Memoirs of Penny Chilvers/Macdonald/Penn page 4

Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish

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

One advantage of being allowed to play in the enclosed area of Chiswick Square was that many of the female staff would come from the "Cherry Blossom" offices and factory located in Burlington and Hogarth Lanes and pass through the square on their way to the female employee's staff club and dining hall in the grounds of Boston House. In passing through the square, many of these people paid quite a lot of attention to the small girl and her baby brother who were playing there and often plied them with sweets and other treats. One of the girls who passed regularly through the square on her way to Boston House later left the company to become a celebrity actress on television and stage known as Dandy Nicholls. She was most well known for her role with Warren Mitchell, playing the part of Alf Garnett's longsuffering wife in the television comedy "Till Death Do Us Part"

My brother and I always had parties for our birthdays, and later, when our Uncle Charlie and Auntie Millie had their daughters Joyce and Pat, they also came along to make a nice little family group. Grandma and Granddad Penn, who by this time lived in Hounslow, regularly came by double deck tram to Chiswick High Road to visit us and usually stayed for one or two days, which everyone enjoyed. Grandma loved to play cribbage, but Granddad's favourite game was dominos and he always brought his own special set when he came to visit. Because we children were encouraged to learn both these games and other suitable card games at an early age, we both became quite proficient players. However, we were not allowed to play after our normal bedtime and on being put to bed, we could often hear the games continuing downstairs. My mother told me that it was sometimes well after midnight when the games ended, but we children were usually sound asleep by then.

My father was at that time interested in photography and did his own developing and printing of the black and white photographs of the day. He set up a darkroom in our bathroom where he developed the negatives and prints in trays of solutions. He also had printing frames in which he placed the negatives and bromide papers before exposing them to sunlight to produce sepia toned prints. The prints were then taken back to the bathroom/darkroom for fixing and drying. All the darkroom work was carried out with the light from a torch covered with red paper. Dad later bought an enlarger that enabled him to enlarge the already quite big (compared to the modern 35mm size) negatives up to postcard size. My mother was always a very keen needlewoman and made all my clothes and most of those worn by my small brother. She also knitted or crocheted all the family woollen wear, even to our swimming costumes, which in those days were adorned with wide bands of bright coloured wool. My father's skills as a cardboard box maker were often put to good use at home when he made and covered boxes for gifts, etc. Under his supervision, my mother (and later we children) also became involved in the box making and covering and the manufacture of many other fancy goods. We also had our various jobs to do around the house. One of my jobs as I grew older was to polish all the brass work (the knobs on my parent's bed, taps, door handles, hinges, etc.) Cleaning agents such as "Bluebell", "Glitto", and "Zebo" were used to clean brass, steel, and ironwork, and a strange oval shaped brush was used to burnish the black kitchen range to its bright and shining beauty. The front doorstep was hearthstoned white to show a bright and clean face to the outside world.

We always had one or more pets. In the early days we had a black and white terrier called Tim who was later succeeded by a black and brown dog by the name of Chum. Many years later, Chum was succeeded by another black and white terrier called Pip. We also had a series of cats over a period of many years Sandy, Toddles, Toots, and Peter. At Chiswick Square, another much loved pet was a canary with a fine song.

One memorable day, I was deemed old enough to run a small errand out of the square, turning right out of the square, past our second front door (not yet demolished), past the George and Devonshire public house with eyes averted from the evils contained therein, and having been instructed not to stop anywhere or speak to anyone, I arrived at my destination a tiny, low fronted tobacconist shop and café. The door opened with a loud "PANG" from a bell, and although one had to step down into the shop, a tall person had to beware of the low lintel to avoid a bumped head. In the cramped but cosy interior of the shop, a buxom, black-haired lady by the name of Mrs Byford reigned supreme over all she surveyed and took great care of her customers, although made it clear that she would stand no nonsense from anyone. About twenty years later, when my brother Ron was employed in the laboratory at Chiswick Products, he was a keen reader of the Sexton Blake mystery stories that were published weekly and as Mrs Byford had added a small newspaper business to her shop, Ron went there each week to collect the current issue. Ron therefore remembers her as an elderly grey-haired lady still making her presence felt, but he also recalls that she was always very nice to him and talked about knowing him as a baby.

