The story presented here is the adaptation of:-
The Boy who grew up in the pub in the 1950’s
written by
William Pilcher
I was born in a private maternity nursing home, St. Christopher's, 106 Maidstone Road Chatham at 15:40 on Monday the 16th of January 1950. My weight being just over four pounds and my Grandmother who was not known for her tact was credited with two outbursts. ‘Well, you cannot expect rats from mice’ this was because my mother at only 5 feet tall and was very slight, and ‘He looks like a white Gollywog’, I was born with a mass of white hair.
My earliest memories are watching the Queen Elizabeth Coronation decorations go up on the outside of the Old Ash Tree pub in Chatham, and a holiday in Clacton where I remember waving to my grandmother on the balcony of our hotel from the seafront. The pub decorations were extensive with real Union flags on wooden flagstaff’s. There is a photo in the collection of what the pub looked like. So here I am mentioning the pub, I should say something about this rather amazing building and also of the special man, my Grandfather Frederick, who was the landlord.
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| Old Ash Tree ... year 2003 (click on image to open a full size view) |
My grandfather lived with his parents William and Annie Pilcher who ran the Hen and Chickens at the end of the Luton Road Chatham. He had been born there and grew up with his four siblings in the pub that also operated a livery stable at the rear of the premises. All four eventually owned pubs including Bert who took over the coach business. Arthur ran the ‘Tam-O’-Shanter’ on Chatham Hill, and Audrey "Annie" and her husband Fred Cockrill had the 'Rose Inn' Catherine Street, Delce in Rochester. Bert for a short time ran The Wheatsheaf’ in Luton. His Grandfather in 1859 had founded a horse-drawn coach service, which evolved during the 20th century into the Pilcher’s Motor Coaches business. Initially he ran a horse bus from ‘The Hen and Chickens’ in Luton Chatham to the ‘The Old Gun’ pub in Strood, across the bridge from Rochester. The fare then was apparently 1 penny each way and this was the first public transport in the Medway Towns.
My grandfather was mad about horses having grown up with them. He used to tell me how before school he would, against all the rules of his father, take a horse for a gallop up the Capstone Road. This was a regular occurrence and if found out he would be strapped by his father. One day the horse was spooked and as he had no saddle he went right over the horses head onto the road. From that day until the end of his life there was a dent in his forehead where his head had hit a stone in the road.
When war came in August 1914 my grandfather decided he wanted to join the army, he was 17 and lied about his age, he was nine months short of his eighteenth birthday. The story goes that he travelled to Woolwich to join the Horse Artillery. He arrived late and for some reason they took pity on him and put him up in the barracks. In the morning he spotted an officer was having trouble starting a car across the other side of the parade ground. He walked over and asked politely if he could help. The officer was taken aback as he doubted that my grandfather knew anything about cars as in 1914 they were still only owned by the well off. He not only started the officers’ car but when asked, replied that he could drive. By then his father had motor buses replacing the horse buses that had started the business 55 years previously. The officer slightly taken aback said that he was wasting his time joining the Horse Artillery and should get the tram to Bromley where he could earn far more money as a driving instructor for lorries.
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| click on image to read more about this WW1 poster |
This then is what happened and of the first year of the war my grandfather joined the Army Service Corps. The pay even as a driver in the Horse Artillery was 1/3d so as you can see he was making over four times the pay. In fact as an instructor not just a driver it was probably even more. He was posted to the Western Front in 1915 and served at Ypres in Belgium driving ammunition lorries transporting shells to the Artillery. At some point he did a stint as a motorcycle despatch rider as there is a surviving photo of him in leathers and goggles.
Allegedly he stole in pieces of a hut, over several weeks, from the Royal Engineers depot, in which to create a social club for his comrades. There was an ulterior motive, in that he set up a Crown and Anchor game. This is not surprising as coming from a naval town, Chatham; this gambling game would probably have been popular in the ‘Hen and Chickens’.
There is a family story that when he finally came back from the war he stood in the yard of the Hen and Chickens and took off all his clothes as like all of the soldiers in the ranks on the Western Front his uniform would have been riddled with lice which he did not want to bring into his mothers house.
My grandmother met my grandfather when she was the barmaid manager at Barnard's Palace music hall in Chatham High Street. At that time she had lost the guy she was getting engaged to, who was Scottish and in the Navy, and met my grandfather on the re-bound. Although he loved her very much, there was always a doubt in the mind of the rest of the family as to if she reciprocated that feeling to the same degree. Her name was Minnie Tobin, and also worked sometime for the Royal Army pay Corps and MacKay’s Book binders, however I do not know when. She lived with her parents Frank and Emma Tobin at 22 Nelson Road Chatham, the whole road is now gone, its site is under the Pentagon Shopping Centre.
