From leaving school at the age of thirteen years, by making 350 regular attendences in five successive years, and this I did very well, I was given permission by the Headmaster to check the register. This I did myself and he signed them as correct.
My first job of employment was with Mr J. F. Bambridge, a builder. I was an apprentice to the trade at one shilling per week for six months, and then as agreed to an increase of one shilling a week, but Mr Bambridge did not agree to this so I left.
My next short stay of employment was with Major Copeman as a Valet Groom, looking after his horse and dogs. The first thing in the morning I had to do was to knock on his door and wait for his word to proceed, collect all his clothes, brush them and lay them up in style. In fact it taught me how to keep my own clothes in good style. His boots and shoes he was very particular about.
The Major was a real military gentleman, sometimes we had walks out in the park and now and then he would shout left, right, double trot and so on and when he felt like it he would call me into his study to do map reading of the different parts of the world he had been to. I really did not settle down to all this and then one day he told me he was going abroad again and would I like to go with him, I politely said no, so this was the end of being employed by the Major.
I can also remember as a boy going round the village selling herrings, trying to earn a shilling. They were nine for sixpence and I sold them to the wealthy in the parish. I can remember in those times we would sit down to tea, two of us to a herring. My mother had eight children to feed and bring up and she found it very hard to manage on such small money.
These eight children are all still alive today in 1987, and are all in their 80's and 90's. I can remember my mother used to have to go to the jumble sales to buy us clothes to wear because she could not always afford new.
Now I had to make another start in my young days. My mother and father asked me what I wanted to do. I said I would like to be taught something in the woodworking trade and my father said there is no firm nearer than W. Crane of Fransham, so he decided we should both walk down to the works and see if I could get fixed up. We met Mr Crane and at first he said no, as the boys in the past had not settled in too good, but in the end he said he would take me on a months trial and after this Mr Crane agreed to take me on for a four year apprenticeship to learn the trade or business of Wheelwright and Carpenter.
I started in the year 1907 and the wage fixed was 3/6d for the first year, 4/6d for the second year, 5/6d for the third year and the fourth and last year was 6/6d and after that you had to prove to the firm whether you would be further employed as an improver.
I was called into the office one day to discuss about being further employed and they agreed to pay me 12/ per week as an improver in the trade. I was not very happy about this small wage but they informed me this was the usual wage after an apprenticeship. So I started at 12/ a week, but it was not long before I asked for an advance in my weekly wage to 15/ and I well remember that Mr Crane said, well if you think you are capable of the work you are asked to do you must have it, and it was not long before I received the full wage of £1 per week, which was the qualified wage for a tradesman in the Art Trade as a Wheelwright and Carpenter.
I have stated my wages as an apprentice and improver and for a skilled tradesman for a sixty hour working week, no holidays with pay and also walking to work in the morning, starting at 6 o'clock and leaving off work at night at 6 o'clock, ten and half hours for a days work and then walk three miles home.
I stayed with Cranes about twelve years mostly working piecework building carts, wagons, trailers and so on, mostly earning about 25/ to 30/ weekly. In the last four years I was there we were employed in government work building light and heavy artillery, which during the first world war was sometimes working fourteen hours a day coming home very tired at times. As wheelwright work is very heavy work and nothing else can be said about it. I well remember the change of working at Cranes. It happened one night on arriving home from work, my mother said to me would I like a new bicycle. I said you know I can't have that and then mother explained to me how I could have one. A Mr Mills who inquired about me and asked how I was getting to and from work. Mother told him I was walking. He said it was too much and tell the boy the governor has a new cycle in his shop and he can have it by paying 10/ per month. I accepted the offer and I very soon paid for my new cycle, by luck I was moved from one part of the works to another which was all piecework. I had now passed that dreaded time of walking to and from work for nearly 2000 miles a year, riding a cycle in less that a third of the time. I was like the gentlemen with his first new motor car, he thought it wonderful and I thought my cycle was such a great uplift in my life that my mind was relieved of that burden and I could now settle to learn all I could to be a qualified wheelwright and carpenter.
Now as I have stated before I worked for Cranes for twelve years, and a farmer in the village who my father worked for said to him one day would I like to open up a wheelwright and carpenters business in the village, as the farmer said he would like to let the place to me, would I consider it and let him know. But I took time to consider it as there was no business to follow on with as I knew I had to try and build it gradually if the farmers and other business people would like to offer me their work.
So I made an offer to the farmer that I would hire the place only on the condition that he let the six acres of land go with it. So after a bit more thinking he agreed to let the land go with it. I thought the land would help a bit if no work came along at my trade. So I started off in a small way of farming, keeping breeding sows and building up a small dairy herd and later on horses of my own to work the land as I could see that the Glebe land that my father was a tenant on was not ploughed and cultivated at the right time of year for his benefit. And it was not long before the repair work in the wheelwright and carpenter business soon began to build up and at times I did work very long hours to oblige the people for their support. This was great for a start. But as I went along trying to build up the business my landlord, after two years as a tenant, always kept on sending me notices to quit and each time I went to see him about it he said it was only to increase the rent. So you see this does not help you to build up a business on other peoples property.
