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Page 1: Bristol Times Bristol Post 17 September 2013

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TimesBristol

Celebrating our proud history and keeping your memories alive

TUE17SEP2013

Volume 2 F ro mexile in Twerton tothe Rovers’ retur n

Page 5 Have youheard any goodGromit legends?

Page 4

Page 8 So, Marion,what’s for dinner?

The Bristol Suffragetteswho fought fire with fireBy the autumn of1913, womencampaigning forthe right to vote hadput up with years ofviolence andrepression fromstreet thugs and thestate alike. But nowthey had had enough,and were fighting firewith fire – l i t e r a l l y.And as Eugene Byrneexplains, Bristolwas one of the maincentres of militantSuffragette activity

THERE is a tendency toregard the years imme-diately before theFirst World War as amythical golden age,an endless summerof innocence when

people took tea on the lawn andhad no idea of the horrors toc o m e.

In truth, it was a time of greatanger and political instability.

Britain had been taught whatKipling called “no end of a les-son” in the Boer War. Trade Uni-ons were becoming organisedand more powerful, agitatingagainst the appalling conditions theworking classes lived under. TheUnited Kingdom itself was underthreat from the independence move-ment in Ireland, and a Unionist com-munity that was equally militant,and had the overt support of severalarmy officers.

And then there were the suffra-

gettes. These were not upper classladies in big hats making the oc-casional nuisance of themselves inthe struggle for votes for women.

One hundred years ago, by the au-tumn of 1913, the suffragette cam-

paign was bitter, angry andviolent.

In the year before the out-break of War, Bristol experi-enced destruction on a scalewhich dwarfed any politicalrioting or terrorist attack thecity has seen ever seen since.

And it was all carried out bywo m e n .Bristol, with a long history of

activism and social reform bywomen, had been one of the earlycradles of the women’s suffragem ove m e n t .

Many Bristol women had cam-paigned for the Married Women’sProperty Act of 1874, for instance. Until

� The Eastville boathouse burned by Suffragettes Picture courtesy of Bristol Record Office

Turn to page 2

� Annie Kenney,photographed

at about the timeshe was working

in Bristol

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Suffragettesfound plenty ofsupporters inthe Bristol area

then, a married woman’s propertybelonged, in the eyes of the law, to herhusband. Others were active in lob-bying against the Contagious Dis-eases Acts, under which womencould be arrested, forcibly examinedand confined if they were suspectedof prostitution.

The Bristol & Clifton branch of theNational Society for Women’s Suf-frage had been formed in 1868.

Until the late Victorian period,though, the majority of these femaleactivists were from wealthy back-grounds, with the time, educationand money to get involved in socialrefor m.

This was now beginning to change.With the rise of trade unions and theLabour movement, women frommore modest homes were also be-coming politically active.

The National Union of Women’sSuffrage Societies (NUWSS) wasfounded by Millicent Fawcett, whobrought together various other cam-paign groups in the late 1890s. Themore militant Women’s Social &Political Union (WSPU) was formedby Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903.

In 1907 one of her lieutenants,Annie Kenney, arrived to set up aBristol branch. Kenney, p i c t u re dbelow, was a remarkable woman, andthe most senior figure in the move-ment to have come from a workingclass background.

Born in Yorkshire to a family withnine siblings, she had worked in acotton mill from the age of ten. Shebecame a trade union organiser andeducated herself at night despiteworking 12-hour shifts. Shejoined the WSPU after at-tending a meeting ad-dressed by ChristabelPankhurst (one ofEmmeline’s daugh-ters) in 1905.

In Bristol, shefound plenty ofsupporters. Two ofher earliest helperswere the Quaker sis-ters Anna Maria andMary Priestman, bothnow in their 70s and vet-eran campaigners for women’sr i g h t s.

Other supporters included MaryBlathwayt and her parents Emily andColonel Linley Blathwayt, whoowned Eagle House in Batheaston. Athis suggestion, suffrage campaignerswho stayed at the House should eachplant a tree as part of what becamecalled “Annie’s Arboretum”.

The WSPU’s Bristol branch grewrapidly. By 1909 they had a shop andoffices at no. 37 Queens Road. Theyheld fundraising drives, chalked slo-gans on pavements and held open airpublic meetings in places on theHorsefair or Blackboy Hill as well as

in surrounding towns like Portis-head, Clevedon and Weston-super-M a re.

These were not always, or evenusually, genteel affairs. Public meet-ings were heckled and harassed bymen who didn’t like the idea ofwomen getting the vote, or by menwho were simply looking to stir uptrouble. Speakers were pelted withrocks, vegetables and rotten bana-n a s.

There were some decent chaps, ofcourse; a big meeting on the Downs in1908 where the speakers were Em-meline and Christabel Pankhurstand Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence

Bitter and violent | The fight for women’s rights

he was heckled by Elsie Howey andVera Holme who had evaded themeeting’s security by sneaking inhours previously and hiding in thehall’s organ.

Astonishingly, the same thinghappened in 1912 when the NationalLeague for Opposing Women’s Suf-frage – yes, there was indeed such anorganisation! – held a rally at theColston Hall. Despite even tighter

security than ever, the speeches byHobhouse and the novelist MrsHumphry Ward, were heckled fromthe organ loft.

When Winston Churchill (then aLiberal) visited in November 1909 hewas struck by Theresa Garnett atTemple Meads. “Take that youbr ute,” she said as she hit him (ortried to hit him – accounts differ)with a dog-whip. “Votes for women!”

was engaged in a massive campaignof destruction. Across the country,telephone wires were cut, post boxesand works of art were vandalised,sports pavilions were set alight. Thegovernment responded with arrestsand the WSPU was banned from hold-ing meetings and its newspaper pro-hibited from publishing.

Things were fairly quiet in Bristoluntil the autumn of 1913. Then, onOctober 23, the Bristol University

EDITH Garrud (1872-1971) is one ofthe greatest unsung heroines of thewo m e n’s suffrage movement.

Though she has no Bristol con-nections at all, she was born in Bath,so we can tentatively claim her assort-of local.

She grew up in Wales and marriedWilliam Garrud a gym instructor in1893 and the couple moved to London.Here they became the first teachers ofthe Japanese martial art of jujutsu,with Edith taking charge of classesfor women and children.

In 1908 she started teaching classesfor members of the women’s suffrage

Suffrage movement | Amusement of the press

Martial arts instructorhelped prevent arrests

movement and later went on to traina 30-strong elite corps – “Amazons”,the papers called them – known as the“Body Guard”.

The Body Guard’s role was to pro-tect prominent suffragette membersand speakers to prevent them frombeing arrested.

Edith Garrud trained them atsecret locations in unarmed combatand in the use of Indian clubs. Usingguile and their new fighting skills,these ladies succeeded in preventingthe arrest of fellow suffragettes on anumber of occasions, to the evidentamusement of the press.

Matters took an increasingly uglyturn as meetings in London weredisrupted by thugs, who would attackand sexually assault suffragettes.

Finally, following one meeting, acouple of women had had enough andthrew stones through the windows of10 Downing Street.

Stone-throwing quickly became aWSPU tactic. These women were, ofcourse, arrested and given short pris-on sentences where they went onhunger strike.

Prison authorities responded byforce-feeding them. This was a pain-ful and distressing process. A rubbertube was inserted into stomachthrough the mouth, or sometimes viathe nose and food in liquid form waspoured down. It happened in gaolsaround the country, including Bris-tol’s own Horfield prison.

As far as the WSPU was concerned,this amounted to state-sponsored tor-ture of political prisoners.

After attempts to find an acceptablepolitical compromise in Parliamentfailed, the WSPU increased thestakes. By the end of 1912 the WSPU

sports pavilion at Coombe Dingle wasburnt down and suffragette literat-ure was found nearby, along with anote demanding the release fromprison of a suffragette who had beenarrested in London.

Two days later the students exactedrevenge by marching on the WSPUshop in Queens Road.

At 5pm a crowd of about 300 stu-dents trashed the place. Making a pileof books, newspapers and leaflets in

� Burned outBristol Universitysports pavilion. Thework of “wildwomen”, accordingto the Daily Mirror,26 October 1913University ofBristol Library,Special Collections

(who had grown up in Bristol andWeston) was set to be disrupted bymen, but they were seen off by agroup of “fine, athletic-looking fel-l ow s ” wearing the WSPU’s green,white and purple colours.

On another occasion, the WSPUhired half a dozen professional box-ers to protect a meeting at the Vic-toria Rooms.

Bristol was a particular target forsuffrage campaigners because of its

four MPs, three were Liberals, andthe Liberal Party was then in

power. Of these three MPs,two were cabinet min-

i s t e r s.One was Augustine

Birrell (1850-1933) themember for NorthBristol, and ChiefSecretary for Irelandat the time. The other

was Sir Charles Hob-house (1862-1941), rep-

resenting East Bristoland a particularly out-

spoken opponent of votes forwo m e n .

One of the curious ironies of theLiberal government before the FirstWorld War was that it was one of themost radical Britain had ever seen. Itwas trying to promote a peacefultransformation to Home Rule in Ire-land, and through its social and fin-ancial legislation was committed toimproving the lot of ordinaryp e o p l e.

When, in 1909, Liberal speakers inBristol were trying to promote thegover nment’s “people’s budget”, theyfound themselves facing angrywomen. When Augustine Birrell ad-dressed a meeting at the Colston Hall,

“ ...............................................................

I think I would have stayed withthe WSPU through thestone-throwing, but I would nothave supported personalassaults on other people

Author Lucienne Boyce............................................................................

From page 1

the street outside, they set it on fire.As they danced around the flames,onlookers applauded.

