who be you?’ Beryl said ‘I’m your Beryl.’ She said You’re not,’ and she started crying. She said ‘My little Beryl hasn’t come home from school yet. I want my little Beryl.’ She was going right back. It was very sad. She’s buried at Pine Lawns. We had four children. Three boys and a girl. Wilf came first, then Dave, then Beryl and then Tony.”
“When I was working for Chivers I got Wilf a job with them. He took on the same job as me, driving tractors and machinery. He drove all sorts of machinery like big excavators. When he got called up he went in the School of Airfield Construction. That was up north somewhere. I forget the name of the place. He wasn’t in it long before he was made a sergeant-instructor. He used to have to teach some Polish blokes and they used to make out they couldn’t understand what he was saying. When he told them what to do they’d say ‘That’s all wrong.’ His bosses didn’t want him to leave. They wanted him to stay on when demob time came. He wouldn’t stay. He was stationed near Stockport and that’s where he picked up with the girl who became his wife. He didn’t come back to Warminster to live. That broke my wife’s heart. He had left home at 14. He did come back to visit but not to stay. Me and the wife went up to Stockport several times to see him for a week at a time. That was the only holidays the wife and I ever had in our lives. I drove up to Stockport. I hired a car. I never took a test but my driving licence covered practically everything except public service vehicles and heavy goods.”
“My second son David worked at the London Central Meat Company’s butcher’s shop in Warminster when he left school. When he got called up he went in the Army Service Corps. For a trade test he had to make an axle for a lorry. He had to make a model of it and when he came out he passed everything. He was perfect in every way. He was clever. Eventually he got a job at John Wallis Titt’s as a blacksmith and welder. He was good at his job. He was very clever. He retired early. He wasn’t retired all that long when he died. He was only 62. He was cremated.”
“When my David died they reckoned I had a mild stroke as a reaction. The doctor said ‘You’d better have a day or two in hospital.’ I was in there eight or nine weeks. I wasn’t in pain or anything. Eventually I came out. I thanked them. I take a half a soluble aspirin every night to keep it under control.”
“At one time my youngest son Tony worked for a Mr. Webb on a farm at Dilton. Then he went to John Wallis Titt’s. Then he went to Hudson & Martin’s to work. Then he went up the REME. Tony died not long ago [29th October 1997]. He had an accident up at the REME. I’ve never been told exactly what happened. It was something to do with a machine for washing the oil and grease off the engines. I don’t know if he fell in it or what. He was in the Fire Brigade. He went to all those fires and accidents, without a scratch, and then he had to die the way he did.”
“My daughter Beryl went to work for a little while at the Silk Factory in Warminster when she left school. Then she had to stop home and look after her mother and Tony. I applied to get some money to pay Beryl for looking after them but I was told no because she was my daughter. If I had employed an outside housekeeper they would have paid wages. Beryl is now Mrs. Pearce. She is good to me. She lives nearby and she looks after me.”
“All three of the boys have gone. I’ve outlived all three of my sons, my brother, two of my sisters and my wife. The only thing I regret now is that I can’t do my garden. I’m afraid of falling. Well, I have fallen down once or twice. I used to like gardening. I used to have this garden and a strip of allotment. When the wife was alive and the children were young we used to grow potatoes and beans and cabbage and everything.”
“I believe in God. When I went as a boy to Granny Parker’s at Sutton Veny we always went to Chapel next door to her house on a Sunday. My mother and father used to go to the Congregational Chapel in Warminster. After my mother died my father and stepmother used to go to the Baptist Chapel. When the wife and I lived at Pound Street we used to go to the Wesleyan Chapel next door to us.”
“If I had my time over again I wouldn’t change anything. I think I’ve had a good life. I’ve still got a good life. I go up to Beckford once a week. I like it there. It makes a change and there’s different people to speak to. It keeps me going.”