Another thing that I did quite regularly for my Grandfather Archer was run errands for him to Eric Frankis’s rope making business in Lechlade Hill. I enjoyed going there because Eric would let me watch him make ropes in his long rope walk, which was a long covered building in his garden which ran along the side of Lechlade Hill. He was a master craftsman in anything to do with rope, and was very good making bell ropes. He also specialised in halters, calf slips, hey nets, ropes of all sizes and rick sheets. He lived in a small thatched cottage about halfway down on the right hand side of the hill. I also had to fetch cans of paraffin for the chicken brooders from Albert Williams garage at the end of Station Road. Bartrop’s Ironmongers shop was another place where I had to fetch such things as nails, and staples, for gramp to use on the chicken pens. Jim Hacker who worked in the front shop always told me to tell my grandfather when there was bargains to be had. I also ran errands for my mother to Tim Bolton’s grocery shop, and to the Co-op grocery shop where her Co-op number was 19342. Horace Clack was the manager in those days. I remember he was good at slicing bacon on the bacon machine, and also cutting cheese with a wire. Sugar was loose in large sacks and was weighed out into 1Ib bags, something which is missing from our shops today. I also had to take and fetch the wireless accumulator to and from Arthur Gerring’s shop in the High Street for recharging. I also bought a red racing cycle from Mr Gerring; paying him one shilling a month to pay it off, which he marked on a red card. I also bought Dinky toys from Bartrop’s shop which were displayed in a small window just to the left of the doorway. I still have a Hornby train set to this day which was bought at Bartrop’s shop, and needless to say I also had a large collection of army vehicles which was all the rage in those days. I think the shop window was looked into by more children than any other window in the town.
On dark winter evenings my brother Roy and myself used to go next door to keep gramp company, and also listen to him talk about years ago. He was born 22nd February 1868, so he could go back a long way with his stories. He told us that his father; our great grandfather; was a chimney sweep and specialised in sweeping the chimneys in large country houses and churches. He told us that his father was a bare-fist boxer, (Prizefighter) and said that he had won a lot of fights, and when he and his brothers were old enough he had taught them to box. He told us his brother, Ardrest who was drowned in the River Thames at Hannington Wick Bridge in July 1886, age 19, was a fine boxer. Gramp said he never took up boxing but went more for long distance running, cycle racing and football. I later found out that he was a works cycle rider for Rudge Whitworth and Halford cycle factories, and played football for Reading F.C. in the English Football League. He must have been a great sportsman in his time. I really only knew him in his twilight years, because he died in 1958, aged 90 years old. Gramp always had a plentiful supply of barley sugar sweets, and made some good buttered toast on an open coal fire, which was swilled down with a hot cup of co-co. Very happy memories.
My grandfathers house had a warm living room heated by an open coal fire, with wooden shutters in the windows to close at night for extra warmth and safety. In his later years he spent many hours sitting in an armchair with his feet on a window seat looking down Sheep Street, and smoking his pipe of tobacco. Sometimes the smoke was so thick it made you cough, and gramp would say, “have you got a cold, have one of my cough sweets”. Upstairs there were two bedrooms; the one looking down Sheep Street was never used because that had been Uncle Reggies, who was killed in action while serving with the 1st Wilts at Passchendaele during the First World War. I remember on one occasion being allowed in to see a large wooden fort made out of hazel twigs that he had made when he was in the 1st St Michael’s scout troop. I also remember seeing his scout hat. Gramp never ever talked about Uncle Reggie to my brother and me.
My grandfather liked reading cowboy books and ones by Geoffrey Farnham, and it was my job to go to the private library at Mr Saunders stationery and book shop in the High Street to find these books for him; anything marked A1 which was on a piece of paper stuck inside the front cover of each book, I knew he had already read. Sometimes I had a job to find one for him. Another job I had was to fetch his tobacco, (Black Beauty or Ansties) from Mr Watts’s shop in the High Street. I had strict instructions to go nowhere else but to Mr Watts. Sometimes during the evenings while in with gramp he would ask me to fetch an ounce of tobacco from one of the steps inside the cellar door for him. I dreaded this because it was pitch black in the cellar and it was always about six steps down, and being so young you thought there was all kinds of things in the dark. He later told me that his tobacco kept nice and moist on the cellar steps.
The Archer Family Tree 