The police did nothing and the LordMayor privately declared his approv-al of the students’ action.

On November 11 Begbrook Man-sion in Frenchay was destroyed byfire. Once more, suffragette literaturewas found nearby, and a note saying“Birrell is coming. Rachel Pease isbeing tortured.” Rachel Pease hadbeen arrested for burning a house atHenley-on-Thames and was presum-ably being force fed by now.

Augustine Birrell arrived two dayslater. While he was here a number ofpostboxes were vandalised, and themunicipal boathouse at EastvillePark was burnt down.

And so it went on. A house in StokeBishop was burned, as was anothernear Lansdown in Bath. Imperial To-bacco’s timber yard at Ashton Gatewas torched in March, and the club-house at Failand Golf Club in April.An attempt to set fire to ClevedonParish Church failed.

There seemed no end to the vi-olence, no prospect of a peaceful res-olution. A demonstration outsideBuckingham Palace, where King Geo-rge V refused to meet a delegationfrom the WSPU, ended in near riot.

Yet it did come to an end, verysuddenly and unexpectedly. On Au-gust 4 1914 Britain declared war onGermany. Mrs Pankhurst immedi-ately suspended all WSPU activitiesand a week later all suffragette pris-oners were released.

Some suffrage campaigners werepacifists, but most were not. Soonthey would turn their energies andorganisational skills to supportingthe war effort.

All of this story, and much more, isto be found in an excellent book pub-lished a few months ago.

The Bristol Suffragettes by LucienneBoyce is a clear and readable accountof the national and local struggle. Italso includes a walk, with map,around some places in Bristol con-nected with suffragette history.

“My interest in suffragettes goesback many years, to when I was livingin London,” she says. “And like a lot ofpeople I assumed it was all London-based, that everything happened inLondon, because that’s where the seatof government is.

“Then I moved to Bristol in theeighties and discovered that therewere things going on here. I startedfinding out more about the militantand non-militant campaigns in Bris-

tol. I kept coming across women’snames, and of course there’s so muchfocus on the big names, thePankhursts, yet there were manywomen involved in this campaign,and men, too.

“I wanted to memorialise the or-dinary women, the ones who ran thejumble sales, ran the shops, turnedup to meetings that went on demon-s t r at i o n s. ”

She has been building up inform-ation on people and events in Bristolover many years to produce the book,though she freely admits there aregaps in our knowledge which shehopes other researchers will try to fillin the future.

In Bristol, as in many other places,the violence of the WSPU campaignsalienated a number of women. Manyresigned, preferring the more peace-able lobbying of the older NUWSS.Which side would Lucienne Boycehave been on?

“I don’t approve of violence. I wouldprobably have been one of the peoplewho hovered between the non-mil-itants and the militants … M a nywomen in NUWSS moved into theWSPU or kept joint membership.Women found their allegiances torn,but when the more destructive mil-itancy started around 1908-1909, youhave women moving out of the WSPUand back into the NUWSS.

“I think I would have stayed withthe WSPU through the stone-throw-ing, but I would not have supportedpersonal assaults on other people.”

The WSPU’s line was that whileviolence was being done to women bystreet thugs, and by prison author-ities force-feeding hunger-strikers,they had a right to respond in kind.

“We ’re talking about anger here,real feelings, real pain, real people,”she says.

So what does she say to womennowadays who don’t vote?

“I’m very sad that many womend o n’t vote, I think it’s a shame, but Id o n’t like that self-righteous line‘Women died for you so you shouldvo t e ’. But if you don’t vote, and ifyo u ’re apathetic about what’s goingon then what right have you got tocomplain.

“If you’re not going vote, are youdoing something else? If you thinkthe voting system is in a mess, well itis, we all know that, but what else arewe going to do?”

‘The Bristol Suffragettes’ by LucienneBoyce is published by SilverwoodBooks at £11.99.

� The WSPU shop on Queens Road, after being wrecked by studentsPicture courtesy of Bristol Record Office

� B e g b ro o kMansion followingan arson attackPicture courtesy ofThe Loxton Collection,Bristol Central Library

� Cartoon of thestudents’ attackon the WSPUheadquarters, froma 1913 edition ofuniversitymagazineNonesuchUniversity of BristolLibrary, SpecialCollections,reproduced by BristolCentral Library

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Suffragettesfound plenty ofsupporters inthe Bristol area

then, a married woman’s propertybelonged, in the eyes of the law, to herhusband. Others were active in lob-bying against the Contagious Dis-eases Acts, under which womencould be arrested, forcibly examinedand confined if they were suspectedof prostitution.

The Bristol & Clifton branch of theNational Society for Women’s Suf-frage had been formed in 1868.

Until the late Victorian period,though, the majority of these femaleactivists were from wealthy back-grounds, with the time, educationand money to get involved in socialrefor m.

This was now beginning to change.With the rise of trade unions and theLabour movement, women frommore modest homes were also be-coming politically active.

The National Union of Women’sSuffrage Societies (NUWSS) wasfounded by Millicent Fawcett, whobrought together various other cam-paign groups in the late 1890s. Themore militant Women’s Social &Political Union (WSPU) was formedby Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903.

In 1907 one of her lieutenants,Annie Kenney, arrived to set up aBristol branch. Kenney, p i c t u re dbelow, was a remarkable woman, andthe most senior figure in the move-ment to have come from a workingclass background.

Born in Yorkshire to a family withnine siblings, she had worked in acotton mill from the age of ten. Shebecame a trade union organiser andeducated herself at night despiteworking 12-hour shifts. Shejoined the WSPU after at-tending a meeting ad-dressed by ChristabelPankhurst (one ofEmmeline’s daugh-ters) in 1905.

In Bristol, shefound plenty ofsupporters. Two ofher earliest helperswere the Quaker sis-ters Anna Maria andMary Priestman, bothnow in their 70s and vet-eran campaigners for women’sr i g h t s.

Other supporters included MaryBlathwayt and her parents Emily andColonel Linley Blathwayt, whoowned Eagle House in Batheaston. Athis suggestion, suffrage campaignerswho stayed at the House should eachplant a tree as part of what becamecalled “Annie’s Arboretum”.

The WSPU’s Bristol branch grewrapidly. By 1909 they had a shop andoffices at no. 37 Queens Road. Theyheld fundraising drives, chalked slo-gans on pavements and held open airpublic meetings in places on theHorsefair or Blackboy Hill as well as

in surrounding towns like Portis-head, Clevedon and Weston-super-M a re.

These were not always, or evenusually, genteel affairs. Public meet-ings were heckled and harassed bymen who didn’t like the idea ofwomen getting the vote, or by menwho were simply looking to stir uptrouble. Speakers were pelted withrocks, vegetables and rotten bana-n a s.

There were some decent chaps, ofcourse; a big meeting on the Downs in1908 where the speakers were Em-meline and Christabel Pankhurstand Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence

Bitter and violent | The fight for women’s rights

he was heckled by Elsie Howey andVera Holme who had evaded themeeting’s security by sneaking inhours previously and hiding in thehall’s organ.

Astonishingly, the same thinghappened in 1912 when the NationalLeague for Opposing Women’s Suf-frage – yes, there was indeed such anorganisation! – held a rally at theColston Hall. Despite even tighter

security than ever, the speeches byHobhouse and the novelist MrsHumphry Ward, were heckled fromthe organ loft.

When Winston Churchill (then aLiberal) visited in November 1909 hewas struck by Theresa Garnett atTemple Meads. “Take that youbr ute,” she said as she hit him (ortried to hit him – accounts differ)with a dog-whip. “Votes for women!”

was engaged in a massive campaignof destruction. Across the country,telephone wires were cut, post boxesand works of art were vandalised,sports pavilions were set alight. Thegovernment responded with arrestsand the WSPU was banned from hold-ing meetings and its newspaper pro-hibited from publishing.

Things were fairly quiet in Bristoluntil the autumn of 1913. Then, onOctober 23, the Bristol University

EDITH Garrud (1872-1971) is one ofthe greatest unsung heroines of thewo m e n’s suffrage movement.

Though she has no Bristol con-nections at all, she was born in Bath,so we can tentatively claim her assort-of local.

She grew up in Wales and marriedWilliam Garrud a gym instructor in1893 and the couple moved to London.Here they became the first teachers ofthe Japanese martial art of jujutsu,with Edith taking charge of classesfor women and children.

In 1908 she started teaching classesfor members of the women’s suffrage

Suffrage movement | Amusement of the press

Martial arts instructorhelped prevent arrests

movement and later went on to traina 30-strong elite corps – “Amazons”,the papers called them – known as the“Body Guard”.

The Body Guard’s role was to pro-tect prominent suffragette membersand speakers to prevent them frombeing arrested.

Edith Garrud trained them atsecret locations in unarmed combatand in the use of Indian clubs. Usingguile and their new fighting skills,these ladies succeeded in preventingthe arrest of fellow suffragettes on anumber of occasions, to the evidentamusement of the press.

Matters took an increasingly uglyturn as meetings in London weredisrupted by thugs, who would attackand sexually assault suffragettes.

Finally, following one meeting, acouple of women had had enough andthrew stones through the windows of10 Downing Street.

Stone-throwing quickly became aWSPU tactic. These women were, ofcourse, arrested and given short pris-on sentences where they went onhunger strike.

Prison authorities responded byforce-feeding them. This was a pain-ful and distressing process. A rubbertube was inserted into stomachthrough the mouth, or sometimes viathe nose and food in liquid form waspoured down. It happened in gaolsaround the country, including Bris-tol’s own Horfield prison.

As far as the WSPU was concerned,this amounted to state-sponsored tor-ture of political prisoners.