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| Barnard's Palace - Chatham |
Fred at that time was a driver for his elder brother Bert who had by then taken over his father’s business and was running Charabancs on excursions mostly to race courses and to London. Most of his siblings owned pubs so when Fred and Minnie decided to get married it was logical that they should take a pub. The problem was that in those days the furniture had to be purchased by the new landlord, which was a considerable sum. In the Summer of 1921 he drove a Charabanc for his brother to the races at Ascot, during the season start of the Royal week. As usual he was on the make and had a very good tip on a horse. He laid bets off all around the course and sent a telegram (which was unheard of) to my future grandmother. He told her to take all their savings out of the Post Office and put it on this horse. Minnie was understandably very concerned and showed the telegram to her mother. Luckily her mother was very fond of my grandfather and recommended that my grandmother do exactly what he wanted. The Horse won with amazing odds. With their winnings they were able to furnish their first pub ‘The Buffalo’ next to the railway bridge just off what now is technically Rochester High Street. Their marriage took place during the Summer of 1922.
My grandfather went to the first Wembley Cup Final in May 1923 literally days before my mother was due to be born. It was completely oversubscribed and an estimated 300,000 people attended a ground that was designed for 120,000. My grandmother listened to the event on the radio and was horrified by the description given the match was forty minutes late due to people swarming onto the pitch. It was made famous by the lone policeman on the white horse controlling the crowds. The following week 5th of June 1923, my mother was born and as the horse that made them all the money was called ‘Illuminator’ they called her Stella.
Hundreds of thousands of fans cram into the Empire Stadium before kick-off.
Billy the white police horse is just about visible in the upper-left corner of the pitch.
King George V views the madness from the royal box.
Landlords were moved depending on their success, and in 1934 he was offered the ‘Bee Hive’ a larger establishment at 37 & 39 Henry Street Luton, less than a mile from where he was born. What must be remembered was that this was the golden age of the pub. It was the centre of the community where all workingmen went to meet their friends and drank and that was seven days a week 365 days a year. There are photographs of my mother 'Stella' in the garden at this pub as she was nine when she moved in and thirteen when she moved out. Sadly I have no idea where she was at school before this, however it must have been in Rochester. Fred and Minnie Pilcher were making a great success of their pubs, which did not go unnoticed by the brewery Truman Handbury, and Buxton.
One day the area manager told him that they were planning to re-build a brand new flag ship pub that would be one of the largest in the Medway towns in the garden of the ‘Old Ash Tree’ at 136 Rainham Road Chatham. They wanted him to move in immediately while they built the new pub but the old house was in such a poor condition, the garden was full of grass snakes, was one story I remember, that Fred refused to move his young daughter 'Stella' until the new pub was built. They all moved into the new house in 1938 as by then my mother was attending Chatham Girls Grammar School.
In the following year the war came and at 16 my mother was evacuated to Torquay in Devon, which she hated. Chatham, being a military town with Navy Royal marines and Army it was fairly certain that it would be a target for bombs. My mother came home unannounced and found work as a shipping clerk in Chatham Dockyard. Quite insane if you think about it going to work every day in a place that was being bombed on a regular basis.
My mother worked in the shipping office for the duration of the Second World War being responsible for moving stores to naval ships all around the world. She signed the Official Secrets Act and knew that the North Africa Landings were to take place days before the event. She said that whenever there was an air raid she would go to the shelter and listen to all the warships that were in the dockyard, for stores or re-fits, open up with their Oerlikon's and multiple pom-poms anti-aircraft guns. There was a particularly large gun at the aptly named Thunderbolt Pier, which would shake their shelter when it fired.
She had a boyfriend during the war, Peter Rogers, who later married Betty Box and produced the ‘Carry On’ films in the late 50’s and into the 70’s. But long before that fame arrived, one story involved bringing back a car full of turkeys at Christmas from a farm in Essex. This during the war of course was completely illegal as food was strictly rationed. There was a police check point at the Tilbury ferry which would have stopped them had it not been for their quick thinking of passionately kissing as the policemen walked up to car. I know it would not work now but this was a far more innocent age.
