Devizes Memories

A Memory of Devizes.

A DEVIZES GIRL REMEMBERS

Before talking of my own memories, it would seem appropriate to start by sharing some valuable ones of my Father who was born in 1906 and spent his whole life in the town. During the last five years of his life in the 1990s, he resided at the front of Chantry Court where he could look out of the window and see his beloved town go by whilst talking nostalgically of his childhood in the early 1900s. His whole life, quite simply, was Devizes and, by the time he died aged 91, he had known the town for almost a century. Once, when with him in London, I crossed the pavement to ask directions and when I returned to him he said, “Did you tell them you came from Devizes?”

One of the eldest of a family of 13, he was brought up in the Sheep Street area, living at 3 Vales Lane behind Maryport Street. Due to the size of the family, a house was also rented in nearby Reads Place. At the end of the First World War in November 1918, he recalled, aged 12, seeing a throng of men leaving the Foundary in Estcourt Street when they heard of the armistice. As they marched through the town, other workers heard the news and left their employment to join them until there was a huge thanksgiving gathering in the Market Place. While still at school, he had a job in the dinner-hour on the canal bridge in London Road looking after a baker’s pony and cart while he lunched at home nearby. The pony was prone to falling asleep and it was Dad’s job to keep it on its feet. The pay was a loaf per day – very welcome for a large family.

He attended the Boys’ Town School in Maryport Street, a few yards from his home, and recalled his mother being in her outside washhouse nearby in Vales Lane one morning and hearing one of her boys being caned by the Headmaster. She marched round to the school and demanded to know why he was being caned. ‘Playing truant down the shops’ said the Headmaster, whereupon she left saying “You carry on then and his Father shall give him another when he comes home”. Life in the tiny Courts and passages could not have been easy for women with large families and producing another baby every two years. His mother, a woman of immense stoicism, adored every one of her 13 children. She once declared ‘give them to me when they are young and no-one to share them’.
In the spring of 1918, Bert aged two died of whooping cough. Her reaction to losing a child was to dress her remaining children in their best clothes and take them to the local photographer for a group photo ‘before I lose another one’. Sadly, the chubby little girl with the big hair ribbon on the right of the photo, Iris aged 4, was to die some nine months later of influenza during the pandemic. Dad recalled the family’s efforts to save both of them in a room with a steam kettle and smouldering tar rope. As one of the older children, losing a baby brother and sister had a lasting effect on him because he never forgot Bert and Iris, talking of them frequently throughout his life.



He recalled being sent out of the town to stay with grandparents in Seend when there were diphtheria and scarlet fever epidemics. He described his grandfather as ‘a brilliant hedger and barger, drunk on Saturday then a top hat on for church on Sunday where he preached in the pulpit’. An aunt lived with them who walked from Seend to Wadworths Brewery every morning for a 6am start, bottle washed all day and walked back to Seend in the evening. Later, she got another job in a Devizes dairy with an 8am start ‘which was better’
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Christmas with such a large family in Vales Lane could have been a daunting experience. Dad once heard a visitor suggest to his Mother that she must surely be glad when it was all over. His Mother replied that she loved every minute of it, declaring ‘the dinner is sorted, the pudding is ready, the cake is made and the children are happy’. Five puddings were made for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, the Sunday after Christmas, a birthday in January and Easter. They were cooked in the wash boiler in the outhouse and it was Dad’s task to keep the fire going underneath. A large bread pudding was placed atop the five Christmas puddings and a couple of bricks on the lid kept it from rising. Early on Christmas Day itself Dad, his brothers and other boys, collected turkeys from surrounding houses and took them to Drews the baker (on the site of Chantry Court) where they were cooked in the bread ovens. When cooked, the boys would collect and deliver back to the houses, each turkey with a name ticket thereon ensuring each family got its correct bird.

Dad left school in about 1918 and, in those post war days, took advice to ‘get a job working with food as everyone always needs to eat’. So he started working as a bicycle delivery boy for Mr Batt, the fishmonger at 3 Little Brittox. He did not get on with Mr Batt and soon crossed the Little Brittox to the Central Wilts Bacon Company at Number 7. Arthur Tucker Couch managed and lived above this shop. Some 20 years later at the start of the Second World War, Arthur Couch retired and my family moved into the vacant flat above 7 Little Brittox to live over the Bacon Shop. They had previously been renting a cottage at No 3 Southgate owned by Richard Gundry who lived in the big house on the corner of Hillworth Road. Dad spoke of Mr Gundry as a good man and a very fair landlord who truly deserved the reputation later recorded on the stone horse trough on the Green that he was ‘kind to every living thing’. As the new manager, the flat was rent free and there was a Christmas bonus of ten shillings. The white coats worn in the shop were purchased by the employee for five shillings each from Clappens Outfitters just across the road on the corner of High Street. The Couch family went to live in a beautiful house called Greenfields Cottage in Nursteed Road. I loved it when I was taken on a visit to that house – to a young child, such a different world from ‘over the shop’. When I later heard of a place called Hollywood in America, I imagined all the houses there would be like Greenfields Cottage.


My own memories begin ………
The War
It was while living above the shop in the Little Brittox around 1942, aged four, that my memories begin. There was something called a war happening and everyone was worried and talked about it all the time. There was a very bad man called Hitler who was causing all the trouble. In the night, a siren would sound in the town to let you know when Hitler was coming and then I would be carried through the many back yards at the rear of Little Brittox to the rear entrance of the Bank in St Johns Street (next to Boots) where we went into the Bank cellar. Among other Little Brittox families using the cellar were Mr and Mrs George Budd of George’s Hairdressers and Mr and Mrs King of Eastmans Butchers. Mr and Mrs Hill who lived over the Bank would let us in the side door then join us in their cellar. This cellar was used as the ceiling was deemed to be stronger than surrounding properties. There were makeshift beds and a bucket in the corner for a toilet and we would stay there until Hitler had gone. There was a brick missing in the cellar wall and I was always afraid Hitler would come through the hole in his aeroplane. For these night visits to the Bank cellar I was zipped up in a navy blue ‘all in one’ garment called a siren suit. One of our cellar companions, Mr Budd, who later became Mayor of Devizes, was great fun and always cheerful. Mr Hill ran the Military Studio over the Bank and always had a wonderful Christmas tree during the War years and gave us expensive presents. Mother once said photographers and jewellers did very well out of the War


At this time, our immediate neighbours on the corner of Little Brittox and Wine Street were Mr and Mrs Smith who lived above Manon Fashions run by Mrs Smith. She was French and hated Germans. When she discussed the war she would become very agitated and jabber away in French. We heard many fights between Mr and Mrs Smith and my Mother was always relieved to see both of them in the morning apparently unscathed. Years later, Dad told me that on the 14 June 1940 he heard on the radio that France had fallen to the Germans who had entered Paris. Across the back yards he saw two men high on the roof of Boots the Chemists painting the pineapple dome. He called out to them that Paris had fallen and they threw their brushes down three storeys into the yard beneath and said they were going home expecting the war would soon be over.

My Dad did not go to War but served as a Special Constable at Devizes Borough Police Station throughout as well as his day job in the shop. When I asked my Mother why he had not gone away, she said somebody had to stay at home and take care of England. Food rationing became severe and those in the food trade had to be careful because you were allocated only enough food for the number of customers registered to your shop. On one occasion Dad ran across the Market Place to catch a customer who had left their parcel on the counter. A Customs and Excise Inspector stopped him and examined the parcel which, thankfully, was all in order but he was shaken by the experience. A weekly half pound of butter was brought to the shop during the war years and surreptitiously passed over the counter on Thursdays by a farmer’s wife and she no doubt had an extra rasher of bacon in her parcel, in return. Jack Wishart of butchers Cook and Wishart just up the Brittox was the meat allocator for the town. He and my Dad were lifelong friends and laughingly told of a Saturday evening during the War when Dad asked Jack for our Sunday meat ration for next day’s dinner. Jack gave Dad the last two small chops in his shop only to come running for them an hour later when a customer had turned up late. When eventually rationing ceased, I saw quantities of food beyond my imagination. There had always been a rectangular metal bar fixed around the ceiling of the shop and I finally realised what it was for. The first Christmas it was used, I saw huge hams hanging all around the bar on metal hooks. Each ham had a name ticket fixed with a metal pin and reading around the bar was like a ‘who’s who’ of Devizes – Hodge, Burn, Chivers, Anstey, Maslen, Reed, Strong, Trumper, Hopkins - Lady Roundway had an especially big ham.

One day, a familiar lady customer from Potterne came in the shop and asked for a quiet word. She said her daughter was ‘in the family way’ and having to get married quickly and could Dad let her have a bit of ham for a few sandwiches after the service. Dad asked her what the Vicar thought of her daughter having to get married and she said the Vicar was prepared to marry them but had said it was a great pity the boy had ‘loved her daughter unwisely’. The lady went off with her bit of ham wrapped in some wallpaper as camouflage and hid it under the seat of the bus. She forgot about it when she left the bus at Potterne and returned to the shop next day in a state of panic and somehow more ham was found for her sandwiches. That evening, Dad was on duty at Devizes Police Station and there on the Inspector’s desk was the original parcel of ham wrapped in its wallpaper. As the only pork butcher in town, he was asked if he had any knowledge. Of course, he didn’t. The ham mysteriously disappeared from the Inspector’s desk that night and was never seen again!

