Amersham
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With thanks to Bob Stonnel for providing the below dissertation, originally presented in 2001
Gentlemen, it is, perhaps, a curious coincidence that
something that occurs in my life only once every seventy years should
happen to fall on this day. It is nevertheless a fact that seventy years
ago my father scribbled at the top of the page in his ledger for 14th of
March 1931, 'Bob born today' - a document that remains extant to this day
as a reminder that 'Business is business'. The event took place across the
street from this very building, at number sixty High Street, which
consisted of the house and shop-front (To be known later as the 'Daisy
Shop' through no fault of mine!).
High Street, Old Amersham
George the Fifth still had a few years to go, unaware of the burden of his
newest Subject, and my father continued to keep his three-wheeled Morgan
parked in the lee of the town hall. With the arrival of a second addition
to the family the car had to be changed for something more spacious in the
form of an Austin Six, in which the family would frequently set-off on the
fourteen mile journey to visit my mother's parents at Aylesbury. The
yellowy headlights piercing the darkness, illuminated the grass verge for
a full ten yards ahead.
I spent a great deal of my childhood billeted on my grandparents, with
lasting impressions. Grandfather had been a painter and decorator, largely
employed by the Rothschilds, quite gifted as an artist and known to be a
formidable bare-fist fighter. A plain speaking man, though some
expressions he used were a bit obscure. He would for example say "I cut
him athirt the grinsard" meaning 'I knocked him flying'.
It took me years to interpret those words fully. When the car was not
turned towards Aylesbury it would often be to Brighton for the day or
weekend. 'London by the sea' was a place of the utmost excitement,
particularly at Christmas time, and on such occasions as the Jubilee and
Coronation, when the trams were a blaze of coloured lights with
light-bejeweled gold crowns at front and back. The great central showpiece
of night-time Brighton was the Old Stein fountain with its tiers of
cascading colour, delighting the mind of a five-year old.
Occasionally we would call, by the way, on Mrs. Pinnock, or Aunty Pin, as
we knew her; a slightly Bohemian artist and a 'Dab- hand' with the Fret
saw, who lived in a quaint caravan, on a farm, high on the Downs at
Patcham. I particularly remember the farm boys flinging open the barn
doors to show us the dozens and dozens of startled rats fleeing in all
directions,
With the subject of Aunty Pin introduced, I can now turn the narrative
back to Amersham where she is the key to a minor mystery arising from one
of Jean Archer's ancient photographs of the town. There is a view taken
from the alleyway between the two former rows of cottages in the Broadway,
looking towards London. A ghostly figure appears in the background,
obviously the result of double exposure, which hitherto no one has
accounted for. I can now reveal, for the very first time that the image is
of a girl in a black bonnet and green crinoline, obviously taken from
outside the Malt Tea House, from the road.
The girl was, in fact, a half-inch plywood board, about four feet high.
There were two, one facing each way to advertise the tea rooms, and were
made by Aunty Pin. She also made two miniature versions, as letter racks,
which graced our mantle-pieces for many years.
Across the road dwelt Aunty Pin. A frail and sickly woman, much
disappointed with life, and married to an R.F.C/ R.A.F. Squadron Leader,
who I believe I saw only once, he spending most of his life serving
abroad. As I remember. Uncle Pat was quite tall, much sun - tanned and
wrinkled, bearing a close resemblance to Walter Pidgen. Aunt Pin lived in
Norwood Yard to the rear of Butler & Pike's offices, together with
cousin Teddy who, at the age of six, was without doubt the most sadistic
and vindictive character I have ever known in my life. He took every
opportunity to maim and torture any form of life, including human. On one
occasion he hit my elder brother on the head with a hammer, and ran for
his life as my father, witnessing the affair, sent Graham speeding after
him as he raced along the Broadway to regain the safety of Norwood Yard
where Auntie Pin, as he knew, would never believe a word against him.
When Pin died, shortly after, Teddy disappeared from our lives into the
wide world and never re-appeared. As for Uncle Pat, where, when and how he
died we know not. The Air Ministry were very circumspect in their answers
to my mother's enquiries. My sister Grace and I have his books, and many
pieces of brassware that he collected in the Middle East and India. I also
have a photograph of his squadron of bi-plane bombers, which he took from
the cockpit, looking across the starboard wing. Written on the back are
the words. "Taken by myself, at 10,000 feet, on return to Dhibban from San
Armadin in Iraq. July 1937".
In the middle thirties life was fairly placid, at least for our family.
Hitter's rantings were just an odd noise on the wireless, though
Grandfather would frequently mutter about "The poor bloody Jews", and
there was as yet no talk of war. Everything was taken for granted, by
children at least. We knew that a bar of chocolate cost 'tuppence', and
you could buy close on a thousand fireworks for a pound - if all you
wanted were 'fizzers' or loud bangs cost twice as much.