During night air raids my mother and my grand parents had beds in the cellar of the ‘Old Ash Tree’, which doubled as an air raid shelter. My mother had her 21’st birthday party on the 5th of June 1944 and remembers seeing gaggles of planes flying over during her walk home along Watling Street from the Central Hotel run by Charlie Cox. These were of course the airborne troops on their way to land in Normandy. My grandmother recalled after D Day looking out of the dining room window and seeing V1 flying bombs heading towards London on several occasions.
My mother married Roy Sutton, a Chief Engine Room Artificer (ERA) in the Royal Navy, on Monday 9th August 1948. How they met I have no idea and anything about him was not talked about. He left my mother before I was born and eventually emigrated to Australia where he worked as an electrical contractor.
My first memories of living in the pub were of the pink and white wall paper I could see through the bars of my cot at the bottom of my mothers bed in the southern most arm of the L which was the shape of the house. She would subscribe to the ‘Saturday Evening Post’ an American periodical, which had the famous artist Norman Rockwell painting covers during this time. I would look through the pictures of what looked like another world.
I have no memories of my mother being affectionate but my grandparents certainly where. I can remember being read ‘Pip Squeak And Wilfred. This may have been a favourite of my grandfathers as the comic dates from 1919 and the last edition was in 1956. He would read to me sitting up in bed in their huge bedroom at the front of the ‘Old Ash Tree’.
Being brought up by grandparents who were children in the Edwardian Age never seemed strange. They both however had strange phrases and words for things. My grandfather or Dad as I called him, referred to under pants as ‘Trucks’ and to rheumatism as ‘The Screws’ his spectacles were usually his ‘Headlights’. If he was bad tempered which was rare he had the ‘Needle’. If he wanted to know how much money I had he would ask. “How are you fixed’? My Nan, which is what I called my grandmother would say things about special food or drink like ‘……that will stop the rising of the lights’. It transpires that this the Rising of the lights was an almost medieval expression for Croup as lights were often a name for the lungs in bygone times so this expression was clearly not hers and came from the distant past.
Dad loved to whistle and sing especially when cleaning the Gents loo which he took pride in with all the copper pipes polished. He would sing. Flanagan and Allen songs especially ‘The Umbrella man’ and ‘Underneath the Arches’.
My grandmother always oozed class and refinement. She wore a coverall during the day for the mundane tasks of organising the pub but in the evening always looked stunning. She was seriously ill when I was 3 and ended up at St. Marks a London Teaching Hospital specialising (and it still does) in the Colon. I can remember driving up on a Sunday to see her in hospital although I was picked up and waved from the door, as I was not allowed on the ward. She made me a felt duck, which I still have. I found out after she died that she had had one of the first colostomies. She spent the rest of her life drinking Gin and peppermint cordial and always taking Meggezones but nobody but my grandfather knew.
The pub had daily cleaners who would scrub the stone steps with a scrubbing brush a bar of soap and soda crystals in warm water in a metal bucket. I can still hear this if I listen hard. There were two cleaners Kath Parfitt whom I loved. She lived right opposite at 143 Rainham Road. The other cleaner May Coull was a tenant of my grandfathers and lived in the flat at 2 Star Mill Lane. Kath was my favourite and when small I would ride on her back as she was usually on her hands and knees. She would take me to her house and give me Custard Cream biscuits. I would refer to it as ‘Over ‘ome’. As in ‘I am going Over ome.’ Her husband was a steward at Gillingham Football Ground. I never saw him out of a suit. They would have both been in their late fifties at the time and their house was a time warp from the 1920’s. Kath Parfitt would also drink in the Jug and Bottle her particular tipple was Mackeson a bottled milk stout. I think at the age of four I served her, opening the bottle and carefully pouring the contents into a ‘Mackeson’ glass. Mackeson was a Kent beer and, believe it or not, was recommended for nursing mothers. Now you can buy it at Tesco’s and it still has the old milk churn logo on the label which I suspect most people will not know what it is.
Around the time I was four, I was sent across the road, just along from Kath’s, to Miss Tozer’s two sisters who ran a sort of private prep school in their back room. I have only have dim memories of it but there were children much older than me there. One of my strongest memories was that it was lit by gaslights and heated by gas fires. The sort with white ceramic elements that glowed red in the gas flame I can remember the smell was always bad in that room and I am talking about a gas fumes sort of smell.
The barmaids at the pub were also my friends particular favourites were Gladys who loved opera particularly Madame Butterfly and was only 4’10” tall and had the smallest feet I have ever seen.
The pub was divided into 5 distinct areas with their own doors and the four main ones their own loos. They were going clockwise from the door to our flat The Saloon bar, The Off Sales or as it was known by most, the Jug and Bottle. The Private bar, The Public bar (the largest) then the games room.
