And More Recent (2020)

Colbourne Street

Back then… (1979)

…and more recent (2020)

Welcome to The February Online Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the February online newsletter. It’s a little later than usual so we hope you had a romantic Valentine’s Day and a yummy pancake day!

Hopefully you all liked the new newsletter feature, “Getting to Know...”. We have a few more profiles this month. Isn't it fun learning new things about people you thought you already knew. I love it! Make sure you send in your own profile of about 400 words, telling us a bit about yourself, and don’t forget to include a photo too. Email your profile and picture to [email protected]. Go on… you know you want to!

The Lawn Huts

ome of you may S recall the metal and wooden huts of the ex-army camp in The Lawns. These were left behind after the Goddard family home and parkland had been requisitioned during WWII for use by school after the first day! American servicemen. The mansion At the age of 6 or 7, we transferred to eventually had to be demolished after the huts on The Lawns. Five days a being left in a state of decay. week we made the journey on our own The Lawns grounds are enjoyed by so from Walcot, across Queens Drive, many people these days and it is, eventually ending up at the foot of the indeed, a beautiful open space, but for slope leading up to our classrooms. In some of us it was a place of learning; the warm months this was glorious, bright days in the spring and summer, we skipped along, hid in the tall grass but damp, dull days in the autumn and and generally played around. But in winter! the cold months it was very dismal Myself and my brother started school indeed, especially when it was icy! So, at Holy Rood in Groundwell Road. sometimes we arrived with water Unlike the kids of today we were literally dripping off us... and what did expected to make our own way to we do with our wet coats? Draped

2 them around the metal fireguard surrounding the heater in the hut that was our classroom. By home-time the coats would be dry - If we were lucky. The damp atmosphere we all lived with back then must have been pretty bad for us but we didn’t seem to suffer from it did we?

My teacher was a lovely lady named Victoria Wright and I counted myself very lucky to have such a kindly tutor. Alas, the same can’t be said for my brother. A stern-faced nun was you couldn’t easily step over it. standing at the front of his class when So it was a case of trying to get I was sent to see her. Sister (I have around the edge. Slipping around, forgotten her name) instructed me to trying not to fall over, what a tell my parents that “your brother challenge! won’t walk!” I was astounded to hear And of course, the huts were full of this as only that morning we had spiders. The worst thing that ever walked to school together. Feeling happened in the dinner hut was when very worried I told my mum as soon as a spider came down from its web into I got home from school. Well, that a girl’s custard. All the girls were sure got him into trouble because not screaming, some were crying, the boys understanding the nun’s Irish accent; tried to catch it, and all the while the the message actually should have teacher desperately pleaded for calm! been, he wouldn’t work! I didn’t I think they may have got rid of all the realise, oh well at least I knew he spiders’ webs after that little could walk alright. incident… It still makes me smile to

You might wonder what the grounds think about it. were like when the huts were there. In A tarmac area was laid to one side to the wet weather they were slushy and act as a playground, but in the warm very muddy. For example, one day we weather you were more likely to stick had such a trauma! It was lunch time, to it as it started to melt. Mainly the we needed to go to the dining hut, boys played football on here and but there was this huge ditch of water sometimes we all played tig or caused by a burst pipe we had to something, but the most favourite manoeuvre past first. All the kids place by far for the girls in the spring were saying it had come from the months were the hedgerows that toilets so that made it even more backed onto Christ Church grounds. horrendous. I don’t think it did really, With the pretty May blossom and the but it caused a fair bit of pushing and gaps in the hedges, pretend homes shoving in the hope of somebody could be made. The sight and landing in it. All in good fun, not fragrance of that blossom always takes malicious in any way, but it was so big me back there. Happy times.

We used to play around the ice house I cannot remember any child getting on the mound and I believe in those lost or being involved in an accident days you could also go inside but we off the school grounds and this was in weren’t allowed. We also weren’t the days when parents didn’t generally supposed to walk through the Lawn meet their children from school and Woods, but of course we did. It was so certainly didn’t pick them up in cars. much fun and only slightly off the We were used to making our own way beaten track, and we could manage a home and were never told off for being quick game of hide and seek on the late as a time was never stated! way! Well, no harm was done and nobody ever got injured or lost.