After attempts to find an acceptablepolitical compromise in Parliamentfailed, the WSPU increased thestakes. By the end of 1912 the WSPU

sports pavilion at Coombe Dingle wasburnt down and suffragette literat-ure was found nearby, along with anote demanding the release fromprison of a suffragette who had beenarrested in London.

Two days later the students exactedrevenge by marching on the WSPUshop in Queens Road.

At 5pm a crowd of about 300 stu-dents trashed the place. Making a pileof books, newspapers and leaflets in

� Burned outBristol Universitysports pavilion. Thework of “wildwomen”, accordingto the Daily Mirror,26 October 1913University ofBristol Library,Special Collections

(who had grown up in Bristol andWeston) was set to be disrupted bymen, but they were seen off by agroup of “fine, athletic-looking fel-l ow s ” wearing the WSPU’s green,white and purple colours.

On another occasion, the WSPUhired half a dozen professional box-ers to protect a meeting at the Vic-toria Rooms.

Bristol was a particular target forsuffrage campaigners because of its

four MPs, three were Liberals, andthe Liberal Party was then in

power. Of these three MPs,two were cabinet min-

i s t e r s.One was Augustine

Birrell (1850-1933) themember for NorthBristol, and ChiefSecretary for Irelandat the time. The other

was Sir Charles Hob-house (1862-1941), rep-

resenting East Bristoland a particularly out-

spoken opponent of votes forwo m e n .

One of the curious ironies of theLiberal government before the FirstWorld War was that it was one of themost radical Britain had ever seen. Itwas trying to promote a peacefultransformation to Home Rule in Ire-land, and through its social and fin-ancial legislation was committed toimproving the lot of ordinaryp e o p l e.

When, in 1909, Liberal speakers inBristol were trying to promote thegover nment’s “people’s budget”, theyfound themselves facing angrywomen. When Augustine Birrell ad-dressed a meeting at the Colston Hall,

“ ...............................................................

I think I would have stayed withthe WSPU through thestone-throwing, but I would nothave supported personalassaults on other people

Author Lucienne Boyce............................................................................

From page 1

the street outside, they set it on fire.As they danced around the flames,onlookers applauded.

The police did nothing and the LordMayor privately declared his approv-al of the students’ action.

On November 11 Begbrook Man-sion in Frenchay was destroyed byfire. Once more, suffragette literaturewas found nearby, and a note saying“Birrell is coming. Rachel Pease isbeing tortured.” Rachel Pease hadbeen arrested for burning a house atHenley-on-Thames and was presum-ably being force fed by now.

Augustine Birrell arrived two dayslater. While he was here a number ofpostboxes were vandalised, and themunicipal boathouse at EastvillePark was burnt down.

And so it went on. A house in StokeBishop was burned, as was anothernear Lansdown in Bath. Imperial To-bacco’s timber yard at Ashton Gatewas torched in March, and the club-house at Failand Golf Club in April.An attempt to set fire to ClevedonParish Church failed.

There seemed no end to the vi-olence, no prospect of a peaceful res-olution. A demonstration outsideBuckingham Palace, where King Geo-rge V refused to meet a delegationfrom the WSPU, ended in near riot.

Yet it did come to an end, verysuddenly and unexpectedly. On Au-gust 4 1914 Britain declared war onGermany. Mrs Pankhurst immedi-ately suspended all WSPU activitiesand a week later all suffragette pris-oners were released.

Some suffrage campaigners werepacifists, but most were not. Soonthey would turn their energies andorganisational skills to supportingthe war effort.

All of this story, and much more, isto be found in an excellent book pub-lished a few months ago.

The Bristol Suffragettes by LucienneBoyce is a clear and readable accountof the national and local struggle. Italso includes a walk, with map,around some places in Bristol con-nected with suffragette history.

“My interest in suffragettes goesback many years, to when I was livingin London,” she says. “And like a lot ofpeople I assumed it was all London-based, that everything happened inLondon, because that’s where the seatof government is.

“Then I moved to Bristol in theeighties and discovered that therewere things going on here. I startedfinding out more about the militantand non-militant campaigns in Bris-

tol. I kept coming across women’snames, and of course there’s so muchfocus on the big names, thePankhursts, yet there were manywomen involved in this campaign,and men, too.

“I wanted to memorialise the or-dinary women, the ones who ran thejumble sales, ran the shops, turnedup to meetings that went on demon-s t r at i o n s. ”

She has been building up inform-ation on people and events in Bristolover many years to produce the book,though she freely admits there aregaps in our knowledge which shehopes other researchers will try to fillin the future.

In Bristol, as in many other places,the violence of the WSPU campaignsalienated a number of women. Manyresigned, preferring the more peace-able lobbying of the older NUWSS.Which side would Lucienne Boycehave been on?

“I don’t approve of violence. I wouldprobably have been one of the peoplewho hovered between the non-mil-itants and the militants … M a nywomen in NUWSS moved into theWSPU or kept joint membership.Women found their allegiances torn,but when the more destructive mil-itancy started around 1908-1909, youhave women moving out of the WSPUand back into the NUWSS.

“I think I would have stayed withthe WSPU through the stone-throw-ing, but I would not have supportedpersonal assaults on other people.”

The WSPU’s line was that whileviolence was being done to women bystreet thugs, and by prison author-ities force-feeding hunger-strikers,they had a right to respond in kind.

“We ’re talking about anger here,real feelings, real pain, real people,”she says.

So what does she say to womennowadays who don’t vote?

“I’m very sad that many womend o n’t vote, I think it’s a shame, but Id o n’t like that self-righteous line‘Women died for you so you shouldvo t e ’. But if you don’t vote, and ifyo u ’re apathetic about what’s goingon then what right have you got tocomplain.

“If you’re not going vote, are youdoing something else? If you thinkthe voting system is in a mess, well itis, we all know that, but what else arewe going to do?”

‘The Bristol Suffragettes’ by LucienneBoyce is published by SilverwoodBooks at £11.99.

� The WSPU shop on Queens Road, after being wrecked by studentsPicture courtesy of Bristol Record Office

� B e g b ro o kMansion followingan arson attackPicture courtesy ofThe Loxton Collection,Bristol Central Library

� Cartoon of thestudents’ attackon the WSPUheadquarters, froma 1913 edition ofuniversitymagazineNonesuchUniversity of BristolLibrary, SpecialCollections,reproduced by BristolCentral Library

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From Twertonexile to Rovers’return to Bristol– it’s all in here

BRISTOL Rovers pro-gramme editor KeithBrookman has releasedthe second in a series ofbooks about the club’shistory with TangentBooks, whose publish-

er Richard Jones is a lifelong Roversf an.

The Bristol Rovers Archive Volume2: 1991-2001 was launched at the Me-morial Stadium before the gameagainst Northampton Town on Au-gust 31 with a signing by Roverslegends Harold Jarman, Phil Bater,Frankie Bennett, Peter Aitken, IanAlexander, Vaughan Jones and AndyTillson.

The new book isa collaborationwith former clubphotog rapherAlan Marshallwho has delvedinto his archiveto provide awealth of photo-graphs, some ofthem never be-fore published.It covers theeventful decade1991-2001 thatbegan with thedeparture ofmana g erGerry Francisand included atrip to Wemb-ley, the returnto Bristolafter 10 yearsplaying atTwerton Park in Bath and the ap-pointment and eventual departure ofmanager Ian Holloway.

Here we reproduce Keith’s accountof Rovers’ first game in Bristol after10 years at Twerton Park:

In 1996 Rovers moved back to Bris-tol following a 10-year exile in Bath.

The photo to the right, therefore, isof some historical importance as itwas taken on 31st August 1996 andmarked the occasion of the firstleague game at the Memorial Sta-dium against Stockport County.

Rovers skipper Andy Tillson is onthe right, with County captain Mich-ael Flynn on the left. William Hol-loway and Mark Twentyman, sons ofmanager Ian Hollway and assistantmanager Geoff Twentyman respect-ively, were among the four mascots onduty that day.

In the background, the empty shell

� Rovers legends joined Keith Brookman and Richard Jones for the launch of Keith’s book at the Memorial Stadium.

Book launch | The Bristol Rovers Archive Vol 2

A new book looking at Bristol Rovers’fortunes through the 1990s, from exile atTwerton to their return to Bristol, has justbeen published. Here Bristol Times takesa look at how the book covered the team’sfirst home game back in Bristol. G

REETINGS, pop-pick-ers! (That’s me tryingto be young and “withit” and appeal toyoungsters who areonly in their 50s and60s. How am I doing?)

Housing problems arenothing new dep’t:

There was a fascinating little thingin the Po s t the other day about howMayor Ferguson (may his tribe in-crease!) and Bristol City Council arelooking to the possibility of solvingsome of the city’s severe housingshortage by building pre-fabs.

Throughout Bristol’s history,t h e re ’s never been enough housing.The last time nobody was complain-ing about Bristol’s housing shortagewas back in the 14th century, shortlyafter half the available accommod-ation in the city had come onto themarket following the Black Death.

Pre-fabs are one answer. Most ofBristol’s postwar prefabs are nowgone, but they have a splendid ex-ample of one at the St Fagan’s Mu-seum near Cardiff. I was there acouple of weeks ago, and meand the (very knowledge-able) attendant there wereboth 98% certain it’s a Bris-tol-built ‘A i ro h ’ turned outafter the War at Filtonwhen they’d stopped mak-ing military aircraft andwere making themselvesuseful in other ways.

History suggests otherhousing solutions, too. InBristol in 1946 therewe re n’t enough pre-fabsor new council houses togo round, so around 1,000Bristolians simplymoved into all the emptyarmy huts all over the place. They putby money each week for rent, andwhen the government caved in theybecame, in effect, council tenants.

