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Living in Greenbank
(1909-1926)
Judith Angleson (2007) "In 1905 my father Fred Lindsey was born at 26 Cromer Road. His parents, George an Alice Lindsey had married in 1904. From Cromer Road they moved to York Road, then Washington Avenue and, when he was four in 1909, they finally moving to Co-operation Road until 1926. The family then moved to Downend where my father built the house in which we still live today. When father retired he was persuaded to talk about his memories and below are his memories of life in Co-operation Road."
Wedding photograph: George and Alice Lindsey
At the age of 85 years it has been suggested to me that I may have some memories of
the past that would be interesting to some younger members. Now I have never done
anything like this before and I hesitate to take on the job but perhaps we will try. So I
think probably the best way to start is to go back to the beginning.
The first thing I remember is where I lived: 48 Co-operation Road, Greenbank,
Bristol. In those days it was a working class area. Many drunks could be seen lying
in the gutter. Street fights were common entertainment, I saw Grandpa separate a
pair. Local employment was at the Packers’ (chocolate), Frys’ (chocolate) and Wills’
(tobacco) factories or at the pits on Easton Road at the top of All Hallows Road. The
miners lived near and you would see them walking home dirty. The railways also
were a good job, paying five shillings a week and offering a pension.
Perhaps it would be better to describe the area and then the house. Co-operation Road
began where Devon Road crossed at the bottom. Proceeding up the road on the left was Hinton Road, further up the road was crossed by Gratitude Road on the right where mother’s sister Eva lived with her family. Kingsley Road was to the left at the
end of which was an imposing building: Castle Green Congregational Chapel. Right
in front was Greenbank Primary School with separate sections for the boys and girls.
Proceeding from there you move up the road, 48 was on the right hand side and the
road was crossed again by Carlyle Road. On the right mother’s brother Walter and
his family lived and on a little further to the right was H J Packers’ chocolate factory
for the rest of the length of the road. On the left hand side was Camerton Road in
which mother’s sister Aggie and her family lived. Next Camelford Road and then
Turley Road, at the end of all three roads was the big Greenbank Cemetery.
There were daily carriages of goods to the chocolate factory. There were no motor
lorries or wagons about in those days everything had to be carried on a flat bed horse
drawn vehicle. This was carried from the local docks or railway to as far as St Marks
Church. Here the road began to rise the whole way up to the factory and a single
horse was kept there with lad returned with single horse for the next load.
Also a steam propelled vehicle tanker carried tar from the Eastville Gas works via
Robertson Road, Bellevue Road and then up the back road of Washington Avenue
and Tudor Road, and then onto Devon Road as it arrived outside Fords Tripe Dressing
works it was a steep climb to just over the Railway Bridge to Butlers Works at Crews
Hole, St George. The vehicle could not deal with this incline so the driver’s
assistant had to get out of the cab, take the pin out of the drive shaft, move a gear over
and replace the pin. It would go over the bridge and the assistant had to get out the
other side to reverse the order back to top gear. It had steel wheels which churned up
the road. Tudor Road in the winter was just a muddy lane.
Fred (on the left) and Leonard Lindsey with their mother in 1916
Going back to the corner shops which were in Gratitude Road and Kingsley Road, the
Misses Lacey kept the shop at the bottom of Gratitude Road and I remember that one
sister reminded me of Mavis in Coronation Street she seemed to be so cowed down by
her elder sister. The shop was quite a long shop evidently a back room had been
taken in at some time and so the counter only reached halfway along the shop. At the
end of the counter I remember there was a storage rack for biscuit tins. In those days
the manufacturers supplied the biscuits in metal tins about 9inch cubed and the fixed
glass lids on them; this way people could see what was in the different tins. I
remember Miss Lacey would be behind that rack of tins with the local gossip mongers
spreading gossip.
On the opposite corner was an off licence kept by Mr and Mrs Priddey it was always a
spotlessly clean shop. The one side was the off licence and the other side was
provisions and I remember that there were three wooden bins along the front of the
right hand counter in which was kept maize and bran and wheat for feeding chickens
that were kept by a number of people in the area and after a while I was allowed to
measure out and weigh my own corn for the fowls we kept. On the opposing corner
was an empty shop, a couple of Belgian families were billeted there during the 1914 -
18 war and later it was opened as a butchers shop by a Mr Painter. On the other
corner was a double fronted house, with a small drapery shop at the back of the house.
In later years it was kept by Edie Priddey the eldest daughter of the Priddeys who ran
the of-licence.
1955: Judith with her parents and grandparents George and Alice
Now if I go back to the house itself, 48 Co-operation Road, it was, I suppose what you
would call a working class terraced house consisting of two rooms downstairs and
two rooms upstairs plus the small kitchen and a box room upstairs. Going through the
front door there was a glass door just inside and proceeding along the stairs were in
front and to the right a door leading into the front room or parlour. At the back was a
room normally called the kitchen and then through another door to the back kitchen or
scullery. In this room there were two cupboards at the back in the left corner, one for
food and one to store the coal. In the right hand corner was the copper fired by coal
or sticks s to boil the water for washing day.
