Peache Road

A Memory of Downend.

I lived on Peache Road from 1965 to 1978, having been born in Wendover hospital and my memory of the 'pig sty' was that it was actually a slaughter house/abattoir. I am really testing my recall now but I think that they used to run the incinerator on Sunday mornings and if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, it stank! I also went to Downend County infants and juniors when Miss Bloodworth and Mr Barry were the head mistress/master. I have great memories of growing up in Downend as it seemed (at the time) to be a peaceful place to live. There was the park on Westerleigh Road and Page Park in Staple Hill, and we spent hours on our bikes in the summer cycling to Moorend before the ring road. My mother used to tell us kids about the time she was in the Fine Fare and we all three of us disappeared and she found us sat on the war memorial outside eating chocolate we had nicked from the checkout display! I had a lot of friends in Burley Grove and remember a shop at the end called Cash Stores where we used to buy crisps! Life seemed so much simpler then. The local doctor, Dr Weeks, lived in a large house on Westerleigh Road and seemed and with hindsight, seemed almost Churchillian. At the bottom of Peache Road on the left going towards Mangotsfield was a large, old and very dilapidated house, which we all thought was haunted and used to dare each other to run up the path to the front door. Eventually it was razed to the ground and replaced with modern homes. Going to school at Downend County would mean for me, Mr Broad, the lollipop man. He seemed 'ancient' to us at the time and every Christmas he would have a tin of Quality Street and all the kids used to take one on their way home. I can remember the shops in the village too; The Flower Bank, John Uren the chemist and his funny daily proverbs on the pavement, Downend Drapery, Masons the butcher with sawdust on the floor and Mrs Mason in the cash office taking the money. Atkinsons with their display of twin tub washing machines on the forecourt, Dunn and Hopton the mens outfitters with a real 'Mr Benn' type changing room, Boots (still there), a proper ironmongers (the name escapes me), Frys the shoe shop, Co-op, Fine Fare, VG, Mace, a kiosk at each end of the street and Hunters the hairdressers where we were scalped every three months. Rogers and Harris the greengrocer, Brooks or Bollom the drycleaner, a timberyard, stonemason, wool shop and Mr Evans the dentist who my mother was still seeing until he retired in the early 1990's. Mum used to say that one of the great things about Downend was that it had almost everything one needed at that time. My brother and I sang in the choir at Christchurch with Mrs Ford the organist and on Sundays the cricket balls would come over the wall from the pitch next door and we used to hide them! I think the priest was Searle Barnes and I also remember Mr Milroy. We moved to Fishponds in the late 1970's and less than ten years later I moved to Australia!