Thursday was the busiest day of the week both for the town and the shop. The Market Place was thronged with stalls and mobile wire cages selling livestock. The whole area was transformed on Thursdays. With few people having telephones and buses coming from every surrounding village, the country people all descended on the town to shop and, more importantly, catch up on news. Dad’s shop would be packed with gossiping customers all quite happy to await their turn as a longer wait meant hearing more news and then there was the Gazette to read once you got home. Twice a year on Fair Days around April 20th and October 20th, a different kind of customer arrived - the gypsies bought all the cheaper cuts and offal. “A pound of keckers, sir” they would say. What are keckers? Or is it kekkers? All parts of the pig were edible in those days but where in the pig would you find keckers? If only Dad were here to ask but I have said that a hundred times. The gypsies were very respectful always addressing him as Mister or Sir. After so many years, he knew most of them by name and they greeted like long lost friends before he sent them off well supplied.

As the War progressed, the back yards and Little Brittox became my playground. Roy Kemp (a Devizes Mayor and Alderman) had a gents outfitters shop in the Brittox and a smaller ladies shop opposite ours in the Little Brittox and was always going from one shop to the other. He had the longest legs imaginable always stepping over me on my three wheel tricycle with a smile and never seemed to mind that I was in his way. One day a huge Navy boat on a lorry came down the Brittox with the intention of turning left into the High Street. It was just too big to turn. One end became jammed against the first floor of Clappens Tailors on the corner of Wine Street and High Street with the other end against Mr and Mrs Smith’s flat over Manon Fashions at the end of Little Brittox. I could almost touch it out of my bedroom window and it stayed there jammed all night until they freed it next day. It was like living by the sea.

My Mother did her chores in the morning, and we had our dinner in the middle of the day. There was rarely a garden when you lived ‘over the shop’, only back yards. So, by early afternoon, she would have a wash, put on a dress or costume and her string of imitation pearls and ‘walk the town’ with my brother in his pram either shopping or just chatting with the many other women who were doing just the same. A married woman rarely went out to work – her job was to look after the family and the house although many women also helped with the war effort. Sometimes she would take me to Hillworth Park to watch posh people playing tennis. Going out and meeting people was the way you kept up with news of who was misbehaving or getting married or ‘in the family way’. There would be various huddles of ladies on pavements, all engrossed in conversations. Babies were on show in large Silver Cross or Marmet prams. You never heard the word ‘cancer’. The muted conversations passed news around of anyone in the town who was seriously ill and you would hear ‘she’s got a growth’. There was a wonder tablet called M&B which everyone talked about. ‘She’s on M&B’s would be the news. I never did find out what M&B stood for. On getting home, we would have a tea of bread and jam and cake. Later, we would have supper of perhaps toast with something savoury on it. Then there would be a good wash down from an enamel bowl in the kitchen before being put to bed.



School Days – 1943 to 1954

I started at Southbroom Junior School, Estcourt Street in 1943 where the headmistress was Miss M M Marchant, who had taught my Dad. She had a whiskery chin and wore bloomers to her knees which peeped below her skirt when she sat down. My most abiding memory of that school is the sickly smell of milk as the small daily bottles were warmed on radiator pipes. The secretary was a young lady from Potterne called Thelma Underwood who sat in a little office overlooking St James Church. She taught me to tell the time on that big Church clock. One of the pupils in my class was Eileen Underwood whose Mother, a lovely lady, came in daily to heat the school dinners. A precious box of matches to light the stoves was kept in my teacher’s cupboard and Mrs Underwood would have to collect this box daily and hand it back on leaving. Lionel Billinge, who was to be a teacher in Devizes for many years, joined the school when he left the Forces and took a photograph of my class. On an afternoon in early May 1945, I came out of school into Estcourt Crescent where all the mothers, including mine, awaited their children. Usually they chatted quietly but on this day there was a buzz in the air with lots of excited conversation and cheerfulness. Mother told me the War was over and Hitler was gone. I was just happy he wouldn’t be coming through the hole in the wall of the Bank cellar although we hadn’t needed to go in that cellar for some time.




The centre of Devizes, in those days, housed a large residential community with everyone living over the shop or nearby in the myriad of courts and alleys which existed mainly off New Park Street and Sheep Street. Everyone knew everyone. Many with large families, such as my Grandparents, had moved after the First World War from the crowded centre of the town to just beyond St James Church where the various Avenues had been built by the local council. But the courts and alleys remained occupied in the centre for many years after the Second World War until more development took place beyond the Avenues with new roads such as Forty Acres, Pines, Waylands, Cromwell and Eastleigh. In the 1940s, an epidemic of scarlet fever hit the town and the whole place reeked of disinfectant especially those houses where someone was ill. I had whooping cough and, as I recovered, Mother took me on a circular walk from the town centre to the top of Quakers Walk turning right along the hedged path to London Road (there was no housing in Roundway Park in those days) and back into town as she had heard a circular walk would ‘leave the cough behind’ and I would recover more quickly. I do not remember if this worked but it was a long walk for a sick child. Toothache and earache were a regular part of young lives. I never had earache but when my toothache was very bad I consoled myself that at least it was not earache which my friends told me was much worse to bear. The school dentist, Mr McMinn, had a huge bushy moustache which, like his fingers, was coloured orange from chain smoking cigarettes and the smell was awful as he leant over you. There was a Food Office in Maryport Street where we collected small oblong bottles of cod liver oil and orange juice which were free. Soon after the War ended Mother told me we could now go to the doctor without having to pay for it and she seemed very relieved about this. If you had been ill, you could go to the doctor for a pick-me-up called a tonic. Tonics tasted horrible but made you better, or so you thought, because the doctor had prescribed it. Clothing coupons were still needed for purchasing new clothes but most women sewed and knew how to dress-make, revamping and restyling existing materials. I had a baby brother born at Ivy House in 1946 but, during the two weeks Mother was in bed there, I was only allowed to see him through a downstairs window because I might have something called germs. Women were stoic and tough, with few options to be otherwise. When Mother realised my baby brother was about to be born, she got on her bicycle, cycled through the dawn streets between Little Brittox and the Green, left her bike under the archway next door to Ivy House, knocked on the front door and produced my brother shortly after arriving. Dad stayed at home to open the shop and collected the bike later in the day.

In about 1946, I crossed the Green to go to the senior school, Southbroom Secondary Modern. There was a middle aged teacher, Miss M A Pearce, whose sister had taught me at the junior school. They lodged at Heathcote House, the Headmaster’s home, during the week and on Fridays their father would come from Bradford on Avon to take them home for the weekend in a long black car that resembled a hearse. Mr Reynolds, the Headmaster, had a stiff leg and was a kind but authoritative figure. Miss Street came from Street in Somerset which I always thought amusing. She was very religious and started a Scripture Union which I joined because you got a little lamp brooch to wear on your gymslip. She took us for Scripture Union picnics up Quakers Walk which, in those days, was a wide carriageway with grass verges. Miss M M Garrett, who taught my Dad, was another teacher. Not all memories are good - there was poverty of a kind that is difficult to imagine today. Three large families regularly disappeared into care - you would see them coming to school on the coldest day, emaciated with eyes and noses red and running, without coats and wearing summer dresses and broken shoes on bare feet. I was friendly with one of the girls and always glad when she came back looking better but I never liked to ask her where she had been. Head lice were a regular occurrence –Mother would spend hours working on my head to remove the nits with a fine tooth comb before washing my hair in strong vinegar. It got rid of them for a while.

April 20th and October 20th every year were Fair Days when the Green was full of horses and gypsies. The noise and activity outside the school was terrifying. Horses would be tested along the road between Hare & Hounds and Estcourt Street, their hooves crashing and slipping on the tarmac, with the owner running alongside holding them on a rope trying to impress a buyer. If he was successful, there would be a slap of the palms with the buyer - a done deal before money later changed hands. They were a boisterous lot especially after a few drinks at the Volunteer Arms next to Ivy House. Gypsy women would congregate around the pub in their colourful clothes. Jennings Fair was always on the big Green and Louise Jennings, who was a beautiful girl with long dark hair, had her own little roundabout for children. A Fair girl called Julia Charles came to Southbroom School for a short time. She was tall with big coloured ribbons in her hair and we became friends but she soon moved on. Her family which included sisters Betty and Amy and a brother called Henry sometimes wintered in their big caravan in Royal Oak Yard behind the pub in New Park Street. I thought she had a wonderful life moving around the country and we last saw each other in 1960 at Salisbury Fair. Dad often talked of Cinderella Bull of Gypsy Royalty who died at Etchilhampton in 1951. He recalled a huge gathering of gypsies in the town and area to attend her funeral and witness the burning of her caravan, as was the custom. They came from all over England, but how did they know? Few people had telephones in those days, certainly not gypsies. Was there a gypsy bush telegraph? Was there the lighting of beacons on hilltops? We never could work it out.