T here’s another idea I recentlycame across. Now this one is eitherbrilliant, or it’s so insane it can onlyhave made sense after several gin andIts at the bar of Failand golf club.

In the 1970s, the Conservativegroup on Bristol City Council sug-gested building “shell houses”. TheCouncil, or a private contractor,would build houses in their basicessentials quickly and cheaply. Walls,roof, floorboards, connections to sew-erage and mains – and that’s it. Thesehouses would then be sold cheaply toyoung couples who don’t mind fin-ishing them themselves. You know,you put in the windows and the wir-ing and central heating and so on.

had been the right height, their goalwo u l d n’t have gone in... but you couldsay the same about ours, too.’

Tillson decided against comment-ing on the height of the crossbar, butsaid this about the game. ‘It’s a supersurface if there’s a bit of moisture ontop, because the ball zips along, but itwas holding up a bit in the grass.

‘I thought we did pretty well in thefirst half, although they put us underpressure in the second and we foundit difficult. In the end we had a lot ofyoungsters out there and deservedcredit for the way we stuck at it.’

It wasn’t a particularly successfulfirst season back in Rovers’ home cityas they finished in 17th position inthe old Second Division with 56points, while Stockport were second,behind champions Bury and werepromoted to the old First Division.

Rove r s : Collett, Martin, Clark, Till-son, Lockwood, Gurney, French, Hol-loway, Archer, Miller (Parmenter),Beadle (Low).

Substitute: Hig gs.Stockport: Jones, Flynn, Gannon,

Bound (Jeffers), Connelly, Bennett,Ware, Searle, Mutch, Cavaco (Todd),Angell (Armstrong).

The Bristol Rovers Archive Volume2: 1991-2001 is available from TangentBooks at www.tangentbooks.co.uk for£9.99. Bristol Times readers will get a25 per cent discount if they use the codesupporter at the checkout.

of the West Standcan be clearlyseen. The playerschanged in a‘double decker’Portakabin in thefar corner of theground, and spec-tators were only al-lowed on the openBlackthorn Ter-race, on the Centen-ary Terrace and inthe Centenary Stand(more recentlyknown as theDribuild Terrace andStand).

The match wentahead after some 250supporters hadcleared the MemorialGround of builder’srubble, which saw thevenue pass a second

safety inspection just 24 hours beforekick off. Unfortunately, the gamed i d n’t quite live up to all the hypegenerated by the pre-match publi-c i t y.

A crowd of 6,380 witnessed Rovers’return to Bristol and saw a 1-1 draw.Lee Archer opened the scoring forRovers after 12 minutes and JohnJeffers equalised for County on 73minutes. Both goals were scored atthe ‘South Stand’ end of the ground,though the after match discussionscentred on the fact that both goal-keepers thought that the crossbarwas too high.

Stockport keeper Paul Jones said;‘I’m a good 6’ 3” and normally the baris about wrist level when I stretch myarms up. I could only just touch thisone. I’m not complaining, because itwas the same for both sides. If the bar

“ ...............................................................

I thought we did pretty wellin the first half, although theyput us under pressure in thesecond and we found itdifficult. In the end we hada lot of youngsters out thereand deserved credit for theway we stuck at it.

Rovers skipper Andy Tillson............................................................................

Now this was back when men weremen and every Dad in the land was aDIY wiz who thought nothing ofbuilding a house extension in sixweeks. But nowadays?

Well, anything is worth a try, YourM ayo r s h i p.

Big skirts are good foryou …ISN’T it great how all those old news-papers are becoming available on-line? Not only can you read the

goings-on from your hometown back in the day,but you can search pa-pers for key words andnames. For anyone re-searching their familyhistory, for instance,it’s fiendishly usefuland can save literallyyears of work.

But one of the otherjoys of old newspapers isyou can just readthrough them for inter-esting, amusing or justplain weird stories.Though (take it from me)Victorian newspapers

offer precious little in the way ofsmut. (Actually, that’s not quite true.But we’ll save the sex and scandal inVictorian Bristol for another time.)

Meanwhile, people are now makingbooks of funny/strange Victoriannewspaper stories. Here’s one en-titled The Burglar Caught by a Skel-eton and Other Singular Tales fromthe Victorian Press. It’s compiled byJeremy Clay and published by IconBooks at £12.99. There are storiesfrom all over the country, including afew from Bristol.

You know that story about thewoman who jumps off the SuspensionBridge and is saved by her volumin-ous skirts acting as a parachute (it’strue, though the soft mud helpedbreak her fall, too. Her name wasSarah-Ann Henley and she lived to beright old)? Well that’s not in it, but an

interesting skirt variant is:

At Bristol the other day, a womaneither jumped or fell into the Float atthe Stone Bridge, and it was sometime before any person came to herassistance. She remained on the sur-face of the water, however, during thatperiod, by means of her crinoline. Shewas eventually rescued with grap-pling irons. Two men who saw her inthe water plunged in to save her, butbeing unable to swim, they narrowlyescaped drowning.

So there you have it. Victorianskirts – not just parachutes but buoy-ancy aids as well.

Heard any Gromitlegends?AND so farewell then to the Gromitswho have been all over Bristol andthereabouts over the summer.

H ave n’t they been grand? Haven’tthey been astonishingly popular? Onmy peregrinations around the city Ihave been asked by everyone fromelderly spinsters to super-cool and

Latimer’sDiary

sharply-dressed young men to takephotos of them posing by a Gromit.Some of them pressed very expensivelooking cameras into my hands to dos o.

But of course it was the kids wholoved them best, and they will nowgrow up with dozens of pictures ofthemselves when they were little,grinning broadly as they stood underone of the dog’s sheltering ears.

The Gromits are local history/nos-talgia in the making. The children oftoday will bore their own childrenand grandchildren about Great Gro-mit Summer in years to come. Andwh o eve r ’s running Bristol Times in30, 50 or 100 years time will occa-sionally call up the Po s t ’s vast col-lection of 2013 Gromit photos andwrite a big article about how all ofBristol went crazy for the Gromits in2013.

Because they’ve had such a hugeemotional impact, there will bemyths and urban legends about them,too. Maybe some have started already– true stories that get elaborated,rumours and hearsay spread. I betyou a couple of pints that at somepoint soon there will be weird Gromittales – maybe one that moved mys-teriously in the night, maybe anotherthat cured a friend of a friend’s head-ache after s/he touched it … If you’veheard any Gromit stories which yoususpect – or know – a re n’t true, dogive us a shout.

Because after all, the stories we tellone another about our town whicha re n’t true are actually just as im-portant and interesting as the oneswhich are true.

Cheers then!Get in touch: E-mailB r i s t o l . Ti m e s @ b - n m . c o . u k , or writeto Bristol Times, Bristol Post,Temple Way, Bristol, BS2 0BY.

From left (back row): Richard Jones,Keith Brookman, Peter Aitken, Phil Bater, Andy Tillson. Front row: Frankie Bennett, Harold Jarman, Ian Alexander, Vaughan Jones (Photo: Neil Brookman)

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4 Tu e s d a y, September 17, 2013 5Tu e s d a y, September 17, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

From Twertonexile to Rovers’return to Bristol– it’s all in here

BRISTOL Rovers pro-gramme editor KeithBrookman has releasedthe second in a series ofbooks about the club’shistory with TangentBooks, whose publish-

er Richard Jones is a lifelong Roversf an.

The Bristol Rovers Archive Volume2: 1991-2001 was launched at the Me-morial Stadium before the gameagainst Northampton Town on Au-gust 31 with a signing by Roverslegends Harold Jarman, Phil Bater,Frankie Bennett, Peter Aitken, IanAlexander, Vaughan Jones and AndyTillson.

The new book isa collaborationwith former clubphotog rapherAlan Marshallwho has delvedinto his archiveto provide awealth of photo-graphs, some ofthem never be-fore published.It covers theeventful decade1991-2001 thatbegan with thedeparture ofmana g erGerry Francisand included atrip to Wemb-ley, the returnto Bristolafter 10 yearsplaying atTwerton Park in Bath and the ap-pointment and eventual departure ofmanager Ian Holloway.

Here we reproduce Keith’s accountof Rovers’ first game in Bristol after10 years at Twerton Park:

In 1996 Rovers moved back to Bris-tol following a 10-year exile in Bath.

The photo to the right, therefore, isof some historical importance as itwas taken on 31st August 1996 andmarked the occasion of the firstleague game at the Memorial Sta-dium against Stockport County.

Rovers skipper Andy Tillson is onthe right, with County captain Mich-ael Flynn on the left. William Hol-loway and Mark Twentyman, sons ofmanager Ian Hollway and assistantmanager Geoff Twentyman respect-ively, were among the four mascots onduty that day.

In the background, the empty shell

� Rovers legends joined Keith Brookman and Richard Jones for the launch of Keith’s book at the Memorial Stadium.

Book launch | The Bristol Rovers Archive Vol 2

A new book looking at Bristol Rovers’fortunes through the 1990s, from exile atTwerton to their return to Bristol, has justbeen published. Here Bristol Times takesa look at how the book covered the team’sfirst home game back in Bristol. G

REETINGS, pop-pick-ers! (That’s me tryingto be young and “withit” and appeal toyoungsters who areonly in their 50s and60s. How am I doing?)

Housing problems arenothing new dep’t:

There was a fascinating little thingin the Po s t the other day about howMayor Ferguson (may his tribe in-crease!) and Bristol City Council arelooking to the possibility of solvingsome of the city’s severe housingshortage by building pre-fabs.

