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Brigg, where I was born on 21 March 1925, is a small market town in North Lincolnshire. It stands astride the River Ancholme about ten miles south of Ferriby Sluice where the river flows into the River Humber.
Brigg has few claims to fame. Music lovers may be aware of Delius' rhapsody Brigg Fair but find it difficult to find Brigg on a map, and some devotees of the theatre may know that actress Joan Plowright was born in a Brigg council house. She is a few years younger than me so it is possible that I saw the future Lady Olivier in her pram.
Most of my father's ancestors came from North Lincolnshire. My great grandad Charles Turner, who died long before I was born, came from Barnetby. In the 1871 census he was living at Broughton in the house of a farmer, George Marshall, and was described as a servant. Two other young men were living in the house so it would seem likely that Charles was employed on the land. In 1881 he was living at 9 West Terrace in Brigg, married to Harriet (nee Maddison). They had a daughter, Annie, aged two. He was listed as brewer's drayman. I do not know how my great grandma regarded this employment as I remember she used to wear a little enamel brooch in the shape of a white ribbon.
It was only after I came to New Zealand that I became aware that the badge was the emblem of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
The 1891 census show Charles was still a brewer’s drayman but living at 34 Grammar School Road, Brigg.
This house was known as Oakleigh House and not the kind of house that a brewers drayman could have aspired to. At the time of his death from tuberculosis at the age of 42, in July 1895, he was a pork butcher. Family legend is that the pork butchers business, which persisted for four generation of Turners, was started by Harriet, so it seems likely that great granddad carried on working as a drayman for a while and then joined his wife in the butchers business.
After she was widowed, Great Grandma married Francis Richardson in 1898, so my brothers and I knew her as Grandma Richardson. I have a picture of Brigg Market Place early in the 20th century which shows a stall carrying the words "F Richardson, Pork Butcher, Grammar School Road, Brigg". Francis died in 1912. At the 1911 census my grandfather, also Charles, was still a cabinet maker.
The market stall mentioned above was described in Nostalgia, which is published by the Scunthorpe Telegraph, as "...a shed on wheels." One half of one side of the shed could be lowered into a horizontal position to form a counter. Most of the stalls in the Thursday weekly market were merely planks on trestles with a canvas cover overhead, and the stallholders were very much exposed to the weather, but the occupants of the shed on wheels were kept dry, and in winter were warmed by an oil stove.
For a short while, after my Uncle Fred was called up into the army in 1940, my brother Ken and I had to get up early on Thursday mornings to help Dad to wheel the stall from the yard of the Woolpack Hotel to its appointed space in the Market Place.
I think the main business must have been carried on in some kind of building in the grounds of Oakleigh House. I do not know when the business moved to premises at the corner of Queen Street and Garden Street, but it was after my grandad took over. The new premises had quite spacious living accommodation.
Prior to that my grandparents lived in Redcombe Lane and Dad sometimes talked of the move but I never enquired about the time it took place.
I know from the 1911 Census that they were then still in Redcombe Lane with their five children, and that Grandad was still a cabinet maker. Any young person reading this is urged "Ask your Dad" (or your Mum) about their early days or as you reach middle age you will regret not doing so.
Similarly, I never asked when it was that my Dad joined his father in the business. I do not know if he left school at 13, as was legal then, or if he stayed a bit longer. I do know that during the First World War he spent some time in an organisation called the Coast Watching Scouts at Mablethorpe. I think they may have kept watch for the German fleet which on at least one occasion came close to the east coast and shelled Scarborough. At that time there were no reconnaissance aircraft or radar to warn of an enemy approach.
Grandma Richardson had four children: Annie, Walter, Charles and Arthur in that order. I had never heard of Annie, and it seems that she probably died at a young age. Arthur, the youngest, was a complete contrast to his two brothers, being a pillar of a non-conformist chapel and owning a boot and shoe shop which he later converted into a cake shop. During World War II he was in uniform as a full-time special constable; in the family he became known as "Specky", a corruption of Inspector. Soon after the war he and his family moved to Lincoln and I never heard of him again. It seems strange that I never went into the house of either of Grandad's brothers and they never came to our house. Neither can I recall ever speaking to any of Arthur's three children.
I did know some of Walt's children. Albert was in my class at Glebe Road School; Charley was a few years older and worked for a while in his uncle's butchery business. Ivy was almost my Dad's age; she lived with Grandma Richardson and also helped Nana in the shop. A younger sister, Rose, also worked for Nana for a while. In the war she was in the women’s army (ATS) but died of TB during that conflict; her name is on the Brigg War Memorial. She is the only woman listed and the only person for whom the first name is given.