The Saloon bar was further glorified by having French doors with leaded glass to match the rest of the windows, out onto a double brick arched logia, which in the summer always had hanging baskets which were religiously watered daily. This led out into the garden with two large circular beds usually with geraniums, a lawn that was cut by contractors in the season every week. This garden was separate from the other garden, which led out of the French windows from the games room. In the summer it had coloured electric lights strung between the apple and pear trees and steel and wood chairs and tables for customers to drink outside. Beyond the circular beds were large fruit trees which looking at the age of them were in the original Old Ash Tree, pub garden. It was in this garden I learnt to shoot a bow and arrow. In the garden next door I had a swing on a steel frame and there is a picture of me playing cricket there with my beloved grandfather being the wicket keeper.
The bars were arranged like the spokes of a wheel around a hub which was where the office was with a desk, shelves and a safe. Each bar had its own till so that takings could be apportioned to each bar. The tills were totally mechanical, requiring the operator to press several keys with their fingers at once rather like a typewriter. This would flag up the amount paid in the display window, a bell would ring and then the till drawer would open. A till paper roll recorded the transaction but there was nothing to calculate change, this was all done by mental arithmetic by the barmaid. On a busy Saturday night this was quite a skill when orders for six drinks would be commonplace with packets of cigarettes, bags of crisps or cheeselets complicating matters. I did not learn to do this myself until my first job as a petrol pump attendant at the Park Garage in Nelson Road when I was fifteen.
In the Fifties and to some extent through to the Sixties class distinction was everywhere and unlike today when there is just one bar in pub, each bar had its distinct clientele.
The Saloon bar was the most select with most of the men dressed in suits. They would be Doctors, Solicitors and other professional men and their wives.
The Private Bar, the smallest of the bars attracted the next strata of society down, the managers, garage owners etc.
The Jug and Bottle or more strictly the Off Sales were the preserve of mostly wives and children bringing bottles back to get 4d. All bottles were sent back to the brewery to be refilled. This created a massive job at the end of the day of sorting bottles back into their crates. There were large baskets with inset wheels under each bar where empty bottles where placed. At the end of the day or before opening of the next these baskets were put into the lift down to the cellar and their contents sorted into wooden crates to go back to the brewery the next time the draymen came, which was always on a Tuesday afternoon. Mostly bottles were sold at the Jug and Bottle but at Christmas a Firkin of ‘Old’ would be set up on the counter. This was very much a seasonal favourite as a smooth and sweet heavy Winter beer. Some people would come with jugs to take home but that was dying out. I loved the Jug and Bottle as at Christmas the Brewery would send around window dressers who would decorate the two almost shop windows either side of the door with historical winter scenes with model houses and snow. As a child this was always magical.
The Public bar was the preserve of all the workingmen and Gypsies. Not 200 yards to the South over the brow of the hill of Ash Tree Lane was a full on Gypsy encampment clinging to a narrow patch of land almost hanging off the steep drop into the Luton valley.
As you can see from the photos they were the genuine article with a number of Reading Vans. I remember the Kemp family specifically. As a group they spoke Romany and my grandfather could speak to them in their own language. Saturday nights in the public bar was always busy with singing starting by about 8:30. Smoking was everywhere and I can remember hardly being able to see across the public bar for cigarette smoke. The ashtrays mostly of glass all had to be washed daily and I remember a dustbin full of cigarette ends.
The Games Room was its own little world with garage mechanics, plumbers, builders and tradesmen. The Firemen from the Fire station would sometimes hire it for their evening committee meetings when the glass shutters would be pulled down. There was a bar billiards table a dart board and my grandmother would sometimes organise ‘Shove Ha’Penny matches and I have vague memories of Euchre being played and Cribbage with matches being used on peg boards to score it.
Len Manington my grandfathers’ cousin who ran the garage opposite, in Canterbury Street, would be a daily visitor. Dick Bromley who rented the workshop in the garages was also a daily vistor and stood leaning against the wall in oil soaked overalls. Given all the bars were lined with the most beautiful oak panelling, my grandfather soon got wise and every year would put up a piece of hardboard to cover the panel where he stood to stop him from staining the woodwork.
One thing must be remembered was that this was before the days of dish washers so all glasses and there would have been hundreds on a busy Saturday would all be washed and dried by hand using the sink under the counter in every bar and a mountain of Irish linen glass cloths as they were called.