Throughout Bristol’s history,t h e re ’s never been enough housing.The last time nobody was complain-ing about Bristol’s housing shortagewas back in the 14th century, shortlyafter half the available accommod-ation in the city had come onto themarket following the Black Death.

Pre-fabs are one answer. Most ofBristol’s postwar prefabs are nowgone, but they have a splendid ex-ample of one at the St Fagan’s Mu-seum near Cardiff. I was there acouple of weeks ago, and meand the (very knowledge-able) attendant there wereboth 98% certain it’s a Bris-tol-built ‘A i ro h ’ turned outafter the War at Filtonwhen they’d stopped mak-ing military aircraft andwere making themselvesuseful in other ways.

History suggests otherhousing solutions, too. InBristol in 1946 therewe re n’t enough pre-fabsor new council houses togo round, so around 1,000Bristolians simplymoved into all the emptyarmy huts all over the place. They putby money each week for rent, andwhen the government caved in theybecame, in effect, council tenants.

T here’s another idea I recentlycame across. Now this one is eitherbrilliant, or it’s so insane it can onlyhave made sense after several gin andIts at the bar of Failand golf club.

In the 1970s, the Conservativegroup on Bristol City Council sug-gested building “shell houses”. TheCouncil, or a private contractor,would build houses in their basicessentials quickly and cheaply. Walls,roof, floorboards, connections to sew-erage and mains – and that’s it. Thesehouses would then be sold cheaply toyoung couples who don’t mind fin-ishing them themselves. You know,you put in the windows and the wir-ing and central heating and so on.

had been the right height, their goalwo u l d n’t have gone in... but you couldsay the same about ours, too.’

Tillson decided against comment-ing on the height of the crossbar, butsaid this about the game. ‘It’s a supersurface if there’s a bit of moisture ontop, because the ball zips along, but itwas holding up a bit in the grass.

‘I thought we did pretty well in thefirst half, although they put us underpressure in the second and we foundit difficult. In the end we had a lot ofyoungsters out there and deservedcredit for the way we stuck at it.’

It wasn’t a particularly successfulfirst season back in Rovers’ home cityas they finished in 17th position inthe old Second Division with 56points, while Stockport were second,behind champions Bury and werepromoted to the old First Division.

Rove r s : Collett, Martin, Clark, Till-son, Lockwood, Gurney, French, Hol-loway, Archer, Miller (Parmenter),Beadle (Low).

Substitute: Hig gs.Stockport: Jones, Flynn, Gannon,

Bound (Jeffers), Connelly, Bennett,Ware, Searle, Mutch, Cavaco (Todd),Angell (Armstrong).

The Bristol Rovers Archive Volume2: 1991-2001 is available from TangentBooks at www.tangentbooks.co.uk for£9.99. Bristol Times readers will get a25 per cent discount if they use the codesupporter at the checkout.

of the West Standcan be clearlyseen. The playerschanged in a‘double decker’Portakabin in thefar corner of theground, and spec-tators were only al-lowed on the openBlackthorn Ter-race, on the Centen-ary Terrace and inthe Centenary Stand(more recentlyknown as theDribuild Terrace andStand).

The match wentahead after some 250supporters hadcleared the MemorialGround of builder’srubble, which saw thevenue pass a second

safety inspection just 24 hours beforekick off. Unfortunately, the gamed i d n’t quite live up to all the hypegenerated by the pre-match publi-c i t y.

A crowd of 6,380 witnessed Rovers’return to Bristol and saw a 1-1 draw.Lee Archer opened the scoring forRovers after 12 minutes and JohnJeffers equalised for County on 73minutes. Both goals were scored atthe ‘South Stand’ end of the ground,though the after match discussionscentred on the fact that both goal-keepers thought that the crossbarwas too high.

Stockport keeper Paul Jones said;‘I’m a good 6’ 3” and normally the baris about wrist level when I stretch myarms up. I could only just touch thisone. I’m not complaining, because itwas the same for both sides. If the bar

“ ...............................................................

I thought we did pretty wellin the first half, although theyput us under pressure in thesecond and we found itdifficult. In the end we hada lot of youngsters out thereand deserved credit for theway we stuck at it.

Rovers skipper Andy Tillson............................................................................

Now this was back when men weremen and every Dad in the land was aDIY wiz who thought nothing ofbuilding a house extension in sixweeks. But nowadays?

Well, anything is worth a try, YourM ayo r s h i p.

Big skirts are good foryou …ISN’T it great how all those old news-papers are becoming available on-line? Not only can you read the

goings-on from your hometown back in the day,but you can search pa-pers for key words andnames. For anyone re-searching their familyhistory, for instance,it’s fiendishly usefuland can save literallyyears of work.

But one of the otherjoys of old newspapers isyou can just readthrough them for inter-esting, amusing or justplain weird stories.Though (take it from me)Victorian newspapers

offer precious little in the way ofsmut. (Actually, that’s not quite true.But we’ll save the sex and scandal inVictorian Bristol for another time.)

Meanwhile, people are now makingbooks of funny/strange Victoriannewspaper stories. Here’s one en-titled The Burglar Caught by a Skel-eton and Other Singular Tales fromthe Victorian Press. It’s compiled byJeremy Clay and published by IconBooks at £12.99. There are storiesfrom all over the country, including afew from Bristol.

You know that story about thewoman who jumps off the SuspensionBridge and is saved by her volumin-ous skirts acting as a parachute (it’strue, though the soft mud helpedbreak her fall, too. Her name wasSarah-Ann Henley and she lived to beright old)? Well that’s not in it, but an

interesting skirt variant is:

At Bristol the other day, a womaneither jumped or fell into the Float atthe Stone Bridge, and it was sometime before any person came to herassistance. She remained on the sur-face of the water, however, during thatperiod, by means of her crinoline. Shewas eventually rescued with grap-pling irons. Two men who saw her inthe water plunged in to save her, butbeing unable to swim, they narrowlyescaped drowning.

So there you have it. Victorianskirts – not just parachutes but buoy-ancy aids as well.

Heard any Gromitlegends?AND so farewell then to the Gromitswho have been all over Bristol andthereabouts over the summer.

H ave n’t they been grand? Haven’tthey been astonishingly popular? Onmy peregrinations around the city Ihave been asked by everyone fromelderly spinsters to super-cool and

Latimer’sDiary

sharply-dressed young men to takephotos of them posing by a Gromit.Some of them pressed very expensivelooking cameras into my hands to dos o.

But of course it was the kids wholoved them best, and they will nowgrow up with dozens of pictures ofthemselves when they were little,grinning broadly as they stood underone of the dog’s sheltering ears.

The Gromits are local history/nos-talgia in the making. The children oftoday will bore their own childrenand grandchildren about Great Gro-mit Summer in years to come. Andwh o eve r ’s running Bristol Times in30, 50 or 100 years time will occa-sionally call up the Po s t ’s vast col-lection of 2013 Gromit photos andwrite a big article about how all ofBristol went crazy for the Gromits in2013.

Because they’ve had such a hugeemotional impact, there will bemyths and urban legends about them,too. Maybe some have started already– true stories that get elaborated,rumours and hearsay spread. I betyou a couple of pints that at somepoint soon there will be weird Gromittales – maybe one that moved mys-teriously in the night, maybe anotherthat cured a friend of a friend’s head-ache after s/he touched it … If you’veheard any Gromit stories which yoususpect – or know – a re n’t true, dogive us a shout.

Because after all, the stories we tellone another about our town whicha re n’t true are actually just as im-portant and interesting as the oneswhich are true.

Cheers then!Get in touch: E-mailB r i s t o l . Ti m e s @ b - n m . c o . u k , or writeto Bristol Times, Bristol Post,Temple Way, Bristol, BS2 0BY.

From left (back row): Richard Jones,Keith Brookman, Peter Aitken, Phil Bater, Andy Tillson. Front row: Frankie Bennett, Harold Jarman, Ian Alexander, Vaughan Jones (Photo: Neil Brookman)

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6 Tu e s d a y, September 17, 2013 7Tu e s d a y, September 17, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

Difficult to recall the havoc of war

� Re Carol Dyer’s letter (BristolTimes, September 3).

I, too, can remember the Co-Opin Castle Street, and as children wevisited Father Christmas in his fairygrotto. I can’t remember the choirboys, but I can well remember thelovely display of Christmas lights.

However, once Christmas wasover, Castle Street was a reallydepressing place. When I startedwork, ten years after the War, Iused to trudge up Castle Street toSmall Street. I can recall a fewshops left standing at the bottomend – F. Hinds (jeweller), a clothesshop, a David Greigs food shopand maybe one or two more. Thenit was devastation until you came tothe Co-Op on the opposite side,which always had lovely windowdisplays.

Opposite was either a BritishHome Stores or a Woolworths. Thisstore was set back slightly from theroad and extended out over theriver. I can particularly rememberthe wooden floorings as you couldsee the river flowing past throughthe cracks. I believe upstairs was asnooker hall.

Following on were the remains ofa bombed-out and boarded-upcinema, alongside which was ashoe shop. Opposite was a men’soutfitters (“Fifty Shilling Tailors”?).Cross the road and the NewsTheatre was still open for news andshort films. I’m not sure if the CivicRestaurant was still open but I canrecall visiting Father Christmas inthe Co-Op, then going on to theCivic Restaurant for something toeat afterwards – a rare treat!

On my way to work I passed thebombed-out St Peter’s Church,

crossed Dolphin Street and walkedalong St Mary-le-Port Street, whereat either side were two giantcraters, one of which was used asa car park. At the end of Mary lePort Street was Caroline’s cakeshop and a Stead & Simpson’sshoe shop. From here it was only ashort walk down into Small Street.

