Sonning, Lock 1890

Great Great Great Grandad James Sadler

To be honest this isn't a memory, more like a discovery whilst compiling our family tree with a new-found family member Jim (also James) Sadler. My G.G.G.Grandad was James Sadler, born 1815, father of 5, Lock Keeper from 1845-1885 or thereabouts. When he died in 1885 his son Thomas William Sadler took over. Maybe if Thomas had any sons then the Lock Keeping may have stayed in the family? As it is, and as far as I am aware, Thomas and his Wife Eliza Sadler nee Warner had two daughters Lilian and Flora.

The Royal Oak public house and my cousins

When I lived in Twyford and surrounding areas between when I was born in 1944 and when I moved away from the area in 1971, much of my time was spent in Twyford. My uncle, aunt and my cousins lived in Norton Cottage, which was situated 20 yards from this side of the Royal Oak, and set back from London Road shown in this photo. The house between the Royal Oak and Norton cottage belonged to Mr and Mrs Jones, who were always good neighbours to my uncle and his family. When the area was 'developed', I think in the 1970s or early 1980s (I'm not sure exactly when) the Royal Oak, the Jones's family house and Norton Cottage were all demolished to make way for the new shops and public house, for which I think they kept the name of the Royal Oak. I remember going into the new pub with my cousin in the 1990s and where we were stood at the bar, he said that that was approximately where their old front door had stood.
From the year of 1962 the Royal Oak was used by myself, my cousins and most of the young men and women of the village as our local. This was mainly because it contained a juke box and it had a good atmosphere, very few older people used the pub. Most of the other pubs, of which there were many in Twyford, at least ten from my memory, catered for an older clientele, so I have lots of good memories from that era. At that time the pubs had to shut at 10.30pm during the week and 11.00 pm Fridays and Saturdays, so quite often a gang of us would go back to my cousin's house 20 yards away and have a few beers there before we all went off to our respective homes. Although at that time there were no breatholisers being used, because we all lived locally, nobody had the need to drive home. But at some weekends (due to the fact that the police only prosecuted anyone for driving under the influence if they were unable to walk a white line drawn in the police station) we had competitions to see who could drink the most amount of alcohol and still walk a chalk line drawn on the floor of the pub. Happy days!

The Polehampton Schools

I think this picture could show  Mr Farthing who was a teacher at the Boys School, near the railway bridge. When I was walking to and from the girls' school at the other end of the village I often used to meet him rolling along, puffing his pipe. I had schoolfriends who lived at public houses on the High Street. One pub was the Duke of Wellington - the name of the other escapes me. You can see a baker's shop. I won't divulge the name of the baker, but I can remember his dog devouring the icing off one of their birthday cakes. Mrs. H., his wife confided to us that they had re-iced it it, because they didn't like to waste a good cake! (I don't think we bought cakes there after that.)  I remember the mill at the bottom of the street being decorated for the Coronation. One of a group of passing cyclists commented, "Gosh, they've even heard about it here!" Perhaps it was a sleepy place half a century ago.