Memoirs of Penny Chilvers/Macdonald/Penn page 3

Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish

Dan & Charles Mason, pioneers of the shoe polish industry in Chiswick

Opposite No. 4 in the square were two pretty houses that were different to our house in as much that they were only two storey buildings and each of them had minute enclosed front gardens, as opposed to the front of our house, which was an open strip of gay flowers. One of these houses was occupied by the Townsend family and the other by a family by the name of Jones. Mr. Townsend was a Justice of the Peace and a local dignitary, and Mr. Jones had a senior position in the Chiswick Products Company. It is perhaps worth mentioning here that although throughout these memoirs I have mostly used the correct name of The Chiswick Polish Company and its later name Chiswick Products, most of the employees and people living around that part of Chiswick, called it "Cherry Blossom" after the company's best known product Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish. As a child, I certainly only knew it by that name.

Next to No. 4 and closer to Boston House, but lying back in its own courtyard, stood a cottage that was empty and uninhabited for many years. The Cherry Blossom Company used it for the storage of reels of cardboard and paper prior to being made into cartons and containers for the tins of polish. Delivery of the reels of cardboard and paper were great occasions the giant reels were first rolled through the square and then into the cottage courtyard, before being manhandled into the cottage itself. Strangely enough, I do not remember ever seeing them coming out again, but that may have been because the interest and eagerness were not the same. This was probably due to the fact that sometimes when the reels were being delivered I was allowed to go inside the cottage an awesome visit indeed! Dust lay thick everywhere, windows were so grimy inside and out that one could not see through them, and very little daylight penetrated into the cottage interior. My main memory however, was of the spiders and their webs. Years later, I questioned my mother whether my child's mind had exaggerated the size of the spiders and the thickness of their webs, but she said that it was not an exaggeration it was quite true. She said that they were the largest spiders that she had ever seen and the webs were just like black coarse string hanging from every corner and crevice, making it seem centuries old. When later the cottage was renovated and refurbished, it was a most attractive and peaceful residence in which lived two sweet maiden ladies Miss Cox and Miss Broom, who were accountants at Cherry Blossom. These gentle and refined ladies sometimes invited me into their cottage for tea and cakes, but I never divulged the identity of the former occupants, even though I often looked for traces of them returning to their former habitat.

Not long after we arrived in Chiswick Square, new iron gates and railings replaced the old and rusty originals that separated the square from Burlington Lane and this meant that I was allowed to play out of doors in complete safety. It also opened a whole new world to me. Central to the square was a beautiful U-shaped emerald green raised lawn and a similarly U-shaped flowerbed that each year contained brilliant red geraniums, dark blue lobelia, and white alyssum, with not a bloom out of place. The man responsible for this was Mr. Bill Deeds, a quiet cloth-capped man with a small moustache, whom my mother was most insistent that I should not disturb while he was working. As he seldom spoke to anyone, I am not sure whether I disturbed him or not, but at least he never sent me away. I really believe that it was through watching Mr. Deeds quietly and efficiently going about his work of creating his beautiful gardens, and seeing my mother's colourful array of boxes and baskets of plants and flowers, that gave me my lifelong love of growing plants of all kinds, whilst the acrid scent of geraniums never fails to bring back memories of the Chiswick Square gardens.

Soon after becoming residents of Chiswick Square, my father's brother Charlie was married to Millie Baker, who lived locally in Glebe Street. She had a brother Reg who was the same age as myself and we were chosen to be the attendants at the wedding, he in a white jacket and round brimmed hat and myself in white bonnet, coat and plisse (a small cape), with both of us wearing white leggings that were fastened down the side with tiny white buttons. The wedding was indeed a day to be remembered, with many members of both families attending wearing a great variety of headgear ranging from cloth caps to trilby on the men and from Victorian toque to broad brimmed, floral decorated cartwheel styles on the women. My grandmother (Martha Penn) was resplendent in a lace and fruit trimmed turban shaped hat, plus her ever-favourite feather boa. On Sundays, she always wore a double string of pearls and a silver "Mother" brooch. Her skirts were ankle length and her feet were encased in soft leather button-sided boots. One of my childish joys was to do the buttons up on her boots with an ebony handled buttonhook.