There were also a couple of lakes in the park, but we didn’t venture down that far. Anyway, they were haunted. Funny, this haunted business, it seems to have been a bit of thing back then. I’m convinced the adults said these things just to keep us all in order because when I think about it, there were no fences or gates to keep us on the school premises and the other So, you say; what were the lessons? entrance to the woods was right on the What did you learn? Well, that’s for High Street in Old Town. another chapter dear reader!

Jennie Bridges - February 2021

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE Chairman Diane Everett 01793 613981 Andy Binks 07968 246792 (Mobile) Rob Johnson 07906 649176 Treasurer (Mobile) John Mills 01793 706432 John Stooke 07836 609369 (Mobile) Secretary/Contacts Paul Williams 01793 542111 Jennie Bridges 01793 873298 Newsletter Editor & Website Email: [email protected] Co-ordinator Facebook Editor Angie Phillips 07759 240776 Kelly Blake 07786 391997 (Mobile) (Mobile) Committee Members Email: [email protected] David Bedford 01793 643570 Website Jeanette Challice 07926 382657 (Mobile) www.theswindonsociety.co.uk

Getting to know... Diane Everett (Committee Member)

I was born in Swindon in 1941 and lived in Bright Street until 1963 when I moved Kingsclere in Hampshire.

In 1982, I came back to Swindon with my son. He was no stranger to Swindon as we were always back and forth between the two places visiting family. Also, Swindon Town Football was always to the fore and I even went to Wembley in 1969 when we won the League cup. From this...

My first job after moving back to Swindon was in Gorse Hill Post Office. I loved that job and stayed for four years before moving on to Normans, the furniture shop. Unfortunately, seven years later all the staff at Normans were made redundant, so it was off to pastures new as they say. My next job was working for Swindon Borough Council in the Revenue Department at Wat Tyler House. I dealt with concessionary travel, issuing bus passes and green tokens and I also issued housing benefit cheques. I stayed at SBC for about fifteen years and I retired at the age of 67.

My jobs have always involved me meeting or telephoning people, hence my love of talking. “Surely not!” I hear you all say, “I would never have … to this. guessed!”

I joined the Swindon Society approximately eighteen years ago when we were still meeting at Broad Street. In 2013 I stepped up to share the Secretary position with Jean Allen and after Jean retired, I carried on until I stood down to become a regular committee member. During my time on committee, I have always given my best to the Society and I hope I am lucky enough to go on for a few more years yet. Watch this space!

Bob Townsend was very instrumental in helping me with presentations. we also worked on the Albert Beaney project together, something we both enjoyed, and he taught me how to use PowerPoint. I owe him a big thank you, so here’s a big THANK YOU Bob!

Although Bob is no longer involved with all things Mr Beaney, we are lucky enough to have Jennie Bridges, who has taken on this task, which is not only great for me but also for the Society.

Well, that’s it folks, see you when we restart, and we will.

New Book Release:

The Complete Works by Peter Timms

For the first time a comprehensive reference book is to be published about Swindon Railway Works, in its heyday. It will have twenty-five chapters and more than two hundred photographs. The research is loosely based on my two previous books but has been reworked and enlarged considerably.

I am confident that even the most discerning 'smart Alec' will find it difficult to point out omissions. It is written in a way that should appeal to engineers, railway enthusiasts and people interested in Swindon's 20th century history. The book will be available from Crecy Publishing, and from the author, at the beginning of May. The cost is

£25 with my royalties going to charity. Peter Timms – February 2021

Other Local Historical Societies

• Wiltshire Family History Society Yvonne Neal 01793 822310 www.wiltshirefhs.co.uk • Highworth Historical Society Mrs Chris Suter 01793 764811 www.highworthhistoricalsociety.co.uk • Chiseldon Local History Group Elaine Jones 01793 740784 www.chiseldonlhg.org.uk • Rodbourne Community History Group [email protected] www.rodbournehistory.org • Shrivenham Heritage Society [email protected] www.shrivenhamheritagesociety.co.uk • Local Studies (Central Library) [email protected] www.swindon.gov.uk/localstudies

Getting to know... Peter Timms (Author & Society Member)

My family took me 'to the country' from London, in 1957. Mum, who was the dominant parent, decided we would come to live in Swindon. Under the London Overspill Scheme, we were offered a choice of three new or expanded towns in or around the home- counties. Here it would be easier to travel back ‘up to town’ and easier to get to my dad’s parents in Torquay. All she knew about Swindon had been seen from the train window as the family travelled to the south-west in the 1920s and ‘30s. ‘Mile after mile of railway sidings and buildings’ is how my mother described it, which summed the town up at that time. Her father worked for the GWR and was entitled to free holiday train travel once a year, just like the Swindon ‘trippers’.