In the end I got so fed up that I purchased the place where I have now been living for 54 years. It was in 1924 that I moved to where I am now but with the consent of a friend who was a tenant of the property, I purchased before I moved. He allowed me to build a new shop so the business did not get held up and so by hard work and sweat, by myself, and my father, things did get moving. Now I could do what I wanted freely from repair work in the trade, to building new farm carts, wagons, fowls houses etc., and all repair work in the farming industry. A friend started up a blacksmiths business, and I met him one day on the road with nothing to do so I said look I have a forge, anvil and block, blacksmiths tools and drilling machines. I said go round and see the farmers and ask them about the work you would be pleased to do for them and he started off by shoeing their horses and other work. Well, as you know its always capital to start off with as he was worried a bit about it, so I said I will see you through the first six months.
Now I have stated I was a tenant of the property when I first began to build up a wheelwright and carpenters business, but it was the year 1924 when I made the move to buy my own property to develop it in a larger way, but it was hard going for a time and there were no buildings to house my stock, such as pigs etc. I worked hard and soon had some buildings erected such as a cow house for four cows and a building for my breeding sows and rearing calves. I was lucky to have a stable for my horses which joined the house. Now it was not very long before the business began to move along very well and also I was asked if I would take on some more of the Glebe Land which I agreed to. So you see the farming side increased in its acreage. Now, your tenancy is under different management as everything in farming has greatly changed. In the year 1927 I got married and bought the property where I was working as a wheelwright and carpenter and moved into the house.
I have done much to my property, as both properties are modernised. I had the cottage modernised first and this was done for my retirement, but so sorry a state, that my dear wife did not live long enough to enjoy the retirement in the property.
My dear wife saw it completed in the year 1962 and she died a few months later. I was one of the fortunate men to have a good wife and we had our ups and downs in business., but we always pulled together through the good and bad. There is one thing I can well remember. It was in the early days of our marriage, it was that no amount of work came along in the wheelwright business for about six months, but I had some big estimate out for big work but they would not come to hand to make me feel happy in my undertaking of married life. So I said to my wife I will put an advert in the E.D.P. for such a job. It was in the press for the Friday and a Mr Rix from Dereham came to see me on the following Sunday evening. We were both going to church. He noticed where we were going so he said he did not wish to detain us but he asked about two charecters. I gave him Cranes where I served my apprenticeship. Another one was enough as I could have went to both places and now I will explain why I did not accept.
The reason I did not accept was because after six months of married life, and rather unhappy about it, I thought it best to let my dear wife decide which way was best to go and work for an employer or to stay at home and carry out two big contracts which I had estimates for. New implements such as new carts and farm wagons, fowls houses etc... orders for such came along at the same time as I had thought of working for an employer. But I left it to the wife to decide and of course it was stay at home (with her) and without any hesitation I said yes. So here I was in 1927 in full employment on my own working very hard and trying at all times to please my customers. I can say this through one large farmer in the village came and asked me if I would undertake to repair an old farm cart for him. I said I would if at all possible and from that repair he asked me to build him a new farm cart. When I built it he was so pleased about it that he put it on show at different places and from that I received orders from a farmer friend of Mr Everington to build this farmer three new harvest wagons and one farm cart and after all that with plenty of work and working very hard and long hours.
I farmed the Glebe Land for over forty years and under eight Rectors and the wheelwright and carpentry business thrived.
PIC 57
The business gradually improved and I started to sell petrol in cans and later I put down three petrol pumps and so the business increased. Petrol was then 1 /3d a gallon and now it is £ 1.75p per gallon.
Then one day a traveller called for some petrol and oil and he said have you a little shop there and I said no. He said do you mind if go in a and have a word with your wife. I said no I don't mind in the least. We were selling cigarettes only and when he came out of the house he said he had got a small order, and so the traveller called every quarter and every time he got an order for an increase in goods. And so my wife opened a little shop selling sweets and cigarettes.
In the year 1929 my son Roland was born and then in the year 1934 my daughter Margaret was born. They are now both grown up and are both living with me still.
Neither my son or my daughter was interested in the little shop as they thought it would be too much of a tie, so my wife ran it for some years until she became ill. The petrol business was still thriving and the land, but as tractors and combines came into farming the old wheelwright and carpentry business faded out.
My father and mother lived quietly in the cottage next door and they both died in their nineties. After my father and mother died I had the cottage modernised as my wife said she would like to live there in her retirement, but I am sad to say in the year 1962 she died of a very serious illness and so she did not live to enjoy the cottage. My son and daughter both did well at school and my daughter especially, she qualified as a musician. She still plays the organ for church services today. Unfortunately her marriage did not work out satisfactorily and so after a time she came back to live with us. She had a son by her marriage and he is today 23 years old and is a clerk in Barclays Bank in London.
I was now getting to retirement age and I took the pension at the Age of 70. As of course the years went by, prices kept rising and so the price of petrol kept going up and today is £ 1.75p a gallon.
After my wife died I had to close the little shop and everybody in the village said what a pity it is going to be closed. I had to give up a lot of the land because it became to expensive to buy machinery etc. and so my son became unemployed for several years. He has only now just started to pick himself up again and is working in Swaffham in the carpentry line. He is hoping to progress from there.
There is a bus service in the village today to Swaffham and Kings Lynn and to Dereham on a Friday. As I said the petrol became so dear that I could not afford to buy it and so I had to close the petrol pumps down eventually.
I am now 94 years of age and living with my son and daughter and my daughter is looking after me.
My wife and I were regular church attenders and we used to go to church every Sunday evening when there was a service. There used to be several attended the church then and at one time when I was in my teens I used to be in the church choir. But now there are not many go to church and there is only a service in the morning.
During my lifetime I have served as a Parish Counsellor, Secretary and Treasurer to the Village Hall and also I have been a school manager. I have also been a sidesman at the church.