Schooling at Southbroom suddenly became very serious as something called the eleven plus exam loomed. My Mother, probably as the result of her own very basic country school education, was fervent about learning. I never knew where she got the money but she paid for me to have tutoring from a local lady, Miss Grace West, an accomplished teacher and musician. Miss West was taller than a lamppost and was well known in the town for riding a sit-up-and-beg bicycle with a tiny motor in the centre of the rear wheel which was always breaking down. Every Sunday, even in winter, she would cycle to All Cannings Church and back to play the organ for the Reverend St Clair Tisdall. Some years later, in the late 1950s when we had a TV set, she called on us just as the Sunday Night at the London Palladium chorus line was strutting its stuff. She came into the lounge and then covered her eyes with one hand asking my Mother if they could sit in the kitchen! I passed my eleven plus exam but there was still something called ’the interview’ to go through. Mother had obviously given a lot of thought to this interview because her advice was endless. I was to say I liked knitting, sewing and reading (which I did, so that was alright) and doing things with my family (which I did when they had the time as they both worked very hard). One thing I was not to say was that I liked going to the cinema a lot. I could say I went sometimes but going a lot might mean I wouldn’t do something called homework which you were given at the Grammar School. We knew the week when the interviews were to take place but not the day. They eventually happened towards the end of the week but, prior to that, Mother laundered my white dress with blue polka dots every night so that I should look my best. Her advice must have worked because I passed the interview but, at that young age, had no idea of the implications of passing for the Grammar School. Immediately, friends who did not pass the exam, but deserved to, seemed not to be so friendly. Classmates for years, we drifted apart as I moved on and was saddened when, in later years, I might meet them and not be acknowledged. There was a ’them and us’ mentality in the town where schools were concerned.
I started at Devizes Grammar School in September 1949. To make up for losing my town friends, I made a lot of new ones from the surrounding countryside - pupils who had passed the exam in their village schools and were now travelling daily into Devizes. The uniform was one of the main differences to Southbroom. I had to wear a stiff beret which resembled a frying pan and I couldn’t get it to look right but you dare not be seen without it. The blue, red and gold blazer badge was beautiful. The lovely Headmistress, Miss Janaway who wore her hair in two plaited buns over her ears, soon retired and was replaced by Miss R E Guy who was very strict. ’A’ levels were never mentioned and few went to university. My 5 ’O’ levels before leaving at 16 were considered very acceptable. The school had two sites - the old Bath Road Grammar School site and Braeside which we traversed through some small steps by Shanes Castle. I sometimes had school dinners which were fresh cooked in a canteen beside the assembly hall away from the main house. They were quite nice dinners until one day when I stopped having them for ever. The cabbage was full of the hughest, fattest, whitest caterpillars imaginable - they had obviously fed well on the cabbage before both were cooked together.

A new History teacher came to the school after a while - my word, she was different to the rest of the staff and like a breath of fresh air. Her name was Lorna Read and she smoked! She wore long bright coloured skirts and was glamorous. To every lesson she brought a small file of notes to cover that lesson and seemed much organised in her teaching. She accompanied some of us on a visit to Paris where we stayed at a grammar school in the Rue de la Pomp and she was fun! She suggested a way to remember dates in history by giving a date to each building you passed on your way to school and it worked! The Brewery became the Repeal of the Corn Laws 1846 and the Borough Police Station became, appropriately, Sir Robert Peel 1788-1850. History became enjoyable and has been ever since. An English teacher arrived called Mr Haycock and they eventually got married. The school was abuzz on the morning she came with her engagement ring but I wasn’t surprised as I’d seen them after school in the Bear Hotel restaurant when I was delivering bacon for the shop. I only told my best friend, Ethel Palmer, who lived in New Park Street by the Salem Chapel and we both took an oath of secrecy!

Walking to school from the Little Brittox meant passing Wadworths Brewery twice a day. The smell of the brewery was sweet perfume to me - I loved the familiar fragrance of hops and beer and still do today. Often a large black chauffeur driven car would pass by with a regal elderly white haired lady sitting upright and alone in the back seat. She was Mrs Minnie G Reed who lived in Devizes Castle, an Alderman and a lady of good works in Devizes. I always waved to her and got a gracious white gloved wave in reply, as did most of my town friends.

When I was 14 the School wrote to our parents asking if they would give their approval to a doctor coming from Bath to lecture us on where babies came from. Only one girl didn’t attend and the day before the lecture, I asked my Mother to tell me so I would know ahead of my friends, who also had no idea. (Our best bet was that they happened through the belly button). Mother said she couldn’t tell me as it was embarrassing and to wait until the next day. When I got home next day, she seemed ill at ease so I never mentioned the lecture. But I did, at least, know where babies came from!
I joined the Junior Gay Nineties Dancing Club while I was at the Grammar School. It was run by Mr and Mrs Jack Collison who lived in Rotherstone and was held on Tuesday evenings in the Catholic Hall. Old Tyme Dancing was very popular in the 1950s with regular Balls in the Town Hall and Corn Exchange. We all had dresses, mostly homemade, with masses of tulle for these Balls and competed to see who could sew on the most sequins. There was a sort of unofficial ’town centre gang’ from the Grammar, Convent and Catholic Schools and we all met for the evening doing perfect steps to the Valeta, Military Two Step, Old Tyme Waltz, Quadrilles and Lancers among many other dances. My Mother bought me some beautiful red suede Clarkes shoes which were ideal for dancing and I treasured them. One Tuesday, we all left the Catholic Hall in high spirits and a group of us walked towards our homes in the town centre and beyond. Mary Kirby walked with us before cycling back to Eastleigh Road and I put my red shoes in her saddlebag. I thought no more about them as I left her and other friends in Little Brittox. The next day is imprinted on my memory for ever. That afternoon, as I left the Braeside driveway after school, Inspector Salmon of Devizes Police was standing at the edge of the pavement in The Nursery. His bicycle was against the kerb and on the pavement by the rear wheel were my red shoes. I knew Inspector Salmon was not a man to be trifled with - he was a copper of the old school who commanded respect and got it, dour and unsmiling. Teachers leaving the drive stared at my shoes as did a face in every window of every schoolbus nearby. Oh the shame! I would surely be expelled tomorrow. I would never live this down - in the narrow minded world of the 1950s a young girl could quickly be labelled a hussey. But I decided I couldn’t live without my beautiful shoes so I walked over and stood by him keeping my eyes on the ground. I heard him ask if they were mine and he gave me a dressing down telling me to be more careful next time and I’d better take them and go home. Next day, nothing was said but I felt the whole school was wondering how a policeman got my shoes.

Mucking around the town was a favourite pastime in the long summer holidays. There was always the open air swimming pool in Rotherstone where the water could be very cold sometimes although a mug of Mrs Dowse’s hot Oxo revived many a shivering swimmer. Mrs Dowse was such a lovely lady. On the last Monday in about 1953, when we were all due to start a new term on the Thursday, word went round there was table tennis in the Catholic Hall. I think it all started when Tony Ferris, who was Catholic and knew the priest, told Les Dowse who told everyone else and we all simply turned up. There was a wind-up gramophone with lots of records of operatic arias and the priest regularly supplied crates of bottles containing I know not what. Thus began three days of the most wonderful, never to be forgotten, larking around and messing about, whacking table tennis balls like fury, singing arias at the tops of our voices (we knew all the words in pigeon Italian by Wednesday) and guzzling whatever was in the bottles. Starting the new term on Thursday was a shock!

It was also a shock when the time came to leave school in 1954. Nothing had prepared you for going out to work - you were expected to just leave and get a job. One of my five O levels was Needlework and the only job I wanted was to become a Fashion Buyer as I loved fabrics and had a flair for style. My Mother always bought me the monthly copy of Vogue magazine and I would make up dresses for myself trying to look like the best fashion model to ever adorn the cover of Vogue - then or now - the fabulously elegant Barbara Goalen. But Mother thought being a Fashion Buyer was a bad idea. She said you didn’t come out of Grammar School to earn your living on your feet. Having a sit-down job meant status to her. Clever people sat down all day and could play tennis in the evenings. I had never played tennis, nor wanted to, but I always took her advice and consequently I did not become Chief Buyer at Harrods in London but opted for secretarial work instead.

The Garrison Town
Where have all the soldiers gone? The Army was for so long a huge part in the history and life of Devizes. It brought prosperity and a cosmopolitan aura not to mention husbands! Growing up in the town centre, soldiers were a part of my life - their singing as they left the pubs and headed back to camp was my lullaby for years from toddler to teenager. Yes, there was the odd bit of trouble and our shop window was broken once or twice but, when you consider how many were in the camps, the trouble was small. Dad always said “If they’re singing, they’re on the move back to camp”. They looked after those who had drunk too much - you would see a pair of feet dangling in the middle of a crowd as they supported mates all the way up the Brittox.