My grandmother had installed in the cellar a Bendix front loader washing machine which in the day was unheard of as very few private homes had washing machines and if they did they were just a vertical drum with an electrically driven paddle going ½ a turn one way then back. They were designed to be wheeled out into the kitchen and stood by the sink These would have either a manual or electric wringer attached to them so you would pull an item of clothing out of the machine and feed it through the wringer either into the sink or onto the draining board.
It was later into the sixties when twin tub washing machines were launched. The first tub was like to older washing machines and when the washing was complete you had to haul the wet laundry out and into the second tub, which was a vertical spin dryer. This was a major godsend getting clothes much dryer than the old wringer. In the winter, drying clothes was a major headache as most homes had no central heating so an airing cupboard was an unheard of luxury enjoyed by the very few..
On several days a week most of my school friends would have wooden clothes horses up in their homes festooned with the family wash, attempting to be dried by the paraffin or gas heaters which were sometimes used. Of course these were the days of when people also burnt coal in open hearth grates within their houses, venting the smoke and fumes out a chimney. It was a matter of pride to stoke up the fire when going to be to ‘Keep it in’ as it was known. There were special fireplaces with grates with cast iron fronts that could be lifted up to reduce the airflow into the fire and make the coal coalite or coke last until the next day.
In the kitchen of the Ashtree we had a fire, which had two ovens, attached to it for cooking. These were finished in grey enamel. I never recall them ever being used for cooking but I always got dressed for school by the kitchen fire and my clothes were always kept in those ovens to air them and keep them warm. It is in that kitchen where there was a cuckoo clock, I suspect a souvenir from one of my mothers trips to Switzerland. I can remember listening to ‘Listen with Mother’ for the first time. Broadcast at 1:45 every weekday by The BBC Home Service on 1500 meters on the Long Wave. I think this is a trick of my memory probably as I know the music now but I remember clearly the music used to end the programme, which was a Debussy Berceuse.
The public bar was also the site for the herald of Christmas. Dick Bromley who rented the Star Mill Lane workshop from my grandfather and ran Capstone Farm, which is now a garden centre at the end of Capstone Road, would bring a lorry full of holly which would arrive at about 3pm and literally cover the floor of the public bar. I can still remember the smell a special almost acrid smell of the fresh cut holly. My mother and grandmother would take secateurs and put holly on all the pelmets above the curtains in all the bars. This was the main decoration in the bars. Behind the bar, cotton wool would sometimes be put on shelves and I can remember white paper icicles made of crepe paper hanging down the front of the shelves.
While we are talking about the curtains, as you might not know, sound is important to me as it's my loudspeaker design business. In the ‘Box of Delights’ BBC Version, when the curtains are drawn by Caroline Louisa at ‘Seekings’ you hear the sound of steel curtain rails with steel curtain rollers. It has a very specific zoosh sound. Every time I hear it I am back in ‘The Old Ash Tree’.
Of course Christmas was just another working day in the pub with everyone at work watching men come in while their wives cooked Christmas Lunch. The men would be wearing their new tie or jumper. The pub closed at 2pm so we generally had Christmas lunch at 3pm.
Another Christmas ritual was the Tontine Club. These were common in pubs in the first half of the twentieth century. In the days before building societies were common. A pub would set up a Tontine. Customers would pay in so much a week and could during the year borrow against their account. The Tontine was run every week in the games room with the assistance of (You could not make this up) Mr Pound. Every Christmas there would be a pay out where accounts were cleared. I always had £25 to spend at Christmas from this paid in over the weeks by my grandfather. There were small sums involved but as dozens of customers were part of it, collecting the pay out money from The Coop Bank in Chatham High Street always presented something of a risk to my grandfather. On the appointed day he would go by taxi to the bank and sit in the back with the money, worth a water pistol full of a strong ammonia solution to spray in the face of anyone foolish enough to try and rob him. This never happened thankfully. Having arrived back, my grandmother, Mr Pound and my grandfather would sit around the dining room table and with a ledger, fill hand written envelopes with the name and amount written on them. They would be stacked in rows on the Welsh Dresser. The pay out would take place that evening in the games room and was another sign that Christmas was close.
We had a TV, which arrived for the coronation. This was in the room at the top of the stairs. It was of course black and white and had a 12-inch screen. It was of course all valve and had to be switched on then ‘warm up’ for about a minute before it could be watched. As you can see from the photograph, it had wooden doors so that it disappeared into a typical fifties living room as a piece of furniture. On the day of the Cup Final neighbours and friends would come around to watch.
