Some Random Memories of Kenneth Terence Sturgess O.B.E aged 90 (March 2005)

I was born on 20th March 1915 in No 81 Nutley Lane, where my father had a grocery and provisions shop. I was brought into this world by Mrs Crowhurst, the local midwife, who delivered all the local children and lived in the corner house between Nutley Lane and South Albert Road.

I had 24 very happy years as a child and teenager in No 81 until 1939 when my mother decided that she wanted a house with a bathroom and the family moved to a more modern house in Rushworth Road. My father was not all that keen on moving but came with us while still carrying on the shop in Nutley Lane. This he did until he sold it in 1956 and retired aged 75.

Now back to my memories. They will not necessarily be in strict chronological order.

My parents bought No 81 the Grocers Shop in 1912 and moved to Reigate from Wimbledon. My Sister Sylvia Joyce (Known as Joyce) was born on 20th February 1913. I came on 20th March 1915 and my younger sister Iris Vivienne (known as "Bubbles") was born on 20th February 1920. Joyce married Stanley Washington about 1935 and she died early in 2004. Bubbles married Donald Scott in 1944; she is still alive and lives in Reigate in Priory Drive off Park Lane East as a widow.

Running a Grocers shop in those days was quite hard. The shop was open from 8.00am to 8.00pm 5 ½ days a week (Mrs Cook from No 79 always came to do her shopping at 7.59pm so she was not always popular).

We ate in the main living room immediately behind the shop. During the meals my father would have to get up and go into the shop whenever the shop bell tinkled.

My father was called up in 1916/17 to serve in the Army in the Royal Field Artillery. During the years he was away, my mother (who was the mainstay of the family) had to look after her two children and still run the shop. She did have a live-in maid, called Annie, to help her. I vaguely remember Annie and loved her dearly.

The house at no 81 consisted of the main living room directly behind the shop, then another sort of parlour which was used as a storeroom for the shop and then the scullery which had a cooker, sink and a coal fired copper boiler set in concrete on brickwork. My mother did all the laundry washing in the boiler and my father also cooked the hams for the shop in the boiler. My mother would also have boiled water in the boiler for the weekly baths. No house in Nutley Lane had a bathroom. We children were bathed in a large zinc bath in front of the fire in the living room every Friday night. There was also an outside W.C. which was not used (see why later) and a shed which contained the tank for the paraffin sold in the shop. There was also a chicken run where we kept 12-15 chickens.

By the side of the house between 81 & 83 was a passageway about 40 inches wide, this was used to store boxes and jam jars etc (people were paid ½ d for an empty 1lb jar and 1d for a 2lb jar). Someone at some time before I was born had built a sit-down toilet at an upstairs level over the passage way between 81 & 83. It looked very strange from the outside but was very useful.

Upstairs, no 81 had a large room over the shop with a large bay window and 3 bedrooms. The large room over the shop was empty until about 1925 when my mother went to Whiteleys in London and completely furnished the room including a piano.

That describes the house - now for me.

As stated above I was born in 1915. In 1920 at age 5 I went to the Holmesdale British School in Holmesdale Road as did my 2 sisters. Many of my friends went to the National school in Hardwick Road.

In 1924 I had a serious accident when I ran out of school into the path of a taxi. I sustained a fracture of the base of my skull and this resulted in me suffering from double vision which I have had to live with for the past 80 years. I was in East Surrey Hospital for 6 weeks. As a result of this accident my mother rather treated me with cotton wool. I was not allowed to join the Scouts or the Boys Brigade as most of my friends did and I was not allowed to play rugby or join the OTC at the Grammar School which I joined in 1926 having passed the County Scholarship. She let me play soccer and I remember my immense pride when I left home wearing my first football boots. These were bought in Knights of Bell Street and cost 10/6 equal to 52 ½ p today.

When I mention prices in this account it should be remembered that £1 then was quite a lot (240 pennies, 480 halfpennies and 960 farthings). An average labourer's wage was about £3 per week; £5 per week was top money. My father's gross takings from the shop were only about £70 per week.