If anything in our home needed

� Bristol’s Castle Street Co-Op, photographed in 1954

Memories of Castle Street

Memories over the years, as my lifeseems to have followed hers insome ways. I was brought up inKnowle West, went to ConnaughtRoad school, infants and juniors.Then after the Eleven-Plus exam Iwas offered a place at MerrywoodGrammar School, starting in 1948(followed ten and 11 years later byboth my sisters). I was ten andthree-quarters years old.

The photograph printed broughtback many memories 59 years afterit was taken. I can still name all the

Photo taken as a token of friendship

replacing or we actually boughtsomething new, like our very firsttelevision, my parents first tried thegood old Co-Op, as my motherused to say you could always relyon them for good quality ‘utility’goods. And of course you alwaysget the “divi” which was, as I recall,paid out at the Co-Op’s offices inCastle Green, which was behind

their building in Castle Street.When I visit tranquil Castle Park

nowadays it is difficult to recall thehavoc and destruction of the war inthe 1940s, and the eventualrebuilding of the 50s and 60s.

I often wonder where all the yearswent!

Christine TaylorRedfield

Can any readers help?

There really should be a wealth ofmemories of lost Basque children

Centre to be taken care of purely bythe kindness of the local people andfed through donations. Apart fromthat we know nothing of theincredible story of the girls.

Though trawling through localnewspapers of the time, I havefound very few details of their timeh e re .

The most interesting part, for meat least, is that 450 of these childrennever went home.

Due to the outbreak of WWII andthe conditions left behind after thesavage civil war many childrendecided to make their own way inBritain, especially those who had nofamily left to return to. That meanssome of these girls may have livedfull lives in the UK and if their story

Canynge Square

I understand thelogic of the map

is not heard soon it may be lost forgood.

I am hoping that by bringing thisstory to the attention of Bristolians, Imay be able to get in contact withindividuals who were living in Bristolduring this period and who mayknow anything about these girls.Even if they didn’t have personalexperience with these niños, theremay be people who remember thedebate over them coming, or overtheir staying here.

Any information would begratefully received and may aid inthe preservation of this aspect ofour city’s history.

If this is the case please contactme via email or letter.

Hopefully there’s a wealth ofmemories to be unearthed regardingthe lost Basque children.

Beth Middleton856 Fishponds Rd

FishpondsBS16 3XA

[email protected]

� I WAS amazed to see thephotograph of Merrywood pupils inMarion’s Memories (Bristol Times,August 27).

I was in this fifth form class photo,which was taken as a token of ourfriendship before we left school in1954, either to go on to sixth form,to work, or to secretarial college.

Some years ago a reunion groupwas formed and we have met eachyear since. The latest was held onAugust 7.

I have followed Marion’s

girls on the photo, even thoughsome are not with us any more. Mycopy has been signed on the backby everyone shown.

I really enjoyed my time atMerrywood and went on to have along career as a nurse at FrenchayHospital (so soon to be closed).

We do still have contact with acouple of teachers from our time atMerrywood. They are of course intheir 90s now.

Margaret NighKingswood

� Merrywood Year 4 girls in Paris in April 1960 on a return trip from a Bordeaux exchange

� AS a History student at Universityof the West of England, I getparticularly excited when I find agap in our history, particularlyBristol’s local history. I have recentlyfound one of those gaps; In fact, it’smore of a gaping black hole than anacademic overlook.

In 1937, 4,000 children from theBasque region of Spain were boughtto the shores of Southampton toescape the atrocities of the SpanishCivil War. They were then sent todifferent “colonies” across Englandand Wales to be taken care ofentirely voluntarily by the people ofthe United Kingdom.

Forty of these ‘niños’ (as theyhave come to be known), all girls,were housed in Kingswood Training

� IT was very interesting to readLatimer’s Diary regarding the BristolA-Z map and Canynge Square, witha road off it called Lye Close.

I was born in Canynge Square in1937, so I can understand the logicof the map.

Canynge Square is not actually asquare, and there is a cul-de-sacwhich covered a couple of houses,namely numbers 27 & 26.

A teacher at Clifton College didsome research on Canynge Squareand where I was born it was calledAlbert Place, or it could have beencalled Albert Villas. I must find acopy of that book – it was soi n t e re s t i n g !

Margaret DonaldWa r m l e y

Postcard of the Week

SO what did thewell-dressed City Fatherlook like 400 years ago?Like this geezer here, iswhat. This is AldermanThomas James, busi-nessman and person of

great consequence back in the day.James was Master of the Society of

Merchant Venturers in 1607, andagain in 1615, and this is the oldestpainting, dated 1617, in the Ventur-ers’ collection.

If you’re ever visiting the LordM ayo r ’s Chapel, you can also admireJa m e s ’s monument, which showshim kneeling piously at prayer.

Which is all very well, though earlyon during his mercantile career hekilled at least one man.

In the 1580s, Bristol merchants hada monopoly on the export of calfskins, which were then much in de-mand for the making of fashionableshoes in France. But it seems thatsome people in the Forest of Deanregarded the Bristol merchants’ p r iv -ilege as unfair.

A group of them led by a tannernamed Whitson loaded a boat withhides on the Wye and sought to take itout to a French ship waiting justbeyond the mouth of the Avon atKing road.

Someone talked, though, andJames and some other Bristol menwho regarded the calf-skin businessas their own armed themselves andwent out in a boat to await the smug-g l e r s.

The latter were prepared fortrouble, too, and were tooled up withpikes, bows, shields and leather coats.When the two sides met it was theForest of Dean men who kickedthings off.

In the ensuing scrap, ThomasJames, armed with a musket, fired,killing a man named Gitton, theowner of the other boat.

(How very unlike our present daybusiness community!)

What happened next is obscured inhistory. Thomas James was appar-ently tried for manslaughter in Lon-don, but since none of the Forest menshowed up in court he was acquit-ted.

The Bristol Corporation seems tohave confiscated the calf skins andkept the proceeds for themselves.When they were ordered by the PrivyCouncil to pay some of the proceedsas compensation for Gitton’s death,they ignored it.

Meanwhile a Bristol mercer by thename of Whitson, who may or maynot have been related to the Forest ofDean Whitson, was arrested and leftin prison for two years or more untilno-one could remember what he wasthere for. Whitson later became awealthy man in his own right andserved a term as Mayor.

Meanwhile, Thomas James didequally well for himself. He was Sher-iff, later Mayor, an MP for Bristol,

served two terms as Master of theSociety of Merchant Venturers andwas an Alderman from 1604 until hedied in 1619.

The painting, on wood, has recentlybeen restored, with all the grime ofthe centuries carefully removed toreveal the vivid colours beneath. Sohere he is in his best gear, including amagnificent fur-trimmed coat dyedBristol Red.

Francis Greenacre, a Merchant

A portrait of one ofBristol’s early cityfathers, datingback to the time ofJames I, has recentlybeen restored. Andas Eugene Byrnefound out, AldermanThomas James wasnot someone to bemessed around with.

Restored portrait | A businessman of great consequence

Don’t mess with Alderman Thomas

“ ...............................................................

He had first been twice mayorof Bristol. For the next twohundred years this successionfrom mayor to master or viceversa was to be commonplaceand a vital characteristic of thegovernance of Bristol.Francis Greenacre, a Merchant

Venturer and former museumcurator

............................................................................

Venturer and former museum cur-ator said: “He had first been twicemayor of Bristol. For the next twohundred years this succession frommayor to master or vice versa was tobe commonplace and a vital char-acteristic of the governance of Bris-tol.”

This was at a time when the Mer-chant Venturers pretty much con-trolled the port of Bristol, and thusthe lion’s share of Bristol’s economy.

“Only with the creation and open-ing of the Floating Harbour in 1809, aproject promoted by the Society butfar beyond its means, did most of theSociety’s responsibilities for the portc e a s e, ” said Mr Greenacre.

“The Society continued to manageand licence the pilots until 1861. Evenin that year the Master of the Mer-chant Venturers and the Chairman ofthe Docks Committee were one andthe same.

Thomas James was also around at atime when Bristol merchants werebusy engaged in exploring the newworld in search of new business op-portunities. In 1603 James helped fin-ance Martin Pring’s voyage along theNew England coast.

“When the Pilgrim Fathers landedfrom the Mayflower in 1620 it was inWhitson Bay, which had been namedby Pring after John Whitson – an-other Merchant Venturer, who wasalso twice mayor and master.

“Alderman Thomas James prob-ably also supported John Guy and hissettlement in Newfoundland in 1610.The Society’s most direct support ofexploration ended in inevitable fail-ure – the heroic voyage of CaptainThomas James (no relation) in 1631/2in search of a North-West Passage.”

� All aboard! This one comesfrom September of 1957 andmight stir some memories for afew readers. It’s the modelrailway that used to be atCanford Park, and thatlocomotive looks to be anespecially fine work ofengineering.

Know anyone in the picture? Ifso, drop us a line!

My mistake

Mantra was actually written by George Harrison!� I REFER to the artlce by RichardHope-Hawkins in Bristol Times(Sept 3) on the subject of the HareKrishnas.

Last February I was walkingthrough Broadmead when I wasstopped by a bearded Hare Krishnamonk. He was appropriatelydressed for the weather, and not in

the familiar robes. He told me thathis Ashram – temple – was inCardiff, so what he was doing inBristol wasn’t clear. He seemed tobe collecting for some charity.

I recited what I believed to be aHindu mantra:

From Bombay to BangaloreHindus know the score

If you want to live for evermoreHare! Hare! Krishna!The monk informed me that this

was the work of George Harrison.So Hare Krishnas are still about –

in Cardiff anyway!Hare! Hare!