Whielden Street, Old Amersham
Old Mr. Cundell presided over his little shop in Whielden Street, a kindly
and very military looking man. From his high stool behind the firework -
packed glass counter, he would lean across and gaze down at my diminutive
form and thunder out "What the bloody hell do you want young Stonell?" His
son Peter was a close friend of my brother and when Peter moved away from
Amersham a few years later, I didn't see him again for over fifty years,
when Audrey and I moved to our present home in Monks Risborough and found
him living next door.
In the late summer the tramp would make his annual appearance, passing
through the town in regular orbit, like Haley's comet. He had a long
growth of grey beard and carried a small bundle, but never seemed to stop
anywhere.
By Thirteenth Century Charter, the town would also be visited annually by
the great London & Brighton Fair, gradually accumulating on the
outskirts of the town, ready to move in to begin setting-up on September
18th, to 'Open' during the 19th, 20th, and 21st. This was a time of great
excitement as the huge trailers drawn by traction engines, which provided
the generator power, maneuvered their loads from Whielden Street round
through the narrow gap past the old cottages by Whitesides, turning right
into the Broadway, or left to the High Street and beyond. The complete
assembly stretched the length of the town from the enormous roundabout,
always set up at the Aylesbury end of the High Street, to the boxing booth
by the old Amersham bus garages (now B 6 M Motors). By the 23rd all trace
of it would be gone.
Picture Courtesy of Pete Wood - The fair in the 1940s
While we lived at number sixty High Street, a succession of housemaids
were engaged to manage us children, and with whom we remained on a
constant war footing. We would regularly raid the incumbent's little room
overlooking the Street, while they sought opportunities to even things up
such means as propelling their pram-full of responsibilities into the
Misbourne, which ran past the end of the garden.
The river afforded us much amusement catching stickle-backs, gudgeons,
newts and so-on. A rickety plank bridge formed a convenient access to the
buttercup-rich meadows beyond. By the time we moved to the Broadway, my
father was persuaded that maids were far from cost effective. Meanwhile,
the childrens' meals were presided over by mother, as we all sat at the
round kitchen table. Against the white washed wall adorned with rows of
Robertson's golliwogs, a cane was kept handy, with which Mother could
reach any of us.
My principal talent, as a child, rested in my ability to up-set my father.
A former member of the Amersham Boxing Club, from which he had retired
following a salutary encounter with the Star of that celebrated society,
he was fanatically concerned with the family's health, to which end, we
were all subject to the regime of drinking milk. The morning milk crate
contained two quarts, and three half-pints, later four when younger
brother James came off 'draught'.
The majority of my confrontations with Father were to do with milk, which
I thoroughly disliked from my earliest infancy. Why it is that parents
regard a child's dislike of particular foods as other than natural
instinct and deserving of investigation I don't know, but being regarded
as purely recalcitrant, my continual resistance to it was met with
increasingly violent reactions as Father's frustration mounted over the
years. He once pushed my head into a bowl of Cornflakes, and I still
refused it. Later on, I was thrown like a bundle from the bottom to the
top of the stairs. After a lifetime of unaccountable stomach disorders I
was informed by Andy Sapsford that I was lactose intolerant, or to put it
another way, I didn't like milk.
If such was my principle talent, stoicism became my chief characteristic.
Among the several women who found roles in my cultivation, each one of
whom was tall, thin and entirely clothed in black, Mrs. Sidney of Chequers
Hill remains the most memorable. She would sweep down to the town on a
large black bicycle, like a witch from the clouds, to shop, or call upon
the family, to whom she was devoted. " How's my Bobby?" she would say, in
her deep purring voice, and clasp me to her black skirts leaving me in
momentary darkness and eyes watering from the strong smell of Camphor.
Mysterious negotiations would often ensue, resulting in my being
'dropped-off by my father, at 'Broadview', Chequers Hill, for a few hours,
or days. I was quite used to being 'dropped-off in this manner, to be
harboured by sundry keepers such as Auntie Julia, at 'Chigwell' in Stanley
Hill, or Auntie VI at 7, The Ridgeway, for reasons I never understood.
Mrs. Sidney was a widowed District Nurse, who operated diverse
'sidelines.' She had a large long wooden shed built at the side of the
house where she billeted paying guests, usually itinerant workmen.
I once had to spend the night in there when there were no customers, and
the family, Margaret and Fred, were home for the night. I was scared
"witless', there being only one thing visible in the darkness, a small,
half-watt lamp with a spiral filament that glowed very dimly, and the
whole place smelt of Creosote. Having survived the night, I was faced with
having to eat a basin of bread and hot milk for breakfast, because it was
' Good for you'.