During the War, I saw German prisoners marching, or rather shuffling, along Estcourt Street by the Crammer on their way from the railway station to internment at the Barracks. I was very young but do recall a greyness about the memory - uniform and faces. The pieces of green glass cemented into the top of the high Barracks wall alongside London Road were a constant reminder for years that prisoners had been held there. Today, the wall remains but sadly that historic glass was removed at the time of nearby development.


St James’s was the Garrison Church where huge parades took place and these continued for years after the war ended with the many Old Comrades’ Reunions. My Dad was a sidesman at St James for many years and, immediately after the war ended, a handsome new young vicar arrived fresh out of the Navy. His name was Cyril Whitcomb and the parish took him and his wife to their hearts. They were part of the new beginning as men and women returned home to begin normal lives out of the shadow of war. St James, or Southbroom as it is called, was fortunate in having all the resources of the Army to support it and large congregations sat in the beautiful heavy dark pews beneath ancient banners so old they were held together with mesh. The Whit Monday Fetes held at Le Marchant Barracks seemed more for enjoyment than to raise money. Among the many helpers were five parishioners called Reg - Reg Westmacott of Hiltons Shoe Shop in the Brittox, Reg Neate of Wick and Maslens the Builders, Reg Fruen also of Maslens, Reg Perrett my Dad and Reg Dight of Southgate who later succeeded his father as verger. The limited weather forecasts were very hit and miss in those days and on every Whit Sunday Dad would walk the garden looking skywards wringing his hands hoping (and probably praying) for good weather the next day, which usually happened. The helpers worked all morning to prepare the stalls, sitting down in an Army tent at midday to a lunch of ham, mashed potato and peas and apple tart laid on by Mother and Dad. By early afternoon, London Road was thronged with people walking to the Barracks. The whole town seemed to come and the Fete was always a huge success. One year the Church got a maypole and I was among the young people taught to dance. It was very popular and we did our maypole dancing at many fetes in the town and nearby villages, weaving pretty patterns with bright ribbons at the top of the pole. But Church life was not all fetes and ribbons - in 1947 when the terrible winter froze the canal solid, Mrs Whitcomb the Vicar’s wife walked the few yards from the Vicarage on a Sunday afternoon and together with many others skated on the canal. I was on a walk with my parents and saw her from the London Road Bridge. Word went around the town that a Vicar’s wife had skated on the Lord’s Day and many people did not approve but I thought she skated beautifully and admired her greatly.

Miss Anstie, who lived at Rowans, Hillworth Road and was a member of the tobacco family ran the Soldiers Room throughout the war and later received an honour for doing so. It was a small building at the back of Sidmouth Street in the vicinity of what is now the entrance to Sainsbury’s carpark. It was simply a place where soldiers could pass an hour having a cup of tea and refreshment. She was of the tobacco family, a tall thin stately lady who rode a ‘sit up and beg’ bicycle around the town and, of course, always wore a hat.

In the mid-fifties there was a restaurant in the Market Place called the Ruth Pierce and demob parties were held there mostly for those at the end of their two year National Service. I worked as a waitress on two evenings and all day Saturday for £2 a week, as well as my day job in an office. It was quite a challenge for the cooks and waitresses to get hundreds of piping hot sausages, fried eggs and chips onto tables in front of hungry soldiers. The mountains of bread and butter and huge pots of tea were already out on the tables being devoured. My word, they were all in high spirits either moving on or moving out of the Army and there was never any trouble.




The Railway
There was something magical about Devizes Railway Station. Through all my very young years, I always finished up somewhere exciting when I was taken on a train from Devizes. It might be shopping or the pantomime at the Theatre Royal in Bath (everyone went, sometimes several times) or to Weston Super Mare or Weymouth for a holiday. My grandfather and uncle worked at the station so there was usually a familiar face to wave goodbye or to greet us on return.

There was a two carriage motor train which went to Patney and back on Saturday mornings. I was about ten when my uncle put me on this train and I went all the way to Patney and back on my own and thought I had travelled the world. Dad had a vegetable garden on the left of the railway line between the Wooden Bridge by St John’s Churchyard and the slope up to the Castle wall. We walked down the bank from a gate in the churchyard and crossed the line to reach the garden. In Nigel Bray’s book ‘The Devizes Branch’ there is a frontispiece photograph of this exact location although the vegetable garden is long gone. Sometimes there would be a train waiting by the signal near Pans Lane Halt but we always crossed anyway as the steam engines took a long time to reach any speed and we knew we were safe. Those steam engines were magnificent to watch but very intimidating as they disappeared into the tunnel to the station. They were like old friends as you recognised their names on the side of the engine, often a Castle or a Hall. In the other direction, you would hear the train coming through the tunnel long before it appeared like a belching dragon getting up speed for the run to London. We always got waves from drivers and passengers and I had a taste of being a Railway Child long before I read the book. Sometimes when we knew a train was due, we put a penny on the line and had fun searching for the flattened coin afterwards.

As I grew into my teens, pantomimes and seasides were forsaken as London beckoned in the other direction. When waiting on the platform for the London train it was always a thrill to hear its laboured approach up Caen Hill long before you could see it. Then there was the steam and finally the engine came in sight. To enjoy a complete day in the capital, you could leave Devizes around 7.20am and arrive in Paddington at 10am. If it was a nice day, you opened the window and by the time you arrived in London there was a collection of smuts from the engine in your lap which needed careful removal if your dress was not to be spoiled. On arrival, when spending a penny in the Paddington toilets, there was a blue and white enamel notice on the door telling you of a nearby hospital where you could go if you thought you had VD! The return train left Paddington dead on 6pm but you had to get in the right carriage as they un-hitched some carriages at Newbury and many found themselves going in another direction. But Devizes people knew about these unhitched carriages and, after Newbury and weary from a day in London, settled down for what I always called the ‘winding down to home’ part of the journey. The train got slower, stopping at every small station - Hungerford, Bedwyn, Savernake, Pewsey, Woodborough, Patney & Chirton and even Pans Lane Halt if you requested it. As it kept stopping, you adjusted to the slower pace of Wiltshire and by the time Devizes was reached you were ready for the steep walk up Station Hill to the Market Place. And then, after going around the bend by the Great Western Inn, there it was. Even after all the grand sights of London, there was no sight in the world better than my Market Place with its Cross, Fountain, beloved Plane trees and dear familiar buildings.

The Shop
At the beginning of my story, I mentioned living in a flat at 7 Little Brittox where my Dad managed the shop of the Central Wilts Bacon Company and where my first war memories began. In the post war years it took a long time for the food situation to improve and for rationing to ease. Being a Devizes boy, Dad knew everyone in the town and practically everyone in the surrounding countryside through his long years in the pork butchery trade. All parts of the pig were eaten in those days - offal, feet, tail, eye pieces, chaps, chitterlings as well as the finer cuts of bacon. Produce was delivered to the shop from the factory in Bath Road with huge sides of bacon being carried on shoulders from the road along the Little Brittox to the shop where they were stored in a large walk-in refrigerator. This refrigerator was also used by Cook & Wishart just up the Brittox who, amazingly for a butcher’s shop, had no cold storage facility of their own. Jack Wishart, bent double with the weight of it on his shoulder, would carry huge sides of beef down the Brittox to our shop. I always hopped out of the way as I was never sure he would make it.

Along with most in the town centre shops, Dad did a 12 hour day, Monday to Saturday with half day on Wednesday. Before the shop opened at 9am, there was greaseproof paper and rolls of white wrapping paper to cut up and newspaper for the offal, all to be placed ready on the counter. Plastic wrapping did not exist. Every morning the shop floor was covered with sawdust which remained all day until 5pm when it was swept down Little Brittox into the Brittox kerbside. Mondays was faggot day. Work began around 6am with faggot making in the cellar - all by hand until a mixing machine was bought in later years. The offal, soaked bread and sage and onion were mixed in a bath tub then hand rolled into a faggot the size of a large orange, covered with thick caul fat and cooked all morning in the cellar oven. In the middle of the day, housewives would appear from all over the town centre wearing damp aprons fresh from the Monday washtub and carrying large plates with a saucepan lid for cover. Most husbands worked in the town and went home for dinner and those delicious hot faggots were an easy Monday meal with mashed potato and a tin of peas. Friends at school would say “We’re having some of your Dad’s faggots today“ Huge pieces of liver were hung behind the counter dripping blood onto a pile of sawdust on the floor. Every evening, brass scales were cleaned, the booking done and more preparations for next day. The shop closed for an hour between 1pm and 2pm when Dad would have a substantial cooked dinner in the tiny kitchen above. Meat was about 50% fat in those days and both my parents ate large quantities of fat. He never ate salads or fresh fruit and meals were well covered with either sugar or salt. Ten minutes before 2pm, while still sitting at the dinner table, he would fold his arms, lower his chin onto his chest and fall fast asleep, often snoring. At 2pm, he would be wide awake walking downstairs to re-open the shop. That was his only break in a 12 hour working day.