Paul ThomasEaston in Gordano

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6 Tu e s d a y, September 17, 2013 7Tu e s d a y, September 17, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

Difficult to recall the havoc of war

� Re Carol Dyer’s letter (BristolTimes, September 3).

I, too, can remember the Co-Opin Castle Street, and as children wevisited Father Christmas in his fairygrotto. I can’t remember the choirboys, but I can well remember thelovely display of Christmas lights.

However, once Christmas wasover, Castle Street was a reallydepressing place. When I startedwork, ten years after the War, Iused to trudge up Castle Street toSmall Street. I can recall a fewshops left standing at the bottomend – F. Hinds (jeweller), a clothesshop, a David Greigs food shopand maybe one or two more. Thenit was devastation until you came tothe Co-Op on the opposite side,which always had lovely windowdisplays.

Opposite was either a BritishHome Stores or a Woolworths. Thisstore was set back slightly from theroad and extended out over theriver. I can particularly rememberthe wooden floorings as you couldsee the river flowing past throughthe cracks. I believe upstairs was asnooker hall.

Following on were the remains ofa bombed-out and boarded-upcinema, alongside which was ashoe shop. Opposite was a men’soutfitters (“Fifty Shilling Tailors”?).Cross the road and the NewsTheatre was still open for news andshort films. I’m not sure if the CivicRestaurant was still open but I canrecall visiting Father Christmas inthe Co-Op, then going on to theCivic Restaurant for something toeat afterwards – a rare treat!

On my way to work I passed thebombed-out St Peter’s Church,

crossed Dolphin Street and walkedalong St Mary-le-Port Street, whereat either side were two giantcraters, one of which was used asa car park. At the end of Mary lePort Street was Caroline’s cakeshop and a Stead & Simpson’sshoe shop. From here it was only ashort walk down into Small Street.

If anything in our home needed

� Bristol’s Castle Street Co-Op, photographed in 1954

Memories of Castle Street

Memories over the years, as my lifeseems to have followed hers insome ways. I was brought up inKnowle West, went to ConnaughtRoad school, infants and juniors.Then after the Eleven-Plus exam Iwas offered a place at MerrywoodGrammar School, starting in 1948(followed ten and 11 years later byboth my sisters). I was ten andthree-quarters years old.

The photograph printed broughtback many memories 59 years afterit was taken. I can still name all the

Photo taken as a token of friendship

replacing or we actually boughtsomething new, like our very firsttelevision, my parents first tried thegood old Co-Op, as my motherused to say you could always relyon them for good quality ‘utility’goods. And of course you alwaysget the “divi” which was, as I recall,paid out at the Co-Op’s offices inCastle Green, which was behind

their building in Castle Street.When I visit tranquil Castle Park

nowadays it is difficult to recall thehavoc and destruction of the war inthe 1940s, and the eventualrebuilding of the 50s and 60s.

I often wonder where all the yearswent!

Christine TaylorRedfield

Can any readers help?

There really should be a wealth ofmemories of lost Basque children

Centre to be taken care of purely bythe kindness of the local people andfed through donations. Apart fromthat we know nothing of theincredible story of the girls.

Though trawling through localnewspapers of the time, I havefound very few details of their timeh e re .

The most interesting part, for meat least, is that 450 of these childrennever went home.

Due to the outbreak of WWII andthe conditions left behind after thesavage civil war many childrendecided to make their own way inBritain, especially those who had nofamily left to return to. That meanssome of these girls may have livedfull lives in the UK and if their story

Canynge Square

I understand thelogic of the map

is not heard soon it may be lost forgood.

I am hoping that by bringing thisstory to the attention of Bristolians, Imay be able to get in contact withindividuals who were living in Bristolduring this period and who mayknow anything about these girls.Even if they didn’t have personalexperience with these niños, theremay be people who remember thedebate over them coming, or overtheir staying here.

Any information would begratefully received and may aid inthe preservation of this aspect ofour city’s history.

If this is the case please contactme via email or letter.

Hopefully there’s a wealth ofmemories to be unearthed regardingthe lost Basque children.

Beth Middleton856 Fishponds Rd

FishpondsBS16 3XA

[email protected]

� I WAS amazed to see thephotograph of Merrywood pupils inMarion’s Memories (Bristol Times,August 27).

I was in this fifth form class photo,which was taken as a token of ourfriendship before we left school in1954, either to go on to sixth form,to work, or to secretarial college.

Some years ago a reunion groupwas formed and we have met eachyear since. The latest was held onAugust 7.

I have followed Marion’s

girls on the photo, even thoughsome are not with us any more. Mycopy has been signed on the backby everyone shown.

I really enjoyed my time atMerrywood and went on to have along career as a nurse at FrenchayHospital (so soon to be closed).

We do still have contact with acouple of teachers from our time atMerrywood. They are of course intheir 90s now.

Margaret NighKingswood

� Merrywood Year 4 girls in Paris in April 1960 on a return trip from a Bordeaux exchange

� AS a History student at Universityof the West of England, I getparticularly excited when I find agap in our history, particularlyBristol’s local history. I have recentlyfound one of those gaps; In fact, it’smore of a gaping black hole than anacademic overlook.

In 1937, 4,000 children from theBasque region of Spain were boughtto the shores of Southampton toescape the atrocities of the SpanishCivil War. They were then sent todifferent “colonies” across Englandand Wales to be taken care ofentirely voluntarily by the people ofthe United Kingdom.

Forty of these ‘niños’ (as theyhave come to be known), all girls,were housed in Kingswood Training

� IT was very interesting to readLatimer’s Diary regarding the BristolA-Z map and Canynge Square, witha road off it called Lye Close.

I was born in Canynge Square in1937, so I can understand the logicof the map.

Canynge Square is not actually asquare, and there is a cul-de-sacwhich covered a couple of houses,namely numbers 27 & 26.

A teacher at Clifton College didsome research on Canynge Squareand where I was born it was calledAlbert Place, or it could have beencalled Albert Villas. I must find acopy of that book – it was soi n t e re s t i n g !

Margaret DonaldWa r m l e y

Postcard of the Week

SO what did thewell-dressed City Fatherlook like 400 years ago?Like this geezer here, iswhat. This is AldermanThomas James, busi-nessman and person of

great consequence back in the day.James was Master of the Society of

Merchant Venturers in 1607, andagain in 1615, and this is the oldestpainting, dated 1617, in the Ventur-ers’ collection.

If you’re ever visiting the LordM ayo r ’s Chapel, you can also admireJa m e s ’s monument, which showshim kneeling piously at prayer.

Which is all very well, though earlyon during his mercantile career hekilled at least one man.

In the 1580s, Bristol merchants hada monopoly on the export of calfskins, which were then much in de-mand for the making of fashionableshoes in France. But it seems thatsome people in the Forest of Deanregarded the Bristol merchants’ p r iv -ilege as unfair.

A group of them led by a tannernamed Whitson loaded a boat withhides on the Wye and sought to take itout to a French ship waiting justbeyond the mouth of the Avon atKing road.

Someone talked, though, andJames and some other Bristol menwho regarded the calf-skin businessas their own armed themselves andwent out in a boat to await the smug-g l e r s.

The latter were prepared fortrouble, too, and were tooled up withpikes, bows, shields and leather coats.When the two sides met it was theForest of Dean men who kickedthings off.

In the ensuing scrap, ThomasJames, armed with a musket, fired,killing a man named Gitton, theowner of the other boat.

(How very unlike our present daybusiness community!)

What happened next is obscured inhistory. Thomas James was appar-ently tried for manslaughter in Lon-don, but since none of the Forest menshowed up in court he was acquit-ted.

The Bristol Corporation seems tohave confiscated the calf skins andkept the proceeds for themselves.When they were ordered by the PrivyCouncil to pay some of the proceedsas compensation for Gitton’s death,they ignored it.

Meanwhile a Bristol mercer by thename of Whitson, who may or maynot have been related to the Forest ofDean Whitson, was arrested and leftin prison for two years or more untilno-one could remember what he wasthere for. Whitson later became awealthy man in his own right andserved a term as Mayor.

Meanwhile, Thomas James didequally well for himself. He was Sher-iff, later Mayor, an MP for Bristol,

served two terms as Master of theSociety of Merchant Venturers andwas an Alderman from 1604 until hedied in 1619.

The painting, on wood, has recentlybeen restored, with all the grime ofthe centuries carefully removed toreveal the vivid colours beneath. Sohere he is in his best gear, including amagnificent fur-trimmed coat dyedBristol Red.

Francis Greenacre, a Merchant

A portrait of one ofBristol’s early cityfathers, datingback to the time ofJames I, has recentlybeen restored. Andas Eugene Byrnefound out, AldermanThomas James wasnot someone to bemessed around with.

Restored portrait | A businessman of great consequence

Don’t mess with Alderman Thomas

“ ...............................................................

He had first been twice mayorof Bristol. For the next twohundred years this successionfrom mayor to master or viceversa was to be commonplaceand a vital characteristic of thegovernance of Bristol.Francis Greenacre, a Merchant

Venturer and former museumcurator

............................................................................

Venturer and former museum cur-ator said: “He had first been twicemayor of Bristol. For the next twohundred years this succession frommayor to master or vice versa was tobe commonplace and a vital char-acteristic of the governance of Bris-tol.”

This was at a time when the Mer-chant Venturers pretty much con-trolled the port of Bristol, and thusthe lion’s share of Bristol’s economy.