In 1956 the ITV channel was launched which involved sending the TV back to Mr Lucas at Franklin Radio. Not six shops along the road where the necessary circuitry was installed including a large mechanical rotary switch, which had a fine-tuning bezel around its edge. So in order to change to ITV this large rotary switch had to be turned with a clunk.
I distinctly remember the first evening of ITV watching Richard Green in Robin Hood and the Murray Mint advert. No one had seen adverts so they were quite novel. Other TV shows that were memorable were ‘I Love Lucy’ bought from the US starring Lucille Ball and her husband Dezi Arnez. This was one of the first sitcoms, ‘ Whirlybirds’ an adventure series based on Bell Helicopters again bought in the States was also very popular. Then there were the Westerns like The Lone Ranger’ its funny that I can remember the name of the guy that played Tonto, J.Silverheels, as he was a real Native American. Hopalong Cassidy was also very popular. So called as the original fictional character had a wooden leg. I still own my first watch, which was a Hopalong Cassidy watch inscribed Good Luck ‘Hoppy’ on the back. Treasure Island with Robert Newton playing Long John Silver was amazing.
On Sunday nights Bruce Forsyth would introduce live stage performances for television, from The London Palladium’, titled ‘Sunday Night at the London Palladium’ This was probably watched by most people with a TV and was an old school variety show with Acrobats, Performing Dogs, Magicians, Ventriloquists and solo singers like Shirley Bassey, Frankie Vaughan, and Max Bygraves. TV was mostly broadcast live, as VTR technology had yet to exist in a commercial standard format for public use at home. It must be remembered that it was not until twenty years later in the mid seventies when domestic VTR became available with the ability to record programmes for later viewing. So until then if you missed it, you missed it.
The radio was very big in my life with ‘Saturday Club’ on a Saturday morning presented by Brian Matthew. This program experimented with stereo on several occasions using the TV as the other channel. The Billy Cotton Band Show, Two Way Family Favourites which was aimed at service men particularly in BAOR in Germany to send requests to and from their families. Take it from Here with Jimmy Edwards I have fond memories of.
It was around this time my mother had quite a long-term relationship with a lovely man called Arthur Robins. She had met him as an amateur actor in the Kentish Players. I remember being taken to see him back stage at the Empire Theatre in Chatham playing in Edward Germans ‘Merrie England’ where he playing Sir Walter Raleigh, was thrown from a boat and came on stage covered in water weeds. It was an impressive effect, which contributed to my fascination with the stage. He was known by all as Rob and had a beautiful voice and a very gentle manner. He was a very fine artist and worked as a highly skilled sign writer in Rochester in a business at the bottom of the Rochester Maidstone road. I can remember walking with my mother in the High street and looking up and seeing him working on a sign in the first floor workshop.
He would tell me the most amazing fairy stories, which he would make up. His imagination was amazing. I remember him coming on holiday with us when we rented a bungalow in Cliftonville near Margate when I was around six. He would also help out in the cellar bottling up as it was called. He lived in Clive Road, Rochester and I know he wanted to marry my mother.
Every summer there would be held in Chatham Dockyard ‘Navy Days’. For a small boy a huge thrill as you would go on the ships in dock, meet the sailors and if you were very lucky get to go in the multiple pom-pom anti aircraft guns which were electrically rotated and you would whiz around pretending to shoot down attacking aircraft. Rob would take me and I have some very happy memories of climbing all over Cruisers and Destroyers.
At the beginning of Summer my mother and grandmother would take all their fur coats and stoles to Mrs Green the furrier in Canterbury Street Gillingham whose shop was close to my friend Tom Sharpe fathers' chemist shop. The furs were put in cold storage for the summer to protect them from moth damage.
The other annual treat in the summer was the Gillingham Park Fete. This had been running for years and was originally held to raise money for St Bartholomew’s Hospital, New Road, Rochester. This was before the Medway Hospital was opened which then of course was the Royal Naval Hospital which dwarfed the six wards of ‘St Barts’ which everyone knew it as. The Park Fete as it was known was a very big affair held over a weekend culminating with a large firework display. I can remember most large local firms taking part and marquees as big as those at the Cranleigh Show with cake competitions, flower arranging, flower shows. A large arena had a procession of attractions from motorcycle display teams, lancers, and teams of Navy V Army doing tug of war.
Despite the 7 day a week working life, I was never short of trips out. When very small I would ask to ‘See the ‘Ooshes’ which meant a trip in my grandfathers Rover 16 probably purchased in 1947. I would sit on the armrest in the front of the car and be driven to Gillingham level crossing where I would watch the steam trains coming in to and rushing through the station. The car although post war had hardly changed from a 30’s style complete with running boards. It was 2.1 litre straight six so Dad had his eye on style and performance.
