Charlie Bristow

A Memory of Thorne.

It always seems a pity when someone's life ends and there is a decreasing memory of their place in the town as the years go by. Hence, if I may, I would like to share with current readers in the town the memory of one of its figures of the past. The reason I know something about Charlie is that he was my father's cousin, a refugee from the tenant farms of North Yorkshire. Charlie was a 'horse man' through and through. He was the dray man for Reeds, the grocers in the Market Place. Although Reeds had been told on many occasions that a van would have enabled a more efficient delivery service to be run, to their credit they decided to stick with Charlie until he retired - would that more current day employers had such an attitude. So, Charlie was a regular sight around the town in his leggings, jodhpurs and bowler hat making his leisurely progress through the ever increasng road traffic. I can just imagine the reaction of lorry drivers bound for the docks or day trippers bound for the Yorkshire coastal towns to coming across Charlie when they thought their troubles were over once they had crossed the one lane,
canal swing bridge.
Charlie, or Uncle Charlie as I was obliged to call him by the fact that he was a relative and much older, kept greyhounds - as 'country men' often did in those days. These dogs were a bit smelly and coupled with the fact that they looked menacingly at my mother meant that we visited infrequently. Dog lovers may think my mother paranoid, but in her defence she had been knocked over by a large dog as a child and subsequently all dogs were regarded with suspicion.
Charlie's end was unfortunate. Like many men then and now, Charlie liked a drink after work, He was also given to arguing his point when in his cups and this frequently led to a bout of what might be termed fisticuffs. Unfortunately, on this occasion this led to his untimely death. The final sad element was that Mary, his wife, died three weeks later - it was felt by neighbours who knew them of a broken heart.
Charlie had no children, so I am not breaking confidences. It does seem to me that there is room for other aging people born in Thorne to answer questions about the town and its past before it is too late.