Preparing the sides of bacon into smaller pieces for the slicing machine was an art. The high side was laid across a solid square wooden block on four stout legs to keep it stable. I never tired of watching Dad remove the long line of rib bones working with the sharpest of knives in perfect rhythm before, in a flash, a neat pile of rib bones lay on the block. He was proud of his knives - his own tools of the trade now carefully wrapped in my loft and much treasured. The Big One was particularly daunting - a thin 18” long blade for slicing through a whole bacon side with one cut. Yes, there were accidents but I do not recall he ever needed stitches - he just bound it up tight and hands soft with bacon fat soon healed.

Something called hygiene became important in the 1950s. An inspector called and said a sink had to be installed just inside the back door for washing hands. Dad thought it was a lot of nonsense as he’d been in the shop since the 1920s without a sink. However, a sink was duly installed and was to be used for washing your hands after using the outside toilet across the backyard.
As my brother and I got older, Mother, who was a wonderful self-taught cook, began her own side-lines to sell in the shop. In our small cramped kitchen on the first floor, she turned out sausage rolls by the hundred with ‘melt in your mouth’ pastry. How did she make all that pastry on our small kitchen table? On Wednesdays, she cooked a gigantic leg of pork with stuffing to carve cold next day for the market people. How did she cook that huge leg in her tiny gas oven? The flavour of those rolls and pork are with me still, over 50 years later. She was very business-like about her shop cooking and declared that because the leg of pork was cooked using her gas, we were entitled to a dinner from it on Wednesdays. I never knew if she was paid for her efforts. Women had little credibility in those days and she could well have cooked for her own satisfaction or to ‘back up Dad in the shop’. She never wasted anything – a paper bag, a safety pin or a small length of string were carefully put by in case they might have a use. I was the unofficial delivery service – I might cycle to Roundway Hospital with a delivery in my school dinner hour or do a delivery round of town centre hotels. If the customer needed their order, it had to be delivered.

We didn’t have a bathroom in the flat. Mother kept us clean with a cold water tap above a sink, a tin bath and a gas boiler, all in the kitchen. When I was approaching my teens, Dad installed a proper bath in a partitioned corner of the cellar and a plumber put a cold tap on the bath. Hot water from the cellar gas boiler was carried to the bath in buckets. Emptying the bath was easy as the water ran away along a shallow stone gulley across the cellar floor into a drain. Weekly baths were always taken in the evening after the shop closed as you had to walk through the shop to get back up stairs. As a teenager, if I was going somewhere very special early evening, I had a bath on getting home from school which was tricky. I could see if the shop had a customer by stopping half way up the cellar stairs until I could see the shop floor beneath the cellar door which fortunately had a wide gap at the bottom.. If I could see ‘feet’, I had to wait and then dash through in my dressing gown before another customer came. Sometimes it was a long wait!

The Central Wilts Bacon Company factory at the top of Caen Hill and the shop closed in 1959. After over 40 years of service, Dad heard of the impending closure from a delivery man!

Memory Lane – a walk around the town in the late forties/early fifties

Starting at The Little Brittox:
Hepworths Menswear was a large shop wrapping around the corner of Little Brittox and the Brittox and was managed by Lionel Stone who lived in the flat above with his wife Megan. They had a television set and, on Coronation Day in June 1953, their sitting room was full of viewers including my family. By the end of that day, after watching hours of television on a small black and white screen, I walked among throngs of people in the Little Brittox and into the Market Place. The whole town was buzzing with excitement. At quieter times, one of the favourite occupations for those in the town centre living above shops was ‘looking out of the window’. This passed many an hour and kept you up to date with who was about. In the Little Brittox where windows were facing, you could chat across to your neighbour and have a gossip about who went by. Being a military town, there was always plenty of activity and you could see who had a new soldier boyfriend.

At Easter, women decorated their hats with flowers for Sunday evensong and ‘walked the town’ afterwards. We, upstairs, had a good view of those hats! Another Sunday night activity at ‘Hepworth’s Corner’ was the gentleman from High Street Hall, a few yards down the High Street. Religious services were held there – I believe they were Plymouth Brethren. He would talk to passing soldiers in the hope of getting them to attend the service. Some would just laugh and walk away but it was surprising how many eventually walked with him across the road into High Street Hall. Two bands performed for many years on Sundays. The Boys Brigade Band would march through the town every Sunday morning whilst the band of the Salvation Army played in the Market Place on Sunday evenings.

Another shop in Little Brittox was Pritchards Ladies Outfitters and was owned by Kemps in the Brittox. They sold classic clothes of superb quality with pretty Jacqmar scarves in the window. Miss Pritchard, who lived at ‘Restways’ in Brickley Lane, managed the shop – a very elderly lady who always wore a severe navy pin stripe dress with very high neck and the longest of sleeves with her thin wispy hair bunched on top into a hairnet. Miss Elsie Domoney, who lived in Bath Road, was her assistant.

Lucas’s department store, wrapping around the corner with the Market Place, had long windows on either side packed with merchandise. The Lucas family lived above in spacious accommodation with windows facing across the Market Place. You could often look up and see Mrs Lucas in her kitchen. We didn’t know them as they were posh – I think Mrs Lucas was a Trumper – another posh town family. What do I mean by posh? I mean they owned the businesses in the town and lived mostly in the Potterne Road, The Breach or The Fairway with many on the Town Council. They served the town well as did the less posh ordinary working people who began to join the Council after the war.

Opposite Lucas’s was Mortons Shoe Shop, next to the Shambles. Mr and Mrs Underwood lived above. My father must have done them a favour because she gave me a book ‘Flower Fairies of the Autumn’. It was inscribed ‘To Ann from Mrs Underwood. Sept 1943’ and is still one of my most treasured possessions, albeit a very dog eared one by now.

Proceeding into The Brittox, one of the first shops was Greens Fresh Fish managed by Mr Bishop, such an obliging man when he served you with white wet hands that looked as if they never dried out after handling fish all day. Mrs Bishop was a lovely friendly lady.

A few doors up was Hiltons Shoes managed by Mr Westmacott – one of the men named Reg in my chapter on the Garrison Town. Another lovely lady – Mrs Westmacott helped him in the shop as they had no children. Further up was Wymans tobacconists with a small lending library at the back.

And then Woolworths! That magical shop with its high deep counters selling a million items! I was so pleased when I grew tall enough to see across the counters and saw how the serving ladies got into the central aisle through a little door. I just hadn’t been able to work it out before. Every year just before Christmas Dad would close the bacon shop sharp at 5pm and take us up to Woolworths for some Christmas baubles, before they closed at 5.30. During the war, on rare occasions they had ice-cream. Word would go around the town like wildfire and, living in the centre of town meant that I was usually near the head of the queue and probably had more than my fair share of wartime ice-creams! On one occasion in my haste, I found myself in the queue without shoes! I also remember queuing for bananas but this may not have been at Woolworths.

And then we come to Slopers - our very own Harrods of Devizes. The Rowland family ran the shop – elderly Mr Rowland always hovered just inside the main doors and inclined his head in welcome as you entered. From basement to top floor (I believe there were 5 floors in all) you could always find what you wanted. The windows contained goods from all departments and the central island window was a mecca. A walk around Slopers windows at Christmas time when they were packed with merchandise, solved many a gift problem. Starting in the basement, the toy department was beyond a child’s imagination. Dinky toys, Hornby train sets, dolls, games and puzzles – every child in the town had their eye on their next purchase and would be saving every penny until the day they could return down those stairs to Fairyland.

On the ground floor were fabrics, haberdashery and gloves with sweeping staircases either end to take you to the first floor. Crisscrossing the whole ceiling were wires which carried customers’ money contained in wooden screwtop containers (rather like large cotton reels) from the counters to a raised circular accounts cubicle on one side of the floor. It was of highly polished wood and, I believe, had little windows. The lady in there would dispense change by placing it in the same container, pulling a lever and whizzing it back to the appropriate counter. Slopers ladies never needed keep fit classes (which didn’t exist anyway!) with their delving under counters and stretching high to insert the money boxes and pull the levers!

Most of the centre of the ground floor was taken up by the fabrics department. Mrs Snook from Queens Road and Mrs Genever from Station Road buzzed about like bees delving under the long benches to produce bolts of whatever you asked for - If they couldn’t find quite what you wanted, they would delve again and usually came up with just the right thing. They would unravel the bolts on the long bench tables, measure it out in a flash and could work out complicated measurements and prices in their heads. After buying your material you turned around and there were the haberdashery counters which for a young girl learning to make her own clothes were a paradise. Multi-coloured cottons, zips, braids, buttons and a hundred other items were displayed in two long glass fronted counters full of narrow layered display drawers which the assistant would pull out at your request. Sample buttons were sewn into a button book – a different colour on each page. When Slopers eventually closed, one of those glass counters was moved to a small sewing shop in Sheep Street. I wonder where it is now.

On the left of the ground floor next to the accounts cubicle were gloves. Miss Chivers ran this counter, a tall slim lady always immaculately attired in a costume. Immaculate was also the word for her glove displays – again in sliding drawers within glass fronted counters. They were so tidy, I did not believe anyone would have the courage to disturb the display and try them on. Miss Chivers always stood ramrod behind the counter with one hand on top of the other long ways on the counter edge awaiting her next customer.