“Only with the creation and open-ing of the Floating Harbour in 1809, aproject promoted by the Society butfar beyond its means, did most of theSociety’s responsibilities for the portc e a s e, ” said Mr Greenacre.

“The Society continued to manageand licence the pilots until 1861. Evenin that year the Master of the Mer-chant Venturers and the Chairman ofthe Docks Committee were one andthe same.

Thomas James was also around at atime when Bristol merchants werebusy engaged in exploring the newworld in search of new business op-portunities. In 1603 James helped fin-ance Martin Pring’s voyage along theNew England coast.

“When the Pilgrim Fathers landedfrom the Mayflower in 1620 it was inWhitson Bay, which had been namedby Pring after John Whitson – an-other Merchant Venturer, who wasalso twice mayor and master.

“Alderman Thomas James prob-ably also supported John Guy and hissettlement in Newfoundland in 1610.The Society’s most direct support ofexploration ended in inevitable fail-ure – the heroic voyage of CaptainThomas James (no relation) in 1631/2in search of a North-West Passage.”

� All aboard! This one comesfrom September of 1957 andmight stir some memories for afew readers. It’s the modelrailway that used to be atCanford Park, and thatlocomotive looks to be anespecially fine work ofengineering.

Know anyone in the picture? Ifso, drop us a line!

My mistake

Mantra was actually written by George Harrison!� I REFER to the artlce by RichardHope-Hawkins in Bristol Times(Sept 3) on the subject of the HareKrishnas.

Last February I was walkingthrough Broadmead when I wasstopped by a bearded Hare Krishnamonk. He was appropriatelydressed for the weather, and not in

the familiar robes. He told me thathis Ashram – temple – was inCardiff, so what he was doing inBristol wasn’t clear. He seemed tobe collecting for some charity.

I recited what I believed to be aHindu mantra:

From Bombay to BangaloreHindus know the score

If you want to live for evermoreHare! Hare! Krishna!The monk informed me that this

was the work of George Harrison.So Hare Krishnas are still about –

in Cardiff anyway!Hare! Hare!

Paul ThomasEaston in Gordano

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WELL, I saidpromptly, it wouldhave to be Star-gazey pie withouta doubt! We werechatting withfriends, when

Derek admitted he couldn’t bear towatch I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out ofH e re ! because it would make him feelill to see so called intelligent peopleeating disgusting things. This led toall of us naming the worst meal theyever had put in front of them.

For me it was Stargazey pie – a mostpeculiar dish my first husband’sauntie Lil used to cook. If you havebeen lucky enough to have nevercome across it I must explain it was apie crust placed around a dish ofpilchards standing up, with theirheads sticking out of the top, so thatthe fish oil, supposedly very good totake, would run down the pilchardsand be absorbed into the pie.

Personally I prefer a halibut oil pill.We all have our particular dislikeswhen it comes to food – e s p e c i a l lyDerek! As I have said before I am apretty good cook – and of courseDerek agrees. Well why wouldn’t he?Unless he wants to go hungry.

He is a very funny fella as regardsfood. He eats clockwise around theplate, never mixing flavours. Evenjelly and blancmange has to go inseparate dishes.

Oddly enough, my eldest grandson,Daniel, although no relation to Derek,apart from step-granddad, eats thesame way as Derek.

I tell you my friends – it is lovely towitness Derek’s confusion when Igive him stew or soup.

But we have grown accustomed toour different ways.

When I was young, and fell in lovewith my first and only boyfriend,George, who later became my firsthusband, I used to fret if I didn’t get aletter every couple of days.

Mum used to say: “D o n’t worry so –if you are meant to be together, you

will be.”When I married Derek it was more

a case of for every old shoe there’s anold sock!

A re n’t those old sayings lovely?However when it comes to eating on

holiday when we are abroad I amdefinitely more adventurous thanDerek, but at home I tend to cook‘English’ the way my mum taught me,although I am sure she would haveloved my microwave and fan oven asmuch as I do.

Do you know, my friends, one thingI really get fed up with is the numberof cookery shows ‘rammed down ourt h ro at s ’ on television. I counted atleast 50 one week before I went onholiday and Come Dine With Meseems to have more repeats, accord-

This week inMarion’sMemories –what’s for dinner?

So, Marion, what’s for dinner?

� Fanny and Johnny Craddock – doing the cooking in evening wear

ing to Derek, than faggots and peas.One cookery programme I did love

years ago was Fanny and JohnnyCraddock, not so much for their cook-ery as for their showmanship andentertainment. In those days I neverhad an evening dress let alone cookedin one. I think I would have to say Iwas more Oxo mum – the Oxo familyseemed much more down to earth andI could relate to them more.

Footsteps into history | Blackcurrant cordial

We have Frank and Vernon to thank for RibenaIT was announced last week thatcorporate giant GlaxoSmithKline(GSK) has sold the Ribena andLucozade drinks brands to Ja-panese firm Suntory in a dealworth £1.35 billion.

The two drinks racked upcombined sales of £500m lastyear but GSK said it wasselling them as part of a cor-porate restructure whichwould focus on its pharma-ceutical business.

Lucozade and Ribena bothstarted out as “health” d r i n k s,though nowadays most peoplewould regard them as softdrinks like Coke or Pepsi.

Certainly, when Ribena wasinvented in Bristol it was notreally seen as a “consumer”beverage at all.

We have two people to thankfor Ribena. The first is FrankArmstrong (1900-1993), whowas born in Bristol, educatedat Clifton College and servedin the Royal Flying Corps inthe First World War.

Armstrong trained as a chartered

accountant before joining his fatherin the family business, H.W. Carter

and Co. Based in WilderStreet, St Pauls, Carters dealtin mineral water and lemonc o rd i a l s.

Armstrong was chairmanby the 1930s at a time whenB r i t a i n’s dairy farmers wereproducing large quantities ofcheap milk.

Meanwhile, our secondhero, Dr Vernon Charley wasworking at Bristol Uni-ve r s i t y ’s Long Ashton Agri-cultural Research Station,looking into ways of market-ing this milk surplus by de-veloping fruit cordials form i l k s h a ke s.

One solution, though it usedwater, was a blackcurrantcordial. Armstrong heardabout this and his firm beganmanufacturing it in 1936.

The name was supposedlysuggested by Armstrong’sneighbourhood pharmacistand derived from the Latin

for blackcurrant – Ribes nigrum –

Ribena.Armstrong liked its doctor’s pre-

scription-sounding name as that im-plied it was healthy.

Ribena’s finest hour came duringWW2 when the German U-Boat cam-paign made importing oranges andlemons all but impossible. The gov-ernment encouraged cultivation ofblackcurrants, and almost the entirenational crop went to H W Carter,which by now had premises at StokesCroft and Ashton Gate as well.

It was turned into blackcurrantsyrup which was then distributed tothe nation’s kids and pregnantwomen for free as an importantsource of vitamin C.

As a result, blackcurrant cultiv-ation was encouraged and the yield ofthe nation’s crop increased signific-antly. It also led to a growing pop-ularity of blackcurrant flavourings.Until now, blackcurrants had notbeen too widely cultivated.

Production was moved to a newfactory at Coleford in Gloucester-shire in 1947, and Ribena has beenmade there ever since.

In 1955, the business was taken over

� The boffins working at Bristol University’s Long Ashton AgriculturalResearch Station in the 1930s. Pondering over what to do with all thenation’s excess milk led indirectly to the invention of Ribena

Mind you, since I have downsized toone fairly small oven, one of mygrandsons said he and his girlfriendhave been given the same dinner somany times they now refer to it as my‘signature dish’.

I know the young ones eat lots ofpasta dishes and curries – the equi-valent I think to us older housewivesusing ‘Smash’ although to be quitehonest I couldn’t abide it!

The only cookbook I own is myM&S cookbook, given to me oneChristmas after I was widowed, al-though I don’t think I have opened itfor years.

Years ago recipes in magazines al-ways featured English dishes butnowadays most cookery recipes inmagazines tend to be European,Asian, and Chinese etc.

The other day on holiday I waslooking through my favouritemagazine, The People’s Friend, andthey had a cookery feature on thehumble sausage, and the only Englishrecipe was for sausage and mash!

I must tell you – I don’t think I everhave – about being on a return flightfrom Tunisia years ago. It must bemore than eight years now, and Derekand I were in separate rows.

I kept an eye on him because if, asnearly often happens, he didn’t touchhis dinner I would pass him my breadroll, and cheese and cracker, so atleast he ate something. But he hardlytouched his main course – he thoughtthe chips were soggy. The only prob-lem? He didn’t have chips, he hadmeat balls and pasta!

How daughter Julie laughed when Itold her. In fact, come to think of it,Julie and Derek had a lot in common.Both said their favourite meal waseither a roast or steak and chips –cooked by me, of course!

Years ago when my son and thendaughter-in-law got burgled – inabout 1987 – they didn’t even realise ituntil Clare went into her kitchen andfound the bread pudding she hadmade the night before had been eaten!Then she realised her credit cardand purse had been stolen – it didn’ttake Inspector Clouseau to work outthey were very tidy, very hungryt h i eve s !

The only thing that put me off myfood when I was young was when Dadput a fly paper in our kitchen and itgot covered in flies.

See you next week,Love, Marion

by Beecham Foods, now part of Glaxo-SmithKline. Frank Armstrong wasoffered a place on the Beecham’sboard until his retirement in 1960 andchaired the drinks division of theiroperations, selling us Corona, Luc-ozade and PLJ. (Remember PLJ?

“Pure Lemon Juice”?)With an assurance from GSK that

the “vast majority” of employees willbe offered transfers to Suntory, itseems likely that Ribena will still bemade in the Forest of Dean for sometime to come.