There were a number of other small shops and businesses in the vicinity of Chiswick Square that I came to know well, initially in the company of one or both my parents, and later as I grew older, as a child carrying out errands for my parents or neighbours. Our closest shops (other than Byford's) were located in Mawson Lane. This small street that now runs parallel with, and in the shadow of the mighty M4, was reached by turning right out of the square and crossing the top of Church Street. Another right turn took you into Mawson Lane past a funeral furnishers, a discreet place with blackened windows. At no time did I see anyone enter or leave these premises, but I remember seeing a number of funeral processions led by a hearse and funeral carriages in all their sombre splendour and drawn by beautiful glossy black horses with black-feathered plumes on their heads. In the hearse, the coffin stood high on an ornate silver bier, and as the procession passed along the street everyone paid their respects by standing still with their eyes lowered, and men removed their hats and stood to attention until the cortege had passed.

Of the few shops in Mawson Lane, only two remain in my memory. The first of these was Pegrum's, a paper shop run by Violet Pegrum and her husband. From this shop came our morning newspapers (which I was not allowed to read) and my own "Children's Newspaper" edited by Arthur Mee, which contained a mine of news and items of interest for the young reader. A grocer's shop in Mawson Lane has also always remained in my memory because of the owner and his daughter. The shop was owned by Mr. Burgess, a seemingly old man with long grey wispy hair and beard, and who wore the customary white apron that was the uniform for people connected with the handling of food. He had long, square fingernails that I always viewed with some distaste, as he used them a lot in his boning of the bacon. The shop had a small central walkway with the dry goods counter to the left and provisions on the right. As Mr. Burgess obviously believed in displaying as many of his goods and provisions as he possibly could, every last square inch of spare space was used for this purpose. To the left of Mr. Burgess's bacon boning area was a small tray on which he put the bacon bones that he had removed. To my horror, he once offered me one of the bones to chew as a treat. He apparently gave them to all of the children who came to his shop, but it was a kindly gesture that was not appreciated by this fastidious miss. Because the dry goods counter was surrounded with shelves displaying the stock, there was only a small square space through which Mr. Burgess's daughter served the customers. She was exquisitely pretty, with delicate features and a tiny, attractive mole on the side of her mouth. Her hair was dark and glossy, parted centrally and crisply waved until it reached two coiled plaits which covered her ears in the "earphone" fashion of the day. Whenever I read Dicken's "Old Curiosity Shop", Little Nell and her grandfather are identified in my mind by Mr. Burgess and his daughter (also named Nellie).

Another local shop, slightly further away in Devonshire Street, which in those days was directly opposite Church Street on the other side of Burlington Lane, was a sweet shop run by a Mrs George, where we could gaze in the window, and when tempted inside, were allowed to ponder and debate as to which was the best value for our halfpenny. Tiger nuts or four toffees for a penny, a sweet egg containing a small gift costing a halfpenny, slab toffee either plain or containing brazil nut, cut up into sharp lumps with a special toffee hammer, thick slabs of chocolate cut up with a pair of special pliers there was so much variety at so little cost. An even more agonizing choice was when our grandfather took me to the shop with two pennies to spend. However, after great deliberation I usually settled for one of my two favourites a pink pyramid of hazelnut squares or deliciously toasted coconut squares, none of which I was allowed to eat out of doors and which had to last me for several days. Further up Devonshire Road, nearer to Chiswick High Road, was another shop that was absolutely fascinating to a child. It was a shop that sold such things as dog biscuits, various grains used as feed for chickens, and many other items of that type. It was a real delight to go into the shop where there were large open sacks of the various produce standing against the counters and where we could plunge our hands into the sacks and let the contents run through our fingers.

Memoirs, Page 4 of 7

Penny Chilvers Memoirs, Page 4 of 7

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