Up the wide elegant stairs brought you to Ladies Fashions on the first floor and, for a small rural market town, they were very up to date. There was a little cabinet full of artificial flowers to adorn lapels and hats. A further floor was for furniture.

The last shop at the top of The Brittox, on the corner, was Sawyers Leather Goods. They stocked leather goods of every description from tiny purses to coats and luggage. It was worth visiting the shop just to smell the leather. In the late 1960s, I paid 21 guineas for a red leather coat – it was the last time I saw anything priced in guineas. The family were loyal supporters of the Salem Chapel in New Park Street.

On the other side of The Brittox was Marler Slopers, gentlemens’ outfitters with windows going all around the curve into Maryport Street. Next door, returning down the Brittox was Olivers Baby and Wool shop run by elderly Mrs Oliver whose daughter, Peggy Hancock, eventually took over. Next was Stead & Simpsons shoe shop, one of three shoe shops in the Brittox. Mr and Mrs Taplin ran the Cafe Rendevous before coming to Brewser’s Shoe Shop which sold all the best makes of shoes, especially Clarkes. Shoes were all so pretty in those days.

The next shop run by the Misses Ellen was memorable! Directories show it as ladies outfitters but I believe they were being discreet as I only ever recall their window being full of ladies’ underwear. From ceiling to floor of the window were hanging bloomers, knickers, stays, corsets, brassieres, undergarments full of laces and whalebone, stockings and petticoats. Other weird shaped garments defied description and purpose and resembled body armour! Colours were confined to white, beige, pink and black. I dreaded growing up and having to wear such garments. Above the shop was a dressmaker called Mrs Parrish.

The remainder of this side of The Brittox was taken up mainly by a chemist, Bank, grocers, Currys and two outfitters, Fosters and Kemps. A Mrs Batty and her daughter lived above Fosters. Kemps was a military tailors with a central stairway in the shop. I never saw Mr Kemp walk down the stairs – he always hitched up his long legs and slid down the well-polished bannisters! The Kemps were a well-known family who served the town in many ways. Every Sunday afternoon, Mr Kemp, who was a town councillor, would visit the wards of Devizes Hospital and chat to patients. Local people confined in hospital on a Sunday looked forward to a visit from Mr Kemp.

Finally, the International Stores grocery shop at the bottom was managed by Charles Austridge. A visit to a grocers in those days was a leisurely affair. The International had little wicker chairs alongside the counters where you could rest while placing your order, item by item. Most items had to be weighed into paper bags for you to carry home in your shopping basket. Few people had cars and many housewives shopped daily. Sometimes housewives could hand in a grocery list to be collected later. An office colleague was in the habit of leaving her list in her typewriter so we added 12 pounds of senna pods which she did not notice before handing it into the International on her way home. The next day when she collected her groceries the assistant, with a perfectly straight face, said “I’m sorry, Mrs Lucas, but we don’t sell senna pods” and helpfully suggested she might get them at either Birts or Bawns Chemists just up the Brittox!

Turning left into High Street, the first shop was Mrs Ward’s café which was spartan with bare wooden tables and chairs. Then you came to Budds – a large family run furniture shop which also sold baby goods, prams and pushchairs. The family lived in the spacious flat over the shop. Miss Budd was a very thin lady with neat hair in tiny waves and curls and always wore a plain costume. She was very business-like and obliging. On Sunday mornings I would see her walk through the Little Brittox wearing a hat to attend the Congregational Church in Northgate Street. At the end of this side of the High Street was a ladies dress shop called ‘Janette’ run by Mrs Knott whose husband had a music shop next door. Their only son, John, was a prisoner of the Japanese during the war and I recall my mother saying he was coming home ‘the long way round by ship’ so as to give him time to recover and I later saw this tall gaunt man walking in the town. Mrs Nott’s shop was a joy to a fashion conscious young girl. Many a Devizes bride went there for her outfit and Mrs Nott would bring her a selection from the warehouse.

Crossing to the other side of High Street Mrs Scudamore ran a Singer Sewing Machine shop, then there was Marshman & Baker, tailors. Above this shop lived elderly Mrs Waller and several generations of her family. I never knew how they all fitted into that flat. Every evening, Mrs Waller, always dressed in black, would stand in the doorway chatting to passers-by. She was truly ‘old Devizes’ and Dad had known her for years although I was always a little in awe of her. A sadlers shop was next door run by the Giddings family – when Dad was younger, a very kind older lady Miss Dallaway lived there. Next, on the bend in the pavement, was Griffins Ironmongers. Run by Mr Griffin, a thin man with a moustache, the main memory of this shop is its smell – a wonderful mix of paraffin, rope and polish as many items in those days were unpackaged. Stairs went from the centre of the shop – all festooned with hundreds of items. During the war, Mr Griffin was an ARP Warden wearing a black beret. In all weathers, they would sit in the ironwork ‘crow’s nest’ atop Anstie’s factory in the Market Place awaiting enemy aircraft. I heard one man got frostbite.

Turning into Wine Street, Boots Chemists was on the corner with St John Street. On the first floor was a wonderful lending library where you had to pay to be a member. There was always a race to Boots library when word went round they had the latest Enid Blyton story on the shelf. Opposite Boots, on the corner with St Johns Street was The Clock House Laundry. It was the busiest corner in the town! Inside (if you could see for the steam) were many ladies bustling around with mostly white laundry, stuffing into machines, folding, shaking and pressing. Further down the pavement was Harland & Dickinson’s bicycle shop – always good for a mended puncture, even well into the evening. Further on was an antique shop run by Mr Godwin. I knew his daughter Mary and we always called her Mary Antique. Behind the Town Hall, on the corner of Long Street was a tiny sweet shop run by Mr and Mrs Stokes. Their living room was just behind the shop so you had to wait for them to hear the doorbell before appearing. Mrs Stokes had an illness which caused her to tremble and I was never quite sure if she would manage to scoop the sweets from the heavy bottle into the small paper bag but she always did with Mr Stokes keeping a kind eye on her.

Proceeding into Long Street from the sweetshop, you came to Number 44 wherein lived a Mrs Tripp. A tiny, formidable lady of colourful language, she rented out rooms and among her lodgers were Poles who had chosen to remain in England after the war. A Pole came into Dad’s shop with his English dictionary and queried certain words which Mrs Tripp kept calling him. “This word b***** not in the book for me to learn” he said. With customers listening in the shop, Dad had great difficulty sorting out the problem. Mrs Tripp would be in the town shopping in the afternoons, carrying her basket and wearing a costume and brown hat. I was always terrified of her.

Across Long Street living in separate flats on the second and top floors of Number 9 were two sisters, the Misses Dorothy and Winifred Hassle. At first glance, these two tiny ladies, both eccentric and unique in their own way, seemed mad as hatters. But, not so! They both did excellent work for the Wiltshire Gazette, Miss Winifred being the correspondent for the Collingbournes area which she covered on buses receiving refreshment from villagers at each stop. She was a teacher of Pitmans shorthand and tutored me, along with budding Gazette reporters, in her tiny living room. Many an evening, I would visit her top floor flat with the gas fire hissing at full speed and receive shorthand tuition before Miss Hassle fell sound asleep with her head on the table. Somehow I passed my exams! On one occasion a beaming Miss Dorothy put her head around the door and was dispatched with a wave of Miss Winifred’s arm before she had uttered a word. Miss Winifred grinned at me and made a wicked comment about her younger sister! They were both unforgettable and so much a part of the town’s rich culture. Next door at Number 10 Long Street lived elderly Mr and Mrs Vernon Butterfield. Theirs was a beautiful double fronted house where they took paying guests. One long term guest was Michael Cutforth who was the parochial reader at St Johns and St Marys churches. Every Christmas, Dad would take me to Number 10 and I would receive a £1 note from Mr Butterfield. I never knew why except that sometimes I delivered their bacon order.

Returning to the top of The Brittox and Maryport Street, Johnsons Jewellers was on the corner, as today. Mr Johnson pierced my ears in July 1954, the day after I left school. Pierced ears while at the Grammar School would have caused a storm. The Trustee Savings Bank was managed by Mr A R Lee – Clifford Couch, son of Arthur Tucker Couch previously mentioned, also worked there. Mrs Mollart had a second hand furniture shop – most of the furniture looked very old but nothing was wasted in the years after the war. Moore & Bush electricians was further along – Mrs Bush was such a nice lady. Then Bucklands - the cobblers – my mother always referred to cobblers as shoe snobs, whatever that means. Mrs Little had a greengrocers – Jennifer Little was a schoolfriend. If you followed the pavement round into Monday Market Street, you could see almost at pavement level two small windows at the rear of Bucklands cobblers where you could watch Mr Buckland mending shoes. The covered windows are still there. Across Monday Market Street, Mrs James had a bread shop with loaves in the window on doilies. On purchase, your loaf was simply wrapped in a piece of paper.