Now coal was delivered at the front door by cart and brought through the house in a
wicker basket, which of course was not dust proof as you can imagine. The coal men
would walk through the house leaving a small trail of coal dust from the front door
right through to the back kitchen which needed a bit of cleaning up after they have
finished and they were not very popular. Incidentally I remember a man who worked
for Packers office would call at the house every Saturday after work to collect a few
shillings and then as we needed coal he would supply half a ton or a ton and of course
the payments were used to pay for the coal.
There are one or two further items about the house that may be of interest to you: this
type of house had no bathroom and we had to do the best we could however when my
father got a bit more prosperous he decided to something about it. So he knocked the
back wall of the left-hand cupboard in the back kitchen, and built on what looked like
a greenhouse, a bathroom of wood and glass. Why a greenhouse as a bathroom?
Well to build a bathroom in brickwork or stone one had to submit plans to the local
council, and father was unable to do this and to save a lot of both this greenhouse was
built, which is not considered to be a permanent structure. With obscure glass in the
roof and curtains it made a very adequate bathroom. Of course there was not hot
water it still had to be carried from the copper in the corner of the back kitchen to the
bath.
Another small point which may also be of interest, when father bought the house the
landlord was a Market Gardener at Hambrook named Harding and he asked £210 but
father haggled and got the price down to £205 and then after a bit more haggling they
split the difference and the final price came down to £202.10s which was a queer sort
of price for a brick built house.
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Living in the Shadow of the Chocolate Factory
Alan Brain 1935 - 1950
I was born in Camerton Road in 1935 and therefore grew up in the shadow of the
chocolate factory.
My earliest memory of the factory is being carried by my father to the shelter there during
an air raid in 1941. Many of us had Anderson shelters in our gardens and there were two
brick built shelters in Camerton Road but a lot of people preferred to join neighbours in
the basement of the factory, partly because of the company and partly because it was
thought that such a large building provided greater protection from German bombs.
Entrance to the shelter was through the gate at the top of Turley Road and writing this
note sixty odd years later still brings back the characteristic smell of damp concrete. In
later years we often wondered whether a shelter beneath a factory beside a busy railway
line (as it then was) was a good place to be but as far as I know no bombs fell in the
immediate area although a barrage balloon did come down and drape itself over some
houses in Camelford Road.
The Camerton Road Victory Celebrations in 1945
Later in the war American soldiers were stationed in the factory and we used to go and
chat with the sentry guarding the Turley Road entrance. At this time you had to look out
for American Army trucks speeding along Co-operation Road.
After the war it was business as usual but these were difficult times and rationing of
sweets and chocolate continued until the early 1950s. During the summer months when
the windows were open we were treated to the sound of Workers Playtime, a BBC radio
programme which was broadcast to the workers in the factory over the company’s tannoy
system. There was often a strong smell of chocolate, as mentioned in the Observer
article, and some superstitious locals believed that this meant that it was going to rain. It
was quite a busy place and created sufficient business to justify a post office at the top of
Turley Road in addition to the one at the top of Camerton Road.
At that time the factory was referred to as Packers after the man who founded the
company in 1881 but I never saw a chocolate wrapper with Packer’s name on it. It was
more likely to be in the name of one of the other companies in the group such as Bonds
or Carsons. The sports ground on the other side of the railway line was, and I believe still
is, referred to as Packers Field although this was sold off during difficult trading times
before the second-world war.
The factory gateways made very good football goals, especially the one at the Carlyle
Road end and we used to spend many hours kicking a ball against the factory wall in the
hope that one day we would be doing the same in front of a large crowd at Eastville or
Ashton Gate. When I last visited the area I was astonished to see how many parked cars
there were in every street-no room to play football now. Sixty years ago only one person
in Camerton Road owned a car and the road was completely clear most of the time.
The only photograph I can find which shows something of the area is one
taken at the Camerton Road victory celebrations in 1945. I am the "bridegroom" in the
middle of the front row. We lived in the house on the right and you can see that number
26 still has sticky plaster in a diamond pattern on its windows to protect them from bomb
blast. One of our windows was damaged by shrapnel and we had opaque glass in it for
several years because of a shortage. There was no serious war damage in the road but I
can vaguely remember a bomb damaging the cemetery wall in Greenbank View.
You can see a gas street lamp at the top of the road and the two corner shops are
visible. There was another lamp post outside number 13 to which a bin was fixed into
which we all put leftovers of food for pigs to eat (so we were told) and you can imagine
what a festering mess that was.
The victory celebrations included a bonfire outside number 2, against the wall of the
shelter which stood in the road alongside the side wall of the house in Greenbank Road.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the factory in the end. I must say that
although I lived in its shadow for twenty years I have no great affection for it as a building
but it was the place of work for many people for over a hundred years and it is only right
that it should be remembered.
I no longer live in Bristol, but friends and relations often let me know what is going on in
the area and one of them sent me a cutting from the Observer dated the 17th January
2007 with regard to the Heritage Lottery Project.
The IRIS project is very worth while and I wish you well.