Trades Early Twenties

A Memory of Billericay.

Early Twenties.
I can remember, because most tradesmen used a pony & trap to vendor their wares. The pony needed to have space to relax, eat and so forth. Billericay had a brick field pug dug out and made into bricks. It used a pony to pull the rail track tub carts of the pug. The owner had a few fields, where his, and other tradesmen tendered their ponies - or they had freedom to wander around other fields. All small fields would be kept for making hay and fodder for the animals. I lived in a bungalow next to a hay field, and early in the year, grass became plentiful and long. 1924-25 summers were very hot ,turning grass into straw. Through a hole in the hedge, I would watch two men with scythes cut it, a bulk a few feet wide in a strip, end to end of the field. Staggered apart, the pair would kind of dance along, one several feet in front of the other for safety. A day or two, back they would come, raking in long swirls,the dried out straw, a repeat of the turning next day. Now it would be called hay. It was pulled together into small haycocks, round and easy to load onto a cart, I was only three or four at this time
Boughtwood the butcher, had a tub cart-trap pony pulled to deliver his meat to Sunnmead, Little Burstead, Great Burstead and Perry Street. All local runs from the town of Billericay. They had a shop near Charntry Cottage, the famous landmark of Billericay’s High Street. Bell Hill once had a windmill, and the fields around it. Boughtwood had bullocks ready for their shop when fully grown, for joints
The bakers next to the old police station, and an alley between leading to Backstreet, delivered their bread by tradesman’s bike. It changed hands several times the shop, greengrocers and hardware shops, a drapers, Horsnell hardware and also a builders yard at Gallywood. The old Police Station has a shield plastered on the face of it, an Essex badge - three secateurs. My dad did that, he was a cement worker by trade, good all-round builder of the day. Rickets, the milk & dairy products, a tub cart open and low back with a large milk churn - pony pulled. Pint and half pint putter ladles, stamped weights and measures, all run from a small farm place near railway lines and road bridge. After haymaking, the field leading to the farm was used for cricket - good to watch on a Sunday afternoon . Also they had a dairy shop in the high street, next to Churchill Jonson’s builders merchants.My dad worked on this place, also on the Coop opposite which had a hall over the top.
Looking back, when old enough to understand the mechanics of hay making, from the haycocks, oblong stacks would be made. Bracken and small branches to start the bottom, before cutting the better for bailing, easy to handle, sized segments. All this for the winter feeding of the ponies, and of course the cows. The milk side - I was about 15 years old when I milked my first cow in 1936/7- five years before I was called to the colours.