Ducks newspaper and tobacconist shop on the corner of Maryport Street and Sheep Street was probably the best known shop in the town. Generations of the family busied themselves from early morning to late evening serving an endless stream of callers. It is difficult to describe such a shop today – they do not exist. The family ethos, the warmth and friendliness, the cosy atmosphere of a thousand items displayed close together ceiling to floor in a tiny brightly lit shop – a priceless memory of old Devizes.

In Sidmouth Street was the Unicorn Inn run by Mr and Mrs Johnson. Ruth Johnson was a schoolfriend. The Unicorn was a strange shape with narrow frontage on the pavement and seemed to go back miles behind this frontage. Tall Mrs Patten had a little sweet shop where she lived with her equally tall daughter Shirley. Across the road was the Milk Bar run by Mrs Bowsher who had several sons and a very pretty daughter Cynthia who was a Carnival Queen attendant one year. In 1952 I was in the Market Place with lots of other people watching the arrivals for the Carnival Queen contest being held in the Corn Exchange. There were many entrants arriving in a steady stream of cars – it was like watching royalty. Still in Sidmouth Street, Raddons Undertakers and Carpenters was further along with a big work complex tucked behind the main street. Ted Raddon was a character with a wicked sense of humour, always jovial and a good friend of my Dad.

Southbroom Road had Mrs Wright’s wool shop near the corner with Hare & Hounds Street. When clothes rationing eased after the War you could obtain beautiful hand-knitted baby jackets interwoven with silver thread from Mrs Wright although my mother, an expert knitter, usually made her own. Silver thread was considered very luxurious after the austerity years. Further down towards Estcourt Street was the Regent Fish Bar. Mr and Mrs Glass ran the tiny shop sweltering away in their white jackets over the sizzling fat to produce delicious fish and chips. A small pack of chips was just a few pence.

New Park Street had a huge population, tucked away in courts and alleys. Tiny houses lined Wharf Street where, on Thursday Market Day, the country buses would park up all along the pavements. Mrs Martin had a grocery shop open to late evening. Walking up Couch Lane towards the cemetery what is that high curved piece of wall by the cemetery canal bridge? I heard it was a point years ago where water carts filled up to spray dusty roads, prior to tarmac.
Across New Park Street, the Salem Chapel had a large congregation and the church was looked after by Mrs Palmer who lived next door. Ethel Palmer was my very best friend at Grammar School and the family moved to Surrey later.

Tucked behind the Brewery were more cottages in Romains Yard where I had a friend, Ann Alexander, whose Dad drove a bus for Bath Tramways. Ann passed away while we were at the Grammar School and I have never forgotten her. Opposite the Brewery, where there is now a car park, was a row of tiny houses wrapping around the bend into Northgate Street. Mr and Mrs Bill Wooldridge lived in one of them right off the pavement. He was a tubby fellow and a brilliant engineer. Mrs Wooldridge was so tiny and fragile, I felt she might break. Across the road in Northgate Street lived Miss Honey at No3 with the front door, again, on the pavement. But behind the house was a beautiful garden which stretched right back to Station Road and where Miss Honey held wonderful fetes for the nearby Congregational Church.

Entering the Market Place, Mr Armin, a dental surgeon lived in the beautiful double fronted house with iron railings. In his younger days, Dad told me how he once visited Mr Armin on early closing day (Wednesday afternoon) to have a tooth filled. He was wearing a suit as he was courting my Mother and they were going for a walk. Mr Armin charged him one shilling and sixpence for the filling. Later that week, one of Dad’s many brothers, wearing working clothes, also had a tooth filled by Mr Armin and was charged one shilling. After that, Dad said “Never get dressed up to go to the dentist – he’ll think you’ve got plenty of money”. Further along was the Bath Tramways office which fronted a huge bus depot going right back to Station Road. The Market Place was always full of green Bath Tramways buses and red Wilts & Dorset double deckers. The green buses were full of petrol fumes and cigarette smoke and presided over by a conductor wearing a little machine on a strap which punched your ticket after he selected it from a clipboard. When I was very young I did so want a clipboard with tickets to ‘play buses’! The driver was isolated in his own cabin up front. Once when I was on a journey to Calne, the bus started to turn right at the Wans Cross junction and finished up with its nose against the curved wall instead of completing the turn. The driver appeared to be asleep over the steering wheel. Several passengers got off and pulled the driver out where he sat on the grass verge for a while apparently overcome by fumes. He must have recovered because we eventually got to Calne. Further along the Market Place was Slade’s baskets and hardware shop. The wonderful smell of the baskets and their varnish reached right out onto the pavement. Next door, on the corner with Station Road was Mr and Mrs Dixon’s café with welcome cups of tea for weary travellers who had toiled up the hill from the Station. I once recall arriving at the Station with a heavy suitcase and managed to get half way up the hill before resting. A soldier walked by and picked up the suitcase to carry it up the hill for me. He took a few paces, dumped it back on the pavement and walked on!

Passing the Corn Exchange, we come to the Bear Hotel. Soon after the end of the War a new man arrived to run the best hotel in town. Arthur Earl was larger than life – a huge man with black wavy hair and an imposing presence – he seemed to take the air out of Devizes Market Place. Always attired in a black suit or dinner jacket, he would stand outside the hotel passing the time of day with people and greeting guests, always accompanied by his black Labrador. Sometimes, the Labrador did duty on its own and became a familiar sight along the pavement. Mrs Earl helped with the hotel – a tiny elegant lady always tastefully dressed – I believe her name was Andrea and she was Austrian. Grand entertaining re-commenced in the 1950s and with its large kitchen and sizeable ballroom, the Bear was ideal for Hunt and Police Balls. It was a long, long day for those preparing. As the supplier of pork products to the Bear, Dad would start early morning by taking the fresh hams, roasts and chipolatas across the Market Place to the hotel kitchen. He returned to report that Arthur Earl was already working in the kitchen, stripped to his vest. In the evening, when the Ball was in full swing and the buffet about to start, Dad would return to the hotel in his best whites and carve at the buffet. Arthur Earl once declared that Dad could get more slices out of a joint of meat than anyone else with those sharp knives! He got on famously with Arthur Earl and had enormous respect for him over the years and was sorry to see him leave the town in the early 1960s.

Walking across to the northern side of the Market Place brought you to a pavement of many shops, as today. Burt’s Ironmongers – like Griffins in High Street – had that wonderful smell of oils, rope and paraffin. The Ruth Pierce Restaurant was run by Les Whamond with a snack bar by the main door leading back to a huge restaurant room which I have already mentioned in my story of the Army in Devizes. Around the walls were carved wood pictures of local scenes done by a local artist who I believe was called Newman. I wonder where they are now. Leon V Burn, Jewellers was next. Mr Burn was a stern, tall and very upright gentleman with a stiff leg. To enter the shop you walked over some mosaic tiling with the initials ‘L VB’ –they are still there today. Mr Abrahams sat at the rear of the shop mending clocks and watches. Next was Fortts grocers owned by Alec Millard with its wonderful smell of ground coffee. Strongs Cheesecake Café was next owned by Leonard Strong always immaculately dressed usually wearing a dicky bow tie. The shop went a long way back from the Market Place pavement with a ground floor bakery and large restaurant upstairs. All the tables and chairs were rattan – I knew of one lady who left because of the laborious scrubbing of the rattan furniture! Coles Sports and Gun shop was next, run by the Lloyd family and then a large W H Smiths – the largest newsagents in town with a deep exterior newspaper counter incorporated at the shop entrance, for quick service especially to bus passengers. Miss Carter served on this counter for years – probably one of the best known faces in Devizes. She would give you your change and say ‘Chew’ which was her version of ‘thank-you’. I suppose she was entitled to use a shortened version after all those years. She lived in Bricksteed Avenue with her bachelor brother who drove for Bath Tramways. Further on, across Snuff Street, was the Co-op on the corner and then the Black Swan Hotel run by Mr Byerley. He was killed in a motoring accident in France and Mrs Byerley came back and ran the hotel alone. The Pie Shop run by Mrs Loveridge and Mrs Case was everyone’s favourite shop selling delicious pastries and cakes every bit as good as your home mades. Such a memory! Mr Loveridge had a jeweller’s shop just before the Palace Cinema.




Policing Devizes in the 1960s
Despite my Mother’s previous advice when I left school to get a sit-down job as Grammar School girls shouldn’t earn their living on their feet, I took her advice for some years then forsook office work for a life pounding the beat in various parts of Wiltshire, some of the time in Devizes. The whole object of policing in those days was to ‘get out there and be seen to be out there with eyes and ears wide open, talking to as many people as would talk to you. The town was split into beats which you either walked or cycled and you rang in from a telephone box during your beat to check if you were needed elsewhere. I recall one ring in point was a kiosk by Roundway Hospital, a dark and lonely spot. You had a bicycle allowance and a torch allowance included in your pay. Great care was taken of your uniform. Many men had recently completed National Service and set a trend for looking immaculate with well brushed tunic and knife edge creases in their trousers. The uniform and the way you conducted yourself wearing it commanded respect and got it. You made it your business to know everyone and, if a young person showed signs of going astray, you took them home to their parents who were usually on your side. If there was a lad heading for trouble, a colleague would take him up a side street and give him a severe dressing down. A clip behind the ear behind the Co-op saved many a lad from juvenile court. You made sure you were in control of your town – it wasn’t an iron fist thing – it was what the townspeople expected. A good example of this came from a friend who told me of his own experience while being a lad about town in the 1980s. He lived in Hartmoor Road area and, with his mates, took the shortcut home from the town centre via St Johns Churchyard and the Wooden Bridge. It was their habit to knock on the doors of the Alms Houses in the Churchyard and then to hide behind a large tombstone nearby to watch who opened their doors. One evening they did this and found a policeman behind the tombstone. As they ran away, the policeman called out, “I know you, young lad, and I’ll be telling your Dad about you” The young lad’s Dad duly dealt with him and he didn’t knock on those doors again.