Grandad Charles started his working life as an apprentice cabinet maker with J T Kettle, a prominent Brigg citizen and undertaker; I do not know when he left that trade to become a butcher but it is likely that it was in 1912 on the death of his stepfather. He would have been about 29 when World War I started but was never conscripted. I have never heard any mention of how he avoided the call-up; perhaps it was because he had five young children by 1914.
Grandma Richardson had a pear tree in her garden and when the pears were ripe I would knock on her door on the way home from school and ask for a drink of water.
The 1891 census show Charles was still a brewer’s drayman but living at 34 Grammar School Road, Brigg.
This house was known as Oakleigh House and not the kind of house that a brewers drayman could have aspired to. At the time of his death from tuberculosis at the age of 42, in July 1895, he was a pork butcher. Family legend is that the pork butchers business, which persisted for four generation of Turners, was started by Harriet, so it seems likely that great granddad carried on working as a drayman for a while and then joined his wife in the butchers business.
After she was widowed, Great Grandma married Francis Richardson in 1898, so my brothers and I knew her as Grandma Richardson. I have a picture of Brigg Market Place early in the 20th century which shows a stall carrying the words "F Richardson, Pork Butcher, Grammar School Road, Brigg". Francis died in 1912. At the 1911 census my grandfather, also Charles, was still a cabinet maker.
The market stall mentioned above was described in Nostalgia, which is published by the Scunthorpe Telegraph, as "...a shed on wheels." One half of one side of the shed could be lowered into a horizontal position to form a counter. Most of the stalls in the Thursday weekly market were merely planks on trestles with a canvas cover overhead, and the stallholders were very much exposed to the weather, but the occupants of the shed on wheels were kept dry, and in winter were warmed by an oil stove.
For a short while, after my Uncle Fred was called up into the army in 1940, my brother Ken and I had to get up early on Thursday mornings to help Dad to wheel the stall from the yard of the Woolpack Hotel to its appointed space in the Market Place.
I think the main business must have been carried on in some kind of building in the grounds of Oakleigh House. I do not know when the business moved to premises at the corner of Queen Street and Garden Street, but it was after my grandad took over. The new premises had quite spacious living accommodation.
Prior to that my grandparents lived in Redcombe Lane and Dad sometimes talked of the move but I never enquired about the time it took place.
I know from the 1911 Census that they were then still in Redcombe Lane with their five children, and that Grandad was still a cabinet maker. Any young person reading this is urged "Ask your Dad" (or your Mum) about their early days or as you reach middle age you will regret not doing so.
Similarly, I never asked when it was that my Dad joined his father in the business. I do not know if he left school at 13, as was legal then, or if he stayed a bit longer. I do know that during the First World War he spent some time in an organisation called the Coast Watching Scouts at Mablethorpe. I think they may have kept watch for the German fleet which on at least one occasion came close to the east coast and shelled Scarborough. At that time there were no reconnaissance aircraft or radar to warn of an enemy approach.
Grandma Richardson had four children: Annie, Walter, Charles and Arthur in that order. I had never heard of Annie, and it seems that she probably died at a young age. Arthur, the youngest, was a complete contrast to his two brothers, being a pillar of a non-conformist chapel and owning a boot and shoe shop which he later converted into a cake shop. During World War II he was in uniform as a full-time special constable; in the family he became known as "Specky", a corruption of Inspector. Soon after the war he and his family moved to Lincoln and I never heard of him again. It seems strange that I never went into the house of either of Grandad's brothers and they never came to our house. Neither can I recall ever speaking to any of Arthur's three children.
I did know some of Walt's children. Albert was in my class at Glebe Road School; Charley was a few years older and worked for a while in his uncle's butchery business. Ivy was almost my Dad's age; she lived with Grandma Richardson and also helped Nana in the shop. A younger sister, Rose, also worked for Nana for a while. In the war she was in the women’s army (ATS) but died of TB during that conflict; her name is on the Brigg War Memorial. She is the only woman listed and the only person for whom the first name is given.
Grandad Charles started his working life as an apprentice cabinet maker with J T Kettle, a prominent Brigg citizen and undertaker; I do not know when he left that trade to become a butcher but it is likely that it was in 1912 on the death of his stepfather. He would have been about 29 when World War I started but was never conscripted. I have never heard any mention of how he avoided the call-up; perhaps it was because he had five young children by 1914.
Grandma Richardson had a pear tree in her garden and when the pears were ripe I would knock on her door on the way home from school and ask for a drink of water.
Invariably she would ask "Would you like a few pears" and invariably I said "Yes".
Strangely I was only thirsty when the pears were ripe!
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