Margaret had survived a term as one of our housemaids, and Fred's destiny
was revealed a few years later in a letter from Mrs. Sidney to my father,
after my brother was killed at the age of thirteen, in which she mourned
her own loss of Fred who had "Gone Native in Borneo". Those soul-cleansing
visits to Mrs. Sidney were highlighted by the fact that I was usually
returned to the fold on the pillion of the monster bicycle. As my little
legs dangled down, the spinning spokes would drag my socks down and peel
the skin off my ankles. For some reason I regarded such trials as the Norm
in life, and was thankful when, after a few trips, somebody noticed the
blood oozing from my socks.
While Sunday mornings were sacrificed to Sunday school at the church
rooms, the afternoons were lost to piano lessons. The great burden of
Sunday was the necessity to remain 'Dressed-up' all day, worsened by the
arduous ceremony of manicuring, in respect of which my mother was
fanatical. We would each be painfully processed, nails cut, sanded and
buffed, cuticles ruthlessly pushed back to show the' moons' properly,
before taking our place on the settee ready for the ordeal of the 'Piano
Teacher'. Mrs. Kewley was, of course, tall, thin, dressed entirely in
black, and at the 'Hat-pin' age.
With fingers stinging we would be called forth, each in turn, Graham, me
then Grace, James being too young was left to annoy the cat. We each had a
music book according to age and progress, though I never mastered the
simple notes of the 'Goblin's Dance" in the first tutor, and the whole
business served to put me off piano playing for life. This further widened
the gap between my father and me, as he was an ardent player having led a
successful dance-band called The Optimists, operating in the Watford area
in the Twenties'.
My mother was gifted with a most powerful contralto voice, which really
should have been turned to professional account. The house constantly rang
with 'Cherry Ripe', and she would often blast us out of bed in the morning
with ' the sun is a shining to welcome the day, with a 'Hey-no, etc.: She
and father were frequently called upon to entertain at parties and public
gatherings.
In the late thirties, the house would, on occasion, be invaded by the
scout troop for Gang Show rehearsals. Thirty odd scouts would come piling
up the stairs past our bedroom door to cram into the first-floor sitting
room for an evening of 'Riding High', and 'Crest of a Wave", sung with
incredible gusto and volume. It's small wonder that I still remember the
words.
The Griffin, Old Amersham
Our premises at 23 Broadway, adjoined the Griffin Hotel, whose dining room
window looked out onto our Yard. We were bounded on the other side by Fred
Edgington's tunnel shaped grocery shop, and linked by a bedroom over the
coaching arch leading to our yard and stabling buildings, beyond which the
garden led up to the wall of Wilson's Farm. Fred's sitting room was, like
ours, on the first floor, but had the distinction of sloping from one
corner, diagonally across to the other to a depth of one foot, which
presented novel implications for furniture. Their eldest daughter Brenda
was another female who referred to me as 'My Bobby". I last saw her about
ten years ago, a delightful woman, quite unaware of the risks she ran at
the age of seven. Permanent residents at the Griffin at that time were
J.H. Squire and his daughter Dorothy. (Note
- Madeleine Robertson Squire has kindly pointed out that Dorothy was
actually J H Squire's second wife - Ed). He was a well-known
musician, broadcasting frequently with his orchestra. As their regular
dining table was the one in the window, we were exhorted by my mother to
behave properly in the yard, especially at mealtimes, because 'He' was 'On
the wireless".
Early in 1939, my father arrived home, one day, with a different car,
leaving it parked in the road outside. We all rushed up to the sitting
room to gaze down on the most beautiful car we had ever seen. In an age
when cars were black, we were astounded to see one in light grey; a 'Ford
Ten Coupe', with the hood folded away, setting off the red leather
upholstery. To us, it was breath-taking. Father had paid ninety pounds for
it; ran it all through the war until the gear box was so ragged that the
gear lever would fall, under its own weight, from 'first ' to 'second' or
'third' to 'fourth', just by pushing in the clutch. He sold it in 1946 for
two hundred and forty pounds to a man in Highfield Close, who paid him in
white "fivers' from the pile that spilled out on the floor when he opened
the sideboard door.
The following August we set off for a week's holiday staying with mother's
relatives, the Ogilveys, at Redcar, where the night sky was lit up by the
Satanic red glow of the distant blast furnaces, and the tide receded for a
mile. After a few days it became clear that the country was on the brink
of War, and on the third of September we were roused at four o'clock in
the morning to ' set-off ' for home. The following day we clustered round
Mother to see the banner headlines in the paper, 'England Declares War on
Germany'. She spoke fearfully about 'Bombing'. Father set us to work
helping to dig an air-raid shelter in the long back garden, hewing large
steps down through the reeking yellow clay and flint stones. After a few
days, Graham and I, lying in bed looking through the window, saw the sky
light up over the stables. "Searchlights ", said Graham jumping out of
bed. We went to the window and watched the practicing fingers of light
sweeping back and forth. The Thirties' were over, and a very different Era
had begun.
Copyright R.A. Stonell March 2001
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