Back to me again. In 1926 I had scarlet fever. In those days, you were immediately sent to an Isolation Hospital. This was at Netherborne near Smallfields. There were three hospitals there, one for Scarlet Fever, one for Diphtheria and one for Typhoid Fever. I was there for eight weeks and quite enjoyed my time there apart from the nightly dose of liquorice powder if my bowels were not working. Wednesdays and Sundays were visiting days and my parents had to stand outside in all weathers and talk through the glass windows.

As stated earlier, I went to the Grammar School in 1926 and stayed until 1931 when I left after matriculation. I then followed my Uncle into a firm of Chartered Accountants in the City of London. As a junior audit clerk my wage was £1-12s-6d (32/6d) from which I had to buy my Season ticket (Reigate to London), 10/6d per week, my lunches and also to give something to my parents for my keep.

I duly qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1941 and joined the RAF.

In the 1920's particularly and in the early 1930's there was not a great deal of motorised traffic in Nutley Lane. The Milkman came round in a horse and cart, carrying churns of milk. Householders brought out their jugs and he measured out milk by the pint. The baker also came round by horse and cart. In the 1930's I also remember the tricycles of the Walls and Eldorado ice cream sellers.

I was one of a group of boys. I can still remember Johnny Banbury, Sid Sturge, Bill Reason, Len Steadman and my particular friend Nobby Clark, whose father played the kettle drum in the town band. We boys always seemed to be out playing games in the streets when we had to keep out eyes open for Police Inspector Hood, who lived in North Albert Road and rode his bicycle to and from his house and the police station. We all scattered when we saw him as he said what we were doing was illegal.

We also played a lot of cricket in the wide alleyway running behind 73-91 Nutley Lane. This small lane served as access to the back gardens of these houses and also contained about 9-10 lock-up garages belonging to Mr Alderton of Hardwick Road. Behind these lock-up garages was an orchard where we sometimes "scrumped" apples.

In the glorious school holidays we boys would love to go either to Reigate Heath or to the foothills of Colley Hill for adventurous outings. We knew most of the people who lived in Nutley Lane below Wickens Yard. The few houses above Wickens yard (at least on the eastern side) were very poor and were foreign country to us.

We knew all the roads off Nutley Lane intimately - York Road, Beaufort Road, East Road (which in my young days was called Gasworks Road) Albert Road North and South. At the far end of North Albert Road was a Jam Factory owned by White Tomkins and Courage. At the corner of North Albert Road was a Public House "The Admiral". The daughter of the house, Miss Clark taught me, my sisters and many others to play or attempt to play the piano. The last house in Nutley Lane on that side was occupied by Mr Spencer who was horrified one day to have his front window smashed by a pebble which I had thrown over the railway bridge. I was probably about 11 or 12 years old and my mother had to go and mollify Mr Spencer.

Several of my friends went to the St Philip's Sunday School in Nutley Lane and some of them were choirboys in the Church. However partly because my parents came from Non-Conformist families, I and my sisters went to the Wesleyan (later Methodist) Sunday School in High Street. One thing I liked about the Wesleyan Sunday School was that Mr J Arthur Rank of the well known Rank Miller family was closely associated with it being the morning superintendent. Each year Mr Rank who I got to know quite well treated the whole Sunday school to a day's outing at Bognor in the summer. We were conveyed in a fleet of open char-a-banc with solid tyres and long cross seats where we sat five or six abreast .Later in the 1920's pneumatic tyres started to be used. At Bognor Regis we were given a meal in the local Wesleyan Sunday School.

I should also mention one other thing about the Wesleyan Chapel which affected Nutley Lane residents. Very few people in Nutley Lane went to church as church was considered to be a little "upper class". Mr Rank, who was later to become Lord Rank of international film fame, fostered the idea of a semi-religious, semi-social meeting called the Regnal League, which met every Sunday after the evening church service in the Sunday School Hall below the church. We had an orchestra for which Mr Rank bought the instruments and paid for the tuition. (I played the clarinet). We had guest singers or talkers. One of these I particularly remember was Jack Hobbs, the famous England Cricketer. The meetings were very well attended by the poorer people who did not want to go to church. Many Nutley Lane people came and there were quite a few young ones in the Orchestra.

Every Saturday all the youngsters of both sexes went to the fourpenny matinee at the Hippodrome cinema in Bell Street owned by Mr & Mrs Bancroft (This was long before they built the Majestic Cinema). We used to see Charley Chaplin, Tom Mix, Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd and all the other stars of the silent screen. As there was no sound a pianist used to play appropriate music during the film.

Nowadays little boys wear long trousers as soon as they can walk, but in the 1920's all boys wore short trousers until they were 12 or 13. I had my first long trousers at age 13. In my teens and especially when I went to work at 16 I would get a suit from the Fifty-shilling Tailors in Croydon which cost of course 50 shillings or £2-10s-0d.

As I said previously hardly any of the houses in Nutley Lane had an inside toilet and certainly no bathroom. After I became too big for my mother's zinc bath I used to go to Reigate Corporation Baths for my weekly bath costing 10d. In the early 1920's no house in Nutley Lane had electricity. It was about 1925 when the Corporation offered houses in Nutley Lane to install electricity limited to 12 points at a cost of £12. Previously we had to do with a gas cooker and gas lighting or oil lamps. I think I continued using a candle in my bedroom for a few years because the 12 electric points did not reach my back bedroom.

My Parents were active members of the St John's Ambulance Brigade as were several of our neighbours. They held their practice sessions in the Gospel Mission Hall next to Reigate Grammar School. Sometimes I earned a little pocket money by acting as a St John's Ambulance patient. My father as a part time job drove the St John's Ambulance which I remember was a large Renault, which was garaged in a shed in Wickens Yard. He was called out quite a few times each week and when he was away from the shop my mother took over.

My father's shop always had a trade bicycle with a large wicker basket on the front and always had an errand boy aged about 14/15 to deliver the grocery orders. My older sister Joyce was always fascinated about shop life and loved serving behind the counter and chatting to customers. She left school at 14 as she couldn't wait to start in a shop and didn't want to waste several years at the Girls County School (Secondary). She stayed with my father for a year or two before starting with Adams Stores in Church Street. She loved serving so much in later life after her children had grown up she spent more than 20 years in LaTrobes in the High Street (Market Place). My younger sister Bubbles had a completely different nature and went to the County School until 16. She then joined the Civil Service and worked in the Ministry of Works in London until the war. Several years into the war travelling became so difficult that she transferred to the War Office South Eastern Command in Reigate.

As I stated earlier there was not much in the way of motorised vehicles about Nutley Lane in the 1920's. I do remember in the early 1920's my family having an old open car called an Adler, which I think was a German make. This was sold in 1926 and we had nothing more until a Morris 10 in 1930, in which my father and I toured Wales and the Lake District when my Mother let him off for a week's holiday. I myself bought a small open Austin 7 for £9 in 1937 and sold it in 1939 for £9.

I am running out of memories but I should mention that my sister Joyce and I and quite a few other Nutley Lane residents were members of the Victory Tennis Club in the 1930's. The Club held its meetings in the Hall alongside St Philips Church. We had 2 grass courts in a field off Pilgrims Way. We played against other clubs as far afield as Oxted and Bletchingly.

The Pilgrim's Way which I mentioned earlier was of course the road or lane which ran from Colley Hill to the junction of Somerton Road, Manor Road and Nutley Lane. I should expand a little on what we children believed about the mediaeval pilgrims. We understood, maybe exaggerated, that the Pilgrims setting out from Winchester on the way to Canterbury came along the North Downs and when they reached Colley Hill they came down the chalky path (later called the Pilgrims Way). They then came down the lane named in the 1920's/30's as the Pilgrims Way. (I don't know if it's still called by that name). This would lead the pilgrims to a track which is now known as Nutley Lane. At the end of Nutley Lane they would enter the lane known as Slipshoe Street where they removed their muddy footwear before entering the Red Cross hostelry. My Sister believed they went via the tunnel to the Old White Hart. This may not be true but it is what we children believed at the time.

In September 1941 I married Joyce and moved to Redstone Park Redhill.

In 1946 I moved with my wife and son (born 1944) to Northern Ireland where I still live, but that part of my life does not concern Nutley Lane.

Copyright Ken Sturgess March 2005