REMEMBER WHEN

Remember when ... 30 years ago from archives

A forty grand house

TOPOGRAPHY HAS limited the expansion of Bruton, with the main housing developments in the latter half of the last century being on the north-eastern side of town, off the A359 road to Frome. Gradually new houses crept up the hill, creating Burrowfield, Brue Avenue and Eastfield, and by 1992 they had reached Priory Mead. A feature in the August Visitor announced the opening of a show home on this latest development and an invitation to home-buyers to see the ‘good selection of homes to satisfy all tastes and pockets, with tremendous savings’. These included building society fees paid up to £120 and solicitors fees up to £300, and ‘on certain plots your home will be fitted free throughout with carpets from a standard selection available’. Prices started from £39,950 for a two-bedroom semi.

Cary hits the silver screen

Not once but twice in the August Visitor the editor alerted readers to a television programme to be shown on 11th August 1992 at 7.45pm on BBC2. Entitled ‘Matters of Life and Death’ it was part of a new documentary series called ‘Shaking the Heavens’, and the reason for the magazine’s interest was its Castle Cary connection. The programme was a 40-minute look at the life and poetry of John Brookes who lived on Florida Street and who from 1984 had contributed a monthly poem to the Visitor – that’s more than 200 poems. Much of the documentary was filmed in Cary in the summer of 1991 and the local views provided a backdrop for the recitation of some of the poems: panoramas of the town from Lodge Hill, the shops on the Market Place and Fore Street, the crowded bar inside The heard expressed in the pub 30 years ago. ‘In my day if you misbehaved you were punished by either a smack on the hand or the cane on the backside. Nowadays, thanks to the soft minority, children at school are not given discipline in the same way, and if this naive bunch of goody goodies have their way, parents will soon be told that they cannot even discipline their own children with a smack. All this because they say we’re a civilised society.’ The writer added that ‘it is my considered opinion that we owe the state of the world today to the fact that young people have been brought up to think that they can do as they like and suffer no punishment’.

George and much more. It all provided good publicity for the town three decades ago.

Bakers’ anniversary

1992 saw the 80th anniversary of car dealers Bakers of Gillingham and the August Visitor carried a brief history. ‘Percy Osmond Baker opened for business 80 years ago in 1912, from his premises and home on Station Road. He carried persons and goods around the local area, and to and from the station, with his horse (Toby) and trap. Eight years later in 1920 he had a selection of vehicles including two Model T Fords.’ After describing how the business had expanded in the inter-war years, moved to a new site further up Station Road in the early 1950s, and started selling new cars in earnest, the article recorded that the company was now headed by P O Baker’s grandson, Nick Baker, and that ‘Bakers are justly proud of the strong family tradition, their 80 years of trading within the local community, and the benefits to their customers of personal service from the family and their long-serving staff’.

Puffy’s seat

On 4th July 1992 a seat in Wincanton was dedicated to the memory of the late Cecil “Puffy” Bowden who died in 1991. The seat near the library on Carrington Way was provided by Mr Bowden’s family, and a writer in the August Visitor thought ‘it would be nice, now, for the Town Council to do something similar in recognition of his lifetime’s good works in the town and his unsung charitable deeds’. He suggested that a very minimum would be ‘an engraved plaque for all to see, perhaps on the wall of the museum which was close to his heart’. Nowadays Puffy Bowden is probably best remembered as author of ‘Wincanton: Pleasant Town on the Cale’, published in 1985, which is full of information, archive photographs and memorabilia.

A smack back at the goody goodies

It’s sometimes hard to decide whether an item in the Visitor represents the writer’s real views or is intended to generate controversy. I suspect this one in the August 1992 issue contains elements of both, although it certainly reflects views I often

Roger Richards.