Other treats were to Bertram Mills circus at Olympia in London where of course the famous Coco the clown (on the left in the poster) was in residence. At the time this was circus at its peak with Lions, Tigers, Elephants, Camels and trapeze acts and tightrope walkers. My grandmother would cope with her stress during this act by turning out her enormous handbag. I remember the bareback riders and real Red Indians. This all looked like another world from my perspective. Bertram Mills was where I saw my first real flea circus. Despite people not believing, there were real performing fleas and I can remember fleas fencing, pulling a chariot and tight rope walking.
I was bought a tricycle, a Gresham Flyer which unbelievably I would ride around behind the bar in the pub. I also had a pedal car and tractor.
Dad’s next car was a Rover 90. The 90 referred to the horsepower. 90Hp was considered quite serious in the late fifties. 2.6 litre 6 cylinder engine.
My mother did not learn to drive until I was at least 7. Dick Bromley found her a rather racy Nash Metropolitan which lasted five minutes, she then saw sense and bought a Morris Minor which oddly I remember the number of LAN 685.
My mother and grandmother would occasionally take me to Church at St. Augustine’s at the top of Rock Avenue, Gillingham. This was a very high Church of England church at the time with ‘Bells and Smells’. On feast days there would be at least five servers with two priests in attendance dressed in Albs and Amice to match the colour of the altar cloth. Ten candles would be lit on the main altar.
The picture above is modern with the old high altar removed. From the age of 12 I became a server here. However before that I was a very keen member of the Third Gillingham Cub pack run on Tuesday evenings by Mrs Alcorn who lived in Cleave Road and could never pronounce Tuesday and always said Toosday. This was run in the Church Hall down Rock Avenue and I rarely missed going every week. I became a Sixer and had my own Six. My main memory is going by coach to Gillwell Park on the fiftieth anniversary of the Scout movement 1957. That was quite a year as Sir Edmond Hillary and Sir Vivian Fuchs headed the trans Antarctic Expedition that was very well covered by the BBC. It was also the year of Sputnik. I can remember standing by my grandmother ironing when the news of this on the TV. My friend at this time was Steven Davis who lived at the far end of Watling Avenue with his two brothers.
It was also around this time that "Frank" Francis Shaw came into my life and trips further afield to exotic destinations as Bournemouth. Durley Dean Hotel at Durley Chine was where we went for several years in a row. It was an expedition as there were no motorways. The journey from Kent would take over five hours and involve the old A25 through Dorking and Abinger Hammer which to me looked amazing, I never dreamt I would be living near there in later life. Through Guildford and up onto the Hogs Back then via Alresford to the Winchester bypass which was a new road then through the New Forest and down into Bournemouth.
Durley Dean lay at the top of the road leading down to Durley Chine. There are several Chines or steep valleys running down to the sea. What made this magical for me was that the predominant trees were conifers, particularly Scots Pines. These filed the air with the freshest pine smell, which I had never experienced.
When my mother married Frank on the 3rd of September 1960, my life changed. I can remember being told that it was to happen and that I could have a pet mouse. The mouse was to be kept in the conservatory of the house we moved to, 83 Park Avenue, Gillingham, an Edwardian three bedroomed semi-detached house on the east side of the road about 200 yards up from the Gillingham Park gate. I did not like Frank nor was a private house great after the business of the pub. It was far too quiet. I found solace in big valve radio and my record player in my bedroom.
I learnt later in life that my grand Parents wanted to keep me at the pub. That would have frankly suited me. It was shortly after this that I was admitted into St Barts Hospital New Road Rochester with ‘A Grumbling Appendix’. I had a history of stomach aches which having researched it, I think it was a direct psychological reaction to my world being turned upside down. Having said that, I was there for 10 days during which time Prince Andrew was born. This puts it around the 19th of February 1960 seven months before my mother’s wedding. There was nothing wrong with my appendix but the symptoms were real enough for me to be hospitalised. I remember the ward vividly. It was my first time in hospital and Spong ward was very old school. I remember having a barium meal followed by abdominal compression and X-Rays being taken in the dark, by a man who drank in the pub with his wife. He was Rob Hull, a radiographer who lived along from the Ash Tree. It was good to see a familiar face. After an enema, as I refused for over a week to use the loo, I was discharged. The symptoms were bought on by Frank Shaw coming into my life, no question about it…
Change was in the air. My grandparents retired the following year and I moved from Byron Road School to Gillingham Technical High School at Gardiner Street Gillingham and Marcus the Cocker Spaniel came into my life. It was around that time that in order to try and compensate for Christmas in a private house for my mother and grandparents, we started to spend time from the 23rd to the 27th of December every year at the Grand Hotel Folkestone.