When I grew up, I soon became disillusioned with clubs and societies to further my enjoyment of my leisure interests. In my experience certain members established a ‘pecking order’, to the detriment of the rest. It was Bob Townsend who made me think the Swindon Society might be different. When I was struggling to illustrate a book I was writing, he offered to give me access to the SS photograph collection, for which he was custodian. He contacted me; I was not a friend of his at the time; I wasn’t even a member of the Society.

For the past twenty years I have written about, and researched the Great Western Railway, and also my family's ancestral history. Perhaps my best moment was proving that my mum's family are directly related to aristocracy: something they long suspected but could not prove (google Roxburgh Brentford). The present restrictions to our normal way of life, has given me the time to achieve things that I would not have done in normal times. I have completely rewritten my latest project: a detailed history of Swindon Railway Works in its heyday. That will be published in the spring. At present, January ’21, I am writing my father-in-law’s life story. He grew up in rural Lincolnshire and joined Coldstream Guards during WW2, then became a country policeman.

A Book Review:

A Saint in Swindon by Alice Jolly

’d be surprised if many of you have come across I this novella, as it had the misfortune to be published in April 2020, mid-lockdown. Its publication was due to coincide with the 2020 Swindon Spring Festival in May, but that was obviously cancelled and the book quietly went into library stock and on sale in the Library Shop with little fanfare. It was written as a result of a Swindon Artsword project to bring an author and reading groups together to produce a short-story, which became a longer story and ultimately a book. Award- winning author Alice Jolly met several Swindon-based reading groups to find out about the town and what they were interested in reading.

At only 96 pages long, this funny little tale would be a perfect afternoon’s read on these cold days. Not only that, you’ll find it difficult to put down’ asit s impossible to see where the story is going. It’s ultimately a dystopian tale about reading in a bed and breakfast - as I said, you’ll really want to find out where it’s going, and when you’ve finished you’ll still be wondering how you got there. The first couple of sentences are quite clumsy in setting the scene; it’s so clearly directed at readers who know or live in Swindon. Ignore that though, it gets better.

Central Library gets a wonderful shout-out as the mystery B&B guest wants more books to read - but then one of the reading group members who took part is the stock librarian for the service, so she was on-hand to give all the details! There was also the lovely detail of a discussion of whether the people of Swindon would be reading classic literature and how lots of people are negative about the town and shouldn’t be.

About half-way through the book (which is set in 2030) is a line about how that was the summer that they grounded all flights - and that felt very strange to be reading in the middle of a global pandemic, in a locked-down world. It’s hard to give many more details without spoiling the story, as it is such a short one. But all I can say is read it. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed; it’s like nothing else you’ll read and certainly not like anything else you’ll read about Swindon!

Kelly Blake -February 2021

Getting to know... John Mills (Society Treasurer)

I was born in Pinehurst, where I lived for 30 years. I was educated at Rodbourne Cheney and Moredon Secondary Modern Schools. Forty years ago, I moved to Haydon Wick, but I have spent most of my working life in Penhill and Pinehurst. Nowadays I enjoy travelling.

I am a proud Swindonian as was my father and my father's father. Great-grandfather was the one who originally moved to Swindon from faraway Brokenborough (Malmesbury) and they were all railway men. My mother was Welsh, but that's another story.

I used to be a Youth Worker, running youth facilities in Penhill and Pinehurst plus at times in Parks and Croft in Old Town.

On retiring, I joined the Swindon Male Voice Choir (originally called Swindon GWR Male Voice Choir). Recently, I stood down as chair, but more important than that, I am the choir’s archivist. The choir was celebrating its centenary year when the pandemic started, so I have spent my time in lockdown disproving that the choir was started by the Welsh who moved to the GWR works. The choir’s first musical director was actually from Pembrokeshire, but the vast majority were from Swindon or within a fifteen-mile radius of the town.

As well as my dealings with the choir I am presently chair of the Swindon branch of the Wiltshire Family History Society.

I am married to Lis, another Swindonian, who is a member of Thamesdown Ladies Choir and a volunteer at Swindon and Cricklade Railway amongst other things.