MRS BRENDA TRAVERS, A LONG TIME RESIDENT OF BEAMINSTER, TALKING TO MURRAY ROSE ON 16TH JUNE, 2022 AT HER HOME IN WOODSWATER LANE, BEAMINSTER. MRS. TRAVERS WAS BORN ON 7TH DECEMBER, 1925 IN SHERBORNE, DORSET.
TRANSCRIBED BY SALLY WAKEFIELD 27TH JULY, 2022
MR = Murray Rose
BT = Breda Travers
Murray Rose introduces the interview……………………………
BT I was born in Dorset, in Sherborne, in 1925. My father was in the Police Force and, in those days they were moved around quite a bit as village policemen and lived in the village as such, and he was transferred to Corscombe from Sherborne when I was about 2. So we lived in Corscombe until I was 5 and I went to school just for 3 months and we got to know the village people quite well at the time.
From there he was posted to Weymouth where we had electricity and pavements, and fish & chips up the road, and a big school to go to and I did most of my schooling in Weymouth until the Grammar School and then, eventually, came back this way to Bridport to begin with in 1943. From there he was posted to Beaminster in 1947 and I’ve lived here for 75 years I think.
Whereupon I used to sort of see different people and it was an entirely different atmosphere in Beaminster compared with Bridport or Weymouth because everybody seemed to be related to one another and one had to be very, very careful what you said at the time. And ladies used to go to church with their hats on and they didn’t used to speak to anybody but just walked into the service and then walked out. It was quite different from what I’d been used to always. But then I used to help out at the Congregational Church and play hymns and such like for services sometimes when Lydia Gibbs couldn’t manage to play and itwas there I met my husband, Bob Travers, who was born in Beaminster and had been in the army and had come back and tried to settle in and he used to work for Lees office, the solicitors here before he went into the army and when he came backin 1946 (something like that) in 1947 it was desired that the Beaminster Rural District should be a full time job and so he was given the job of setting up Beaminster Rural District Council in 1947 with full time Surveyor, Accountant – quite a task…………………..
MR He was very young at the time then?
BT Well he was ten and a half years older than I was and so it was quite a thing and he had to find somewhere to have an office and it was above the toilets over Yarn Barton. Yes, he was there and had good men working and doing and so that was that. Now then………………
I used to take a bus to Bridport to work – I was in an office there, sales department for a netting firm and I used to catch the bus in the mornings to go to Bridport and it was 1s. 6d. return but if you did the whole week it was 4s. 6d. which was interesting and the buses in those days used to go straight to West Bay. Straight from Beaminster to West Bay. And it was interesting because, getting on the bus would be children who went to the special school in Bridport, including Joanna and her sister June, and then Higher Meerhay, Dupont children used to get on the bus. Nanny with them to see they were on the bus all right. All those days ago. But it’s a shame these days that the buses don’t run straight to West Bay because it used to be an outing and then Saturday nights there’d be a late bus back after going to the pictures in Bridport.
MR Were the buses very full or…………………..
BT Yes
MR Yes because there were no cars?
BT Yes they used to be well used. No cars. Well, Bob had a car, a Morris 10 – JT 863 – and I remember it would only do 30 mph. If it did 35 it would shudder and shake. It went all the way to Liverpool once for a conference of some kind and it took all day to get there and then two tyres worn out and we had to have two new tyres.
Besides the Congregational Church, as well as St. Mary’s Church, there was also a Methodist Church in Fleet Street which was very well attended always but now of course it’s made into two houses and so that’s the end of that. But you see, even in those days, when we married in 1949, it was very difficult to find accommodation and we ended up in the Eight Bells in rooms until there were some houses built and of course the Accountant and the Surveyor had to be housed and they had Council Houses and so we were awarded one as well which was good. So then we were able to save up for 12 years and bought this house here, all those years ago. No mortgage, we’d saved enough.
MR Bought it outright?
BT Yes, £3250 I think.
MR In 19……………?
BT Richard was 5 and he was born in 1956. I’ve been here 60 years anyway. Yes, and when I first came it was a lane. There was an orchard right across the other side. No bungalows, no nothing. Peaceful. Didn’t see a soul. And then eventually the land was sort of sold at Hollymoor and there were all the bungalows all built and Riverside. yes, even houses in Woodswater Lane, just beyond the river. It’s very intgeresting if you look back and think about all these things. How different life was. I didn’t used to see a soul going up by but now, of course, plenty of traffic and people, children.
MR This would be 1962 would it? Something like that?
BT 1962, that’s right.
(Muddled speech for a time)
BT Years ago the farmers used to bring their milk in to the milk factory which is at the bottom of North Street and now it’s a factory of some kind, I’m not sure what it is now but years ago they used to come in their horses and carts and bring the milk churns and it was quite different in those days. And eventually perhaps they’d have a sort of lorry in some cases to bring it from the farm down to the milk factory. Yes, that’s a long time ago and then, of course, years ago there used to be quite a lot of different shops in Beaminster. There was a men’s clothing shop and two shoe shops, four butchers and there was the Coop, a small Coop, and Carters store which is now the Coop and there was fish, there was a fish shop where the Indian place is now. And vegetables, of course, and there was an Infant School for children to start with, and Girls School and then the Boys School in East Street which is now just an ordinary house.
MR So the new school would have been built just after you came here then?
BT More or less, yes because Don was one of the first to go into the new school. He’s 70 now. And then of course there used to be a dear chap – I can’t think of his first name – but he was a Greening and he used to come along on a bicycle and he was more or less the ~Town Crier and he used to get off his bike and ring the bell and used to say ‘Don’t forget tonight Mr. Wingfield Digby’s coming, come on down’.
MR The Digby’s?
BT Yes, he called him Winford (very unclear speech) (laughter) I can see him now. And then of course there was the Town Band.
MR Yes, of course, because the Greenham’s got that going didn’t they.
BT Yes, and we used to have a District Nurse and to begin with Dr. Lake used to be on his horse to go and visit. Yes, wonderful man.
MR Do you remember that?
BT Yes, of coruse I do. Well, when we lived in Bridport my grandmother used to stay 6 months with us and 6 months with her sister in Corscombe, her daughter in corscombe, and she had a slight stroke and do you know, Dr. Lake came in on his horse to Bridport to see to my grandmother and she’d had this stroke and in those days we didn’t have physiotherapists to help and he said ‘All you need to do is just put your fingers up and down the door and you’ll find that you’ll get strength in your arm again. Which she did, and it was amazing. But he was such a lovely man and his daughter and husband were married the same day as we were. There was just an hour between us at the Church. 1949. Yes. As I look back over these things…………….. I had played the church organ of course.
MR As well as the Congregational Church organ?
BT As well as, sometimes, yes. And I used to cycle in Bridport down to West Bay for church services there. 9 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. Choir practice on ……………………
MR Was that the one on the beach now that’s a museum?
BT No, that was a chapel. This was a Church of England, the new one there on the corner. Actually I’ve been in it today to have a look because we gave a table in memory of my father because they lived in West Bay Road in retirement.
[00:13:49]