The wedding service was held in St. Nicholas Church, only a stone's throw from Chiswick Square, being located almost at the end of Church Street and adjacent to the River Thames. This was my first remembered visit to the church, and I gazed around in awed wonder at the beautiful stained glass windows, the bell tower, the alter and reredos, and most of all, the wonderful brass eagle whereon was placed the massive bible. Reg and I dutifully followed the bridal couple, with the two bridesmaids keeping an eye on us. However, when everyone knelt, we did not know what to do and we just stared blankly at each other and at our surroundings.

Because of the short distance, everyone walked home to Chiswick Square after the marriage service. This also was my first remembered walk along Church Street, past the then post office run by Mrs Craig, an elegant and refined lady who later moved closer to our end of Church Street. During this walk, we also passed Holly House and Latimer House, then a most intriguing building called "The Guardship", outside of which hung a ship's wheel and a figurehead. This was the headquarters of the local Sea Scouts, but originally it was a brewery store, with the beer being pumped across from the Lamb brewery on the opposite side of the road. One or two more houses, then the ancient Page's Yard, and with the George and Devonshire Public House in view just around the corner, we were almost home and ready to sample the delights of the wedding breakfast. First however, came the ordeal of posing for the photographer with his boxlike camera mounted on a tripod and covered with a black cloth, under which he disappeared and reappeared several times whilst arranging his subjects, who stared straight at him with petrified expressions, awaiting the moment of being photographed for posterity.

As a family, my parents and I often walked for miles, initially with me in a pram, but later my father purchased a bicycle that was not only fitted with the oil lamp and upright handlebars of that era, but also had a sidecar with a wheel to match those on the bicycle. I was placed in the sidecar, while my mother had her own "bike". In those days, women's bicycles had tightly stretched strings threaded from the fixed hub of the back wheel to the mudguard to prevent the ladies' skirts from being caught in the wheel.

At the age of five years, I was enrolled at the local infant's school named Hogarth after the street in which it was located and the artist Hogarth, whose house was situated just across the road from the school. The Head Teacher at the school was a Miss Bramblebee, who had a sweet nature to match her rather unusual name. After a somewhat sheltered early childhood during which I was never smacked by my parents (my mother said that she could control me merely with raised eyes and eyebrows and a firm word), I soon found that I had to learn to stand up for myself and surprised everyone when I smacked the face of a boy who was continually teasing me. I then joined the Church Guild for Children and as my mother took me to the hall in which the Guild was held, I stood entranced by my first sight of ballet as one of the older girls danced to what I later learned to be the music of "Rustle of Spring". Thus began my lifelong love of ballet, opera and music.

On the fourth of April 1927, I was surprised when my Great Aunt Lizzie (Elizabeth Brown, my grandmother's sister-in-law) took me to school instead of my mother, but when I returned home after school I was given an even greater surprise when I was taken upstairs by my father, and I was shown a baby brother held in my mother's arms. In an age of complete innocence, I accepted without any query the fact that he was found under a gooseberry bush. My new brother, named Ronald Mark, was a beautiful, bonny baby, always smiling and was baptised in St. Nicholas Church, just around the corner. However, when he was just a few months old, he had severe bronchial pneumonia and was not expected to live. At the height of his illness, as my mother sat at his cot side, she had a vision of her brother Percy, who had been killed in World War One. In her vision, Percy was hovering over the sick baby with outstretched arms and she called out "No, Percy! Do not take him!" The vision disappeared, and when my mother examined Ron, his temperature had dropped, the fever was gone, and he was sleeping peacefully. In those days when there were no antibiotics or similar remedies, my mother's good nursing and old-fashioned cures, soon restored him to full health.

Memoirs, Page 3 of 7

Penny Chilvers Memoirs, Page 3 of 7

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