The Grand and Metropole were two hotels built side by side on the Leas at Folkestone. I have just discovered that the Grand was frequented by King Edward VII, as Folkestone at the time was a very upmarket place to be.
Royal prerogative - In 1909 the King opened the new ballroom containing the first sprung dance floor in Europe. The first dance he took with the Queen, and the second with Mrs Keppel. A medal was struck to commemorate the event, and the King allowed the royal coat of arms to be used to publicise the establishment.
Robert Morley made his stage debut here; as did Michael Caine – not a lot of people know that! Albert Sandler started the Palm Court Orchestra in the conservatory, which was known in the day as The Monkey Cage as people would peer in from the outside to spot celebrities. I learnt to dance here taught by my grandmother. A live 10-piece band would play after dinner.
Just another world, the Grand. Fred and Minnie would take a suite and install their Budgerigar and Goldfish. I remember their amazing Edwardian bathroom. The restaurant was a picture on Christmas day with a cold table groaning under Suckling pig, Pheasant, ham and whole Stilton with their centers topped up with port. This was the day of real turtle soup, which on Christmas night, Marcus the spaniel who of course was with us had some in a silver jug to pour on his evening meal!
Arriving on the 23rd, there was a full program of entertainment including a treasure hunt by car, (which we won two years in a row) knock out table tennis, darts, snooker and golf. A fancy dress competition and a visit to the Lenham Hunt’s boxing day meet. Carol singers would sing in the ballroom and Mummers would perform. The food was amazing and the price in 1963 for a room over Christmas full board was £5 per night, which was excellent, value as in 2017 this works out at around £75!
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Notes:
Great Great Grandfather Edward Pilcher was the founder of the Pilcher horse coach business in the 2nd half of the 19th century. He and his growing family resided at the rear of Medway Terrace, High street in the St Nicholas parish, Rochester Kent. Two of his eldest sons John and William became active in the family business, which was later to trade as E. Pilcher & Sons. In late 1886, William married Annie Langridge, the daughter of the pub licensee of the 'Hen and Chickens' Luton, Chatham. They moved to Gillingham for a short time, then in 1891, and with his two infant sons Herbert (Bert) and Percy in tow, William took over the licence of the 'Hen and Chickens and ran it together with Annie. The family continued to expand with the births of daughter Audrey, and sons Frederick and Arthur.
Of the five siblings growing up in the 'Hen and Chickens' pub, Percy Pilcher has not been named in the story but is believed to have taken over the running of the pub in 1920 until his death the following year, thereafter his widow Bertha took over the licence.
The horse named, 'Illuminator', a 50 to 1 odds outsider, ran the course 7 furlongs and 166 yards, to win the Royal Hunt Cup (handicap) at Royal Ascot on Wednesday 15th June 1921. This was in an era when off-course racetrack betting was illegal. To circumvent this, bookmakers would set up their operation in a friendly pub, and by using telephoned odds information from racetracks, hire runners to tell a punter what the latest odds were, collect bets, and pay off the winners, while lookouts warned about any approaching policeman.
The family photographs, mentioned in the story, are not available for publication.
The 'Buffalo' pub was in Five Bells Lane, just off St. Margaret's Banks where the railway viaduct crosses diagonally over the Rochester High Street. The pub was demolished, a long time ago, as part of a wider local plan for new social housing development in the area. The site where the old 'Buffalo' beerhouse once stood, is now occupied by a three storey block of flats named 'Robin Court'. The postcode is ME1 1BW. The marked pub position can be clearly located on an old Ordnance Survey map on view here; Buffalo pub
Oerlikon Mk2 20mm calibre automatic cannon, pedestal mounted, was fed from 60-round drum magazines, its rapid fire rate made it one of the Navy's deadliest close-range anti-aircraft weapons.
Vickers QF 2-pounder Mark VIII 40mm calibre automatic, water-cooled, cannon, used by the Royal Navy. It was a multi-barrelled short range anti-aircraft weapon (usually mounted as a 4 or an 8 barrel array). As an indication, each barrel could be fired at a rate of 12 rounds per minute (rpm), and 8 barrels sequentially fired totaling 96 rpm, creating a curtain of shell fire at the target. Worldwide, it was colloquially known as the "multiple pom-pom".
