A ton of memories

Very nearly one hundred years ago one family of children were among the early attendees of Fleetville Schools.  Their name was Chinery.  We know this because 31 years ago George Chinery recalled some of his early memories of Fleetville, while Tony Haynes, of the St Albans Review newspapers listened, subsequently publishing his article.

While George remembers many of the details that have become well-known – about the printing works, the Institute, the houses and shops clustered around the hamlet Thomas Smith founded – he also mentions memories which are quite specific to himself.

George Chinery
Photo courtesy Review Newspapers

On the spare land which separated St Albans from Fleetville there were allotments.  "On these the local greengrocer grew his rhubarb.  By the rhubarb patch they erected the Conservative Club.  It is now the premises of Calverstone Ltd, cap makers, [for] servicemen."  Time has further moved on since George's interview, and the Conservative Club which became Calverstone's, is now Papa Johns Pizza house.  So that tells us where the rhubarb grew!

"Next to the Club was White's Garage, long since demolished.  Old Mrs White was the best mechanic in St Albans.  She could put a Ford T on the road quicker than anybody."  Talking about her husband: "Old Whitey never used to put overalls on.  He always wore a trilby hat.  Greased up to the eyebrows he was."  Today, you will have to stand outside the Methodist Church, look across to the flats with a curved roof, and imagine Mr and Mrs White standing outside their white-painted garage with a single petrol pump standing within ten feet of the phone kiosk.

George saw the cows grazing between the garage and Smith's printing works [Morrison's today] and the milk being sold to Henry Sear's dairy, close to where he bought his first radio at a shop which became Townsend's cycle and electrical shop [today opposite Grimsdyke Lodge].

George remembered the shop where he bought sweets, where the Rats' Castle is, and has been since 1927!  The owner wore a straw hat and white plimsolls.

Former Conservative Club, then Calverstone's.  Former White's Garage, now
flats, is on the right.

"'Johnny-Get-Your-Gun' delivered second-hand furniture on a hand cart.  He was a little humped-back man who always wore a cap and had a runny nose.  Us kids would shout: Johnny-Get-Your-Gun, you're a lying in the sun, and he would chase us down the street.  Ma Gammer would stand on the hill by the station and play her old gramophone, known to passers by as Gammer's Organ.  The spring was no good and she had to keep winding the handle.  When there was no music she would hum instead.  We used to call it Music In Lumps."

"A tramp who lived locally walked with great difficulty.  He was known as Two Sticks.  An avenue of elms used to stretch from the end of Sandfield Road to Sandpit Lane.  Some got blown over in a blizzard in 1917.  Two Sticks made his home under one of these."

And so the memories continued.  The places have changed; those specific people have gone; and many of the activities and roles people played have also disappeared.  Such as the night-watchmen whose function was to keep warm in front of a brazier overnight in a tin hut, looking after a hole in the ground being dug for pipework or other works.  Night watchmen?  When they disappear, I wonder.

Thanks, George, for your memories.