One of the greatest characters in the town was Bertie Bushnell. He was always around, even when I was a little girl in the 1940s, and was as familiar a sight in Devizes as the Market Cross itself. He wasn’t a tramp because he was local to the town and its surrounds being born in the St Johns area in 1900. He didn’t like living in a house preferring a hedgerow, a barn or a tent. There were those who called him a shifty rogue and workshy but the majority of Devizes people tolerated him. You had to be one step ahead of Bertie because he was cunning and fly. He was known to take on odd jobs and to touch you up for some money half way through and you wouldn’t see him again. Bertie specialised in half-done jobs - moving on for the next easy shilling was his style. He also caused things to disappear when he was around and he was very good at pretending to be as puzzled as you as to their whereabouts. He had been married once but his wife was long gone. I recall someone who saw him on his wedding day saying he wore a daffodil in his lapel (probably borrowed from someone’s garden) with the stalk hanging down to his knees! My Dad knew Bertie well and often gave him scraps and offcuts to boil up on his fire. Bertie would never come into the shop – he knew his place. He would hover in the Little Brittox waiting to be noticed, studying the expensive cuts in the window, never making eye contact. If he got a parcel he would nod and move quickly off. If the shop was too busy, it didn’t matter to Bertie as there was always Jack Wishart’s up the Brittox. Sometimes I saw Dad delve beneath his long white apron into his trouser pocket to give Bertie a couple of coppers. He said it wasn’t because he liked him – it was to make him push off but I knew that wasn’t true as Bertie already had his parcel. Years later, while I policed Devizes for a while, he would appear out of nowhere on cold dark evenings to stand a few yards away on the edge of the pavement perhaps glad of a bit of company. A small man, he would nod and mumble through his few teeth and then peer into the gloom with his bloodshot eyes, crumpled face and stubble chin. I always called him Mr Bushnell. We might be half an hour like that depending on the cold. Sometimes I moved off first, or I would realise he was gone seeing him further off down the street with his sprawling gait, long flowing coat and tapping staff. Where had he come from and where was he going? Sometimes you wouldn’t see him for a while and word would go round the Station, “Anyone seen Bertie lately”? Yes, someone usually had and we’d all be relieved although wouldn’t admit it.
He frequented the Pewsey Vale villages from where his parents had originated and most rural people were tolerant of him. We wanted to ask him some questions one day and found him in a tent up a lane at Patney surrounded by an assortment of rubbish – tins, cloths, newspaper and eggshells. He didn’t much like the Police visiting his territory and went very vague about our questions. He finally dismissed us by sitting at the entrance to his tent, puffing on some baccy and fixing his eyes on the far horizon. We should have known better. As he grew older, Bertie often went into St James Hospital in Devizes (known locally as the Home) for a clean-up and rest. After these stays, you would see him in the town looking quite pink and cherubic and people would say “Bertie’s looking well – must have been up the Home again”. But the warmer weather and wanderlust soon had him back to his old outdoor life. When my Grandfather died we gave Bertie his greatcoat and he looked quite the toff for a while! When he died in 1980 there was much mixed comment in the local paper. For me, he was, among others, always a grand old character of the town and area whose free spirit could not happen today. Could there not be a Bushnell Avenue one day in Devizes?

Police cars throughout the County were heavy black Rovers which looked like any other car as I do not recall any special markings on them. If you wanted to stop a vehicle you either flashed them from behind with your headlights or overtook them and pulled a piece of string at the dashboard which caused a cardboard ‘Stop’ sign to rise in the rear window.

A policewoman in the 1960s took second place to her male colleagues. I joined, trained and served with single men of my own age who were paid a higher salary simply because they were men and yet my frequent work with women and children was specialised. I once tried to apply for a different position within the Force but was told not to bother as ‘a woman couldn’t do that job’. But the men didn’t have it all their own way – a colleague was posted to a rural village outside Salisbury where the police station was a tiny cottage. He and his wife had all the latest G Plan furniture which wouldn’t fit into such a tiny house. When he submitted a report about his problem he was told to sell his furniture. The heavy serge uniform was worn throughout the year, no matter what the weather. If it was really hot, an order would be issued that you were allowed to discard the jacket and wear your shirtsleeves neatly rolled up. However, if Salisbury in the south of the County was enjoying a warm day and Swindon in the north happened to be a bit chilly no order was made as all officers throughout the County had to be dressed the same.


And finally ……..
The Palace and Regal Cinemas
Today, it is inconceivable that a small town like Devizes could support two large cinemas but everyone ‘went to the pictures’. You had to book a seat on a Saturday evening at the Palace. It was quite normal, when there was a really good film showing, for the queue to stretch back to Snuff Street. British film producers and especially Hollywood were churning out wonderfully watchable films which had you singing and dancing all the way home or finding the book in the library to read the story of the film. It was always a splendid evening out with a full programme. Even if the main film wasn’t to your taste, there was a smaller film mid evening between the two showings of the major film. This could be a travelogue (at a time when most people rarely left England) or documentary. Then there were the trailers advertising next week’s films. Then you had the Gaumont British News. You already knew the news because you had heard it on the radio or read it in the newspaper but, at the cinema, you actually saw it. I had a favourite seat in the one and nines (one shilling and nine pence) at both the Palace and the Regal. They were like my second home! The best seats were half a crown (two shillings and sixpence). Films were shown on Monday to Wednesday, then a new film from Thursday to Saturday and a complete change of programme for Sundays. On a Sunday evening, you could go to church for evensong and still catch the second showing of the major film. I have never doubted that my education got a big boost from ‘going to the pictures’. The movies also helped me to cope with a somewhat mundane existence in a small market town. The Palace was the grander, yet cosier, of the two cinemas with its ornate architecture and stairs sweeping to an elegant first floor – the carpets and chairs all crimson plush. Inside the theatre a vast balcony of more expensive seating hung over a proportion of the lower floor. The Regal was modern in a more open style with a vast entrance hall and the theatre consisting of one lengthy sweep of seating. Children’s’ Saturday matinees for a fixed price ticket were a big attraction with a queue right around to the rear of the building. Kit Carson and The Lone Ranger and Tonto were the big matinee attractions. I always made sure I was to the rear of the queue before a certain downpipe and drain on the Regal wall which meant the cheaper seats had already been filled by the time I got in. This plan never failed!

And now to the present …….
I hope these memories were worth recording and provide interesting social history for those who read them. My reason for remembering in this way is to ensure there is a small record of remarkable generations in 20th Century Devizes – people who worked very hard, expected little, remained stoically cheerful throughout and whose love for, and loyalty to, the town was never in doubt. Devizes is not a town where ‘everyone knows everyone’ anymore as post war it grew too large for that to continue. It cruelly lost its railway and traffic now dominates. For me, however, it is still the classiest town in the County. That can never be in doubt.




Finally ………….
The Courts, Lanes, Alleys, Yards, Passages, Groves and Places.
Everyone has heard of them and it is gratifying to know they still cause so much interest and comment. The Gazette has contributed often and back in the early 1990s ran an article ‘Streets of Bygone Days’ listing many of the locations. This was taken as a challenge by three Devizes Oldies who, the following weekend, had their usual Sunday evening get-together (with whisky!) in a Chantry Court sitting room. I still have the list Jack Wishart, Reg Perrett and Joan Bradley compiled, bless them!

Agnes Place, Alexander or Alexandra Court, Angel Court
Bell Row, Balance Row
Crown Place, Carnels Court, Calne Court, Cadbys Court, Carters Court, Carters Place
Dangerfield Court, Dumpast or Dumpost Passage
Gains Lane Court, Gregorys Court, Greenlands Court, Greenlands Yard, Gable Court
Hilliers Court, Hare & Hounds Court
Jefferies Court
Knights Court
Lemon Grove, Lewis’s Court
Mortimers Court, Meads Court
Neates Court
Orange Grove
Phillips Court, Piles Court, Planks Place, Phoenix Place
Reynolds Court, Romains Yard, Royal Oak Court, Reads Place
Southend Court, Southview Court, St Johns Court, Selbys Court, Selbys Yard
Tylees Court
West End Court, Wellington Court, Wharf Court, Whitlocks Court, Willis Court, Waites Court
Vales Lane, Vine Court, Victoria Court
Are there any more?