Men of the Town of Spalding - Introduction
As I look at Spalding I enter a personal area that is deliberately self-indulgent. However, it is through real life experience and observation that you can get an insight into the history, development and current status of a place and how it has reorganized itself over time. I start with my grand-father’s business and then look at those surrounding it at the time of my childhood and just before (born 1967). Many of these businesses had become established between the two World Wars, many have origins to the early twentieth century and back even further. I feel many aspects of towns and villages in the Fenland areas both benefitted and lost out from a regional isolation. This changed at an accelerating pace towards the end of the twentieth century.
C F Elsden & Son
This was my father’s and grand-father’s TV and radio business. The Elsden’s are not ‘local’ in origin, coming from another Fenland town, Soham, in the peat black-land Fens of Cambridgeshire. If you look around the Cambridge Fens the surname is fairly common. Indeed, the first time I had to change trains at March station travelling from Cambridge to Peterborough I came across “Elsden’s Tea Bar” on the station platform. I asked, “As I am and Elsden can I claim a free cuppa.” “More like I’ll charge you double”, was the response which I smiled as the sort of response I would expect to get from an Elsden!
My great-grandfather was known by everyone as Frank Elsden, although his birth name was Frederick, who moved to Spalding as a “man from the Pru” – an insurance agent for the Prudential Assurance Company in 1932, with his wife Ada and his son Cyril Frank Elsden. As already related, in Long Sutton in the early 1990’s I found myself confronted by a man that thought he worked with my father at the Prudential, when in fact he had worked with my great-grandfather.
Frank Elsden told my father that as a boy, in Soham, he had to take time off school each week when his mother was going to bake bread for the family. He had to help his mother, and his job was to light the outdoor turf oven and keep it stoked up. His parents, Cooper and Louisa Elsden, whilst clearly domiciled in Soham, did move to Sidbury in Devon for about four years as he was a bricklayer working there between 1896 and 1900. At this time there were much civil improvement works in the area with a high demand for bricklayers in Devon. The influx of bricklayers from outside of Devon caused frictions with some local tradesmen as they felt they were being undermined by cheaper workers from other parts of England. This caused local strikes with warnings posted in local press of the time warning bricklayers from away to stay away from certain sites where there was a strike. Thus we see the conflict between local and migrating labour.
By 1901 Cooper Elsden and his family were back in Soham and in 1907 the thirteen year old Frank started work for G.H.Colchester in the office of the Manure and Chemical Works at Burwell. The manure was from primary sources – guano, bat droppings from Peru, and treated fossilised dinosaur poo quarried from the Cambridgeshire Fens.
In January 1914 the young Frank left Colchester & Ball to work for the Prudential as he wished to better himself. This was with his employer’s blessing as illustrated by the following copy of his reference.
This point is important to note, that such a profession, along with others such as nursing, policing, banking and working for large national retail shops provide an initial local stepping stone that is available without the immediate cost of living away from parents. I do not say that there are other opportunities, but these in particular enabled people to get established in work within their home geographical area and then opened up wider opportunities to move elsewhere. Closing of local offices, shops and businesses in the internet age does away with this route of social mobility. High Street banks and shops have reduced numbers and offices increasingly centralised or, in the case of police and hospitals, moved to ever more centralised areas of population. Also employers used to assist with accommodation. In the case of police and nurses housing costs have become a significant barrier to those professions. Indeed, workers of ages 22 or under , as I write in 2023) the have a further impact on their mobility in that their ability to earn money is currently undermined by a minimum wage that gives them a lower income that is almost impossible to fund accommodation. This ham-stringing of young working people is at best crass and at worst a disaster in my opinion.
Frank’s movement to the Prudential was no doubt motivated by his marriage to Ada Palmer and the coming birth of his son Cyril. This job provided the opportunity for them to move to Windsor. Here their standard of living changed from the rural market town of Soham to a sophisticated barracks town. Certainly their son, my grand-father Cyril, went to a rather posh school that he did not much care for. He described it to me as a rather austere place that was very strict. It even had its own cadet force that he belonged to. The cadets were armed with rifles and even had live ammunition for training in Windsor Great Park. I have visions of the 1968 movie “If”.[i] Cyril, whilst highly intelligent, did not care much for school and it is clear to me that his various skills and knowledge were largely self-taught. He was good at maths, and had an aptitude for mechanical and electrical engineering, he was also good at drawing.
1932 saw the Elsden family arrive in Spalding as Frank was promoted by the Prudential and moved with Ada and young Cyril to Spalding. By 1935 the young Cyril Elsden had started his own radio business selling radios, bikes and recharging people’s accumulators. An accumulator is a lead acid battery that, with no mains electricity in most homes, powered radios of the era. These required maintenance in the form of top ups of acid and recharging.
Whilst walking down Spring Gardens in 1935 Cyril experienced the following:
“There was a tragic occurrence in Spring-gardens, Spalding, on Tuesday morning. At about half-past nine, Mr. William Hare, aged 65 years, a smallholder of The Bungalow, Mill Lane, Gosberton was driving a horse and trolley along the road, and, when in the vicinity of the Christian Association Rooms, was seen by Mr. C.F. Elsden, of St. Thomas’s Road, Spalding, to fall backwards, apparently in a state of collapse.
Mr. Elsden went to his assistance and was able to prevent the man from falling off the trolley. Mr. Hare, however, died almost immediately.
Dr. V.M. Dodds, of Spalding, was summoned, and deceased was conveyed to the Johnson Hospital. Mr. Hare had for several years past been a sufferer from heart trouble, and had been attended by Dr. Alec Wilson of Gosberton. The facts of the case were forwarded to the South Holland Coroner (Mr. C.M. Bowser), but an inquest was deemed unnecessary.”[ii]
Cyril described the incident to me that the old boy had taken some scrap to the yard down Spring Gardens. He went by him as he walked down the street and he noticed the old boy lobbing over about to fall off. So he ran up to the cart and stopped him falling and shouted “whoa” and the horse stopped as good as gold. He reckoned if he hadn’t started to fall off the horse would have taken him home all the way to Gosberton.
The business grew as electricity was being added to more and more houses. Cyril undertook wiring jobs and the regular round of charging accumulators grew. It needs to be remembered that most outlying areas beyond town centres in the Fens did not go onto mains electric until the 1950’s.
In these early days he was an active member of the Spalding and District Motor Cycle and Light Car Club, with his main vehicle being a light three-wheeled, two-seater van that had motorbike handlebars and two rear wheels. It was in this vehicle with his fiancé Edna Beeby, my grandmother, that he had an accident in 1936:
“Accident – a collision occurred in St. Thomas’s Road, Spalding on Wednesday afternoon, between a small saloon car and a light van, and as a result the van was turned on its side, both vehicles being extensively damaged. Fortunately, however, there were no serious personal injuries. The car was proceeding down St. Thomas’s Road in the direction of Winsover Road, the only occupant being the driver, Mr. Eric Fox, of Mill Green, Pinchbeck. The van was emerging from Henrietta Street and was about to enter Spring Gardens, when the vehicles collided. This was driven by Mr. C.F. Elsden radio and cycle engineer, of Chapel Lane, Spalding, who had with him his assistant, Miss Edna Beeby. The passenger and driver of the van had to climb through the door which was at the top. Although both suffered severely from shock, as also did the driver of the car, the only injury was to Miss Beeby, who bruised her head. First-aid was rendered by Mrs. Monks of Spring Gardens. Both rear wheels of the van were badly buckled, and the offside mudguard and nearside door were smashed in. None of the windows were broken. The front of the car was also badly damaged.”[iii]
Cyril and Edna got married Easter 1937. Edna’s father had died in the Great War and was buried in Thessalonica, Greece, without ever meeting his daughter. Her older sister Monica later married Fred Sharp and lived three doors away from my parents.
By 1938 Cyril’s business was well established in Chapel Lane with Gibbs shoe shop and Dan Morgan’s tailors located adjacent to his shop down this narrow lane that was little more than a foot-path. He was involved with the local Chamber of Trade and actively canvased alongside Mark Atton, a paint and wall-paper shop, for a Spalding Shopping Week to promote the town’s shops in October 1938. It has to be noted that the promotion of the town’s shops was a collective effort from the business people themselves, this contrasts to today where town centres seek promotion by paid professionals often from outside their communities, or seek grand projects that become important in themselves rather than important to the shops, stallholders and traders within the town.
“A SHOPPING WEEK – SPALDING EVENT IS DEFINITELY FIXED. 80 -90 trades canvased.
The effort has been arranged with a view of stimulating local business and trade activity, and will be open to shop-keepers in three different classes of competition: 1. Things to wear; 2 things to eat and drink; 3 things to use.
Treasure hunts from shop to shop are among the many interesting competitions.”
Cyril’s business expanded and he was out-growing the Chapel Lane site. With my father being expected he moved to a house in Swan Street in 1938 and got plans passed for a garage at this site. The garage doors were replaced with a shop window in 1939 and the business was run from this home site with wiring jobs, radio aerials and his accumulator charging service all alongside the sale of bicycles and radios. The business employed an electrical engineer, Jack Wetherell and had part time help from Horace Pitts and local tailor Tom Fryer.
Press articles of the time show Cyril participating in various social and civil activities including local preparations for War by volunteering for the Auxiliary Fire Service:
“A.F.S. Instruction – Attending a course of instruction under the auspices of the National Fire Brigades Association this week are Messrs E.H.Kelly, E Ferrett, E.W.Dryden and H.Pitts (Fire Brigade) and Messrs S.E. Andrew, C.F. Elsden, F.O.Levesley, N. Cox and A.A. Cox (Auxiliary Fire Brigade).”
I recall many of these names from my childhood and from memory can identify a jeweller, a joiner and builder, council worker and school master.
One of the duties that befell shop-keepers in the town was the request to make up juries for local coroner’s inquests. The coroner prudently held inquests on a Thursday afternoon when it was half-day closing and the local police were tasked to wander around the shop-keepers to recruit the jury. This was a duty both my grandfather and father performed into the 1980’s. The first inquest I have found my grandfather attending as a juror was in June 1939, the sad case of the alleged murder of a six-month old boy by his mother, the wife of a local Police Sergeant. In 1941 he was on the jury of an inquest into the death of a postal worker that had fell in front of a train at Spalding station.
Cyril did fall foul of the law with speeding offences, parking without lights and not filling in a log book for his van. He also had a significant dispute with a rival electrical firm, Tomblins, which led to an accusation that he had damaged their property in July 1940:
“ TRESPASS CLAIM – RECORDING SET AT A SOCIAL – WHO DID THE DAMAGE
The installation of a recording-playing equipment and amplifier for a social on 11 April organised by the Spalding Auxillary Fire Service, at the Co-operative Hall had a sequel at Spalding County Court, on Thursday, before Judge T.W. Langman.
William R. Tomblin, a partner in the firm of Messrs Tomblin, Winsover Road, who loaned the outfit sued Cyril Frank Elsden, radio dealer, of Chapel Lane, Spalding for £3. 3s. for ‘trespass’ damage alleged to have been caused by him when testing the apparatus during the afternoon. The allegation was strongly denied, it being pointed out that other persons could have had access to the hall ere the social began, and judgement was given in favour of the defendant.
Mr. Hammond was the solicitor for the plaintiff and Mr. Mason appeared for the defendant.
Harris William Coaten, employed by the plaintiff firm as service engineer and storekeeper, said that on 11th April he took a record-playing equipment and amplifier to the Spalding Co-operative Hall, to be used for a social and entertainment. After it was fixed up he tested it and found that it worked satisfactorily. He returned about 7.20 p.m. just before the whist part of the social began , and then discovered that when the current was put on nothing happened. Needles had been split, and there was a record on the player. He had left them in the box, but since then some had fallen to the bottom of the cabinet. He could see that the machine had been interfered with. No sound was forthcoming, the needle was broken and the speakers out of centre, caused by over-loading. Someone had tampered with it and turned the current on too strongly. He spoke to the defendant who at first said he had not touched it, but afterwards told him that he had done so as he thought they ‘would like to have some music.’ Defendant had no authority to touch the machine.
Replying to Mr Mason, he said the instrument was repaired temporarily the same night. Not being able to wait for a soldering iron, tape was used. He thought that defendant had broken the lead; there would have been no damage with careful handling. He was not aware that defendant was a skilled electrician and one of the first to operate a similar apparatus in Spalding.
Mr. Mason said it was admitted that Elsden used the machine. It was hired by the A.F.S. of which he was a member, and so had a right to try it. But the way he did so did not cause any damage, as it was in a reasonable way.
William Tomblin, partner in the firm, said there was a certain loss of prestige through the machine having been interfered with, and it took two days to get into working condition again. It was a difficult job to centre the speakers up requiring a man and an assistant. Only a man used to the job manipulated it and was sent to do so when it was hired. He did not know the terms for that evening as they were arranged with his brother.
Mr Elsden stated that he went to the hall about 3 o’clock and found the apparatus fitted up on the stage. He went for the purpose of putting up the coloured lighting. He tried the recording set at the request of the A.F.S. chief officer and found it in order, and did not abuse it in any way. It was quite alright when he left it, with the current turned off and the plugs pulled out. There were about 12 persons in the hall at the time. He left about 5 and returned about 7.30. He admitted to Coaton that he had tried the set out and was informed that he thought it would be all right for the evening. It was possible for someone else to use the apparatus as the hall was open between 5 and 7.30.
Replying to Mr Hammond, he said that it was ‘just pulling Coaton’s leg’ when he stated at first that he put the receiver on to get a bit of music. He thought he would have to work the apparatus as the hire charge was so small.
Herbert Walker said he was at the hall, helping to instal a cinema apparatus. He arranged for the hire of the recording set, the fee being the nominal one of 7s. 6d. instead of the usual two guineas. William Arthur Start said he was chief officer of the A.F.S. and asked Elsden to test the installation. A record was put on and a lad sang at the ‘mike’ and all worked satisfactorily. As the fee was low he thought it would be their job to work it, and all they expected Tomblin to do was instal it and take it away again. Elsden dealt with the set as he expected an experienced man would do. It could have been tampered with by someone else. He heard no complaints of the set during the evening.
Stanley Hubbard stated that Elsden operated the set quite reasonably. George Clifton, electrical engineer, of Spalding considered the charges put in for repair were excessive. The trying of the set would be all right in the hands of a man that understood it.
Addressing his Honour Mr. Mason contended that the machine was not in a proper condition to fulfil its purpose. It was also possible that strangers may have entered the hall and tampered with it. The opportunity was there.
The Judge decided there must be judgement for defendant, there being no direct evidence that he did the damage.”[iv]
This case shows several aspects of the small society of Spalding and the surrounding area. It should be considered that it was in the same newspaper of that date that we saw the Vicar of Moulton Chapel defending against rumours that his father was interned as an enemy alien. Local reputation was key to functioning in these relatively closed close societies. It is telling that of those speaking in defence of my grandfather was Herbert “Ginger” Walker, a highly respected local school teacher and Bill Start, a solicitor. The case also accounts for a sense of animosity that I detected from my grandfather towards Tomblins which I put down to business rivalry, but in retrospect was possibly a grudge derived from this accusation. Even decades later I found as I started work and changed the nominal reputation of my surname gave me an initial advantage in dealing with people before having to subsequently retain their trust and confidence. This could go both ways as I found when I worked in Crowland and fell foul of a disgruntled customer that had fallen out with my aunt when she lived in Crowland over 25 years previous! Such is the benefit and hazard of close knit rural society.
The 1941 Conscription Act was to ride a coach and horses through people’s lives and plans as the demands of War hit the civilian population that was recruited not just for the forces, but also civilian support roles and work in shipyards, coal mines, civil defence, fire and police to name but a few. Cyril and his business was not immune to this. His electrical engineer Jack Wetherell joined the RAF where his electrical expertise enabled him to quickly become a sergeant.[v] My grand-father was conscripted into the shipyards at Newcastle. His father, Frank, took on several roles as air raid warden, auxiliary fireman and special constable. Ada Elsden took on Prudential rounds collecting premiums, despite not being employed directly by the Prudential. The business was effectively closed, or moth-balled by the War.
I find it interesting that as I have moved to Northumberland in 2023 I have walked past old gun emplacements at Blyth where the anti-aircraft guns that were based there helped protect my grandfather as he sat in the complete darkness of black-out in the hold of a ship during a wartime bombing raid unable to see anything other than the glow of his and other worker’s cigarette ends, as they awaited the “all clear” sirens and the switching back on of their lights.
Whilst Spalding did experience war-time raids, damage and death, these were mostly due to German bombers discharging bombs on the return flight from the Midlands on the Nickobein route.[vi] Spalding did not suffer the same deprivations that Newcastle did and food was in a much more plentiful supply in Spalding. I feel that my grandfather’s wartime experience in the shipyards from 1942 to 1945 affected his view on life. It is only as I live in this region that I realise some of the things he said and how he spoke possibly originate from his time in the ship yards at Newcastle. Here are some of his anecdotes:
“There was very little meat available in Newcastle and I saw them queuing around the block at the butchers for what turned out to be whale meat. I tried it once, it was awful.”
“In the shipyards they would bet on anything, even two drops of water running down the window.”
“One day I was working on a ship when the foreman asked, ‘Sparks, can you weld?’ I said I could, even though I had never welded before, I had seen others weld and had gotten them to show me how it worked. So I spent the rest of the day electric welding! One of the pranks by electric welders was to be below the deck and wait for someone to step into a puddle on the deck above and give them a zap with the electric welder. With steel studded boots it made them jump. It’s a wonder we didn’t kill someone with a dicky ticker.”
“All some of them could go on about was the March (the Jarrow crusade). I got fed up of hearing about it so asked which of them had actually gone on the March. They looked around and eventually pointed to some old bugger sat in the corner of the yard smoking a pipe. I never saw him do a day’s work and he sat all day smoking his pipe. But he had gone on ‘the March’ so that was that.”
Cyril described to me a highly unionised environment that as a conscript he was able to avoid. However, he had to be mindful of demarcation of jobs and areas of work. One of his jobs was wiring massive copper coils around the inside of hulls of merchant ships. These would generate an electro-magnetic field that was believed to protect the ships from magnetic mines. The sailors held so much belief in these devices that if they were not working or were damaged they would go on strike and refuse to sail the ship until they were working.
Early in his deployment Cyril’s wife, my grandmother, Edna went to visit him by train. She was only there one night and the bombing raid was so bad that Cyril shipped her back home to Spalding on the first available train south. On another occasion Cyril was given leave to go home to Spalding, but had no available means of travel. So he bought a small old motorbike for £12, bought some petrol that he eked out by mixing it with paraffin, and rode it down to Spalding. To withstand the cold wind of the journey he stuffed old newspapers into his clothes. He rode the motorbike back to Newcastle the following week and sold it for £15. Today I can do this journey in four hours, those days it would have taken double that time on a lot worse roads.
The thing that Cyril was most proud of was working on the battleship HMS Anson. From what he told me he worked on the wiring of the power supply for the ship’s radar. Whilst working on the ship it was understood that if the ship was called to go to sea all those working on the ship at the time would go out with it. This did have its bonus as the ship’s crew ensured the “sparkys” were well fed with food far better than that available onshore at Newcastle and “the best fish and chips ever.” From what I have discovered the radar system was to aid the aiming of the ship’s guns and was installed at the Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson ship yard on the River Tyne.
Despite the fact that Cyril had been self-employed, at the end of the War he could only be demobilized and come home from the ship yards once he had a job offer in Spalding. Edna got him a job at Levertons engineering in Spalding. At that time you could rely upon a job working there not lasting long as they had a reputation for firing people one day and trying to rehire them the next, such was the nature of post-War work. Cyril left and re-established his pre-War business initially at Swan Street before moving to 4 New Road.
The Second World War was by far a greater upheaval to life and business of the town of Spalding than the First World War had been. The town centre itself had received substantial bomb damage taking out Penningtons department store. Lives and people were lost, others were broken, yet a community survived and the inter-reliance of the business community and shops was key to the town’s recovery, growth and development, at least in the forty years following the War.
The post-war development of infrastructure would see electricity installed in many more premises in the town with a target of the Queen’s coronation of 1953 being a key date for outlying villages to be connected by. Electricity was still supplied by local and regional Electricity Boards that also had retail interests in selling electrical goods from their shops. Imagine several streets, or whole villages, going onto mains electricity for the first time and the number of light bulbs, plugs, irons and electric ovens, fridges and washing machines, that could be sold. This was especially true in the villages of the fens around Spalding where there was, and still is in many cases, no gas supply.
The following gives an insight into how businesses helped each other: In 1952, before Weston Hills was about to go onto electricity Cyril booked Weston Hills village hall for two weeks to give a demonstrations of television, mains radio and to sell electrical items to the local community. The local Electricity Board had wished to book the village hall, but he had beaten them to it. As a result they delayed connecting the village hall to the mains. John Van Geest heard about this and came to the aid of my grandfather by offering the use of Geest’s mobile generators – such was his sense of fair play. Cyril then drove a van around Weston Hills with a loudspeaker van announcing that although the Electricity Board wasn’t co-operating television would be demonstrated at the village after all. The generators arrived in time at the village hall, but were not required as just before the event started the electricity board hooked up the village hall to the electric. The exhibition was a huge draw as there were some people attending that had never been to a cinema let alone see the miracle of television. They displayed and sold fridges, cookers, radios, kettles, irons, washing machines and clocks. All items that had been on display as “new technology” at the Festival of Britain in London in 1951. To understand the volumes involved they sold over a gross (144) irons. The exhibition helped capture many customers in both Weston Hills and nearby Cowbit.
Prior to the hook up of mains electricity the accumulator round charging batteries continued to feature greatly in the business activity with my young father, Michael Elsden, being tasked to charge over a thousand accumulators a week after school. Between 1955 and 1960 Michael was apprenticed as a radio and TV technician at PYE’s factory in Cambridge. As it is today, Cambridge was a place for emerging technology. This enabled him to learn the next generation of electronics that would see the emergence of the transistor that, over time, saw the disappearance of valves and the emergence of integrated circuits, more popularly known as silicon chips that would herald the computer age.
The business C.F. Elsden, soon to be C.F. Elsden & Son at 4 New Road started to resemble that of my childhood, that is, a late Victorian shop front with the insides lined with peg board, a wooden box as a cash register and a simple workshop at the rear of the shop as well as on the first floor. There could be rivalry between competing businesses, for example when my grandfather first opened Beales they came into shop warning him it was tough times and they expected to outlive his business. This irked my young father who took pleasure in remembering this when Beales closed their last shop in nearby Swan Street to make way for a road widening scheme as he had “out-lived” them. However, where business interests overlapped there could be great co-operation. One example of this would be the sharing of information about bad payers in a “N.B.G.” book the initials standing for “No Bloody Good”. As well as other businesses one of the key sources of names for this book was Ken “Putty” Chenerey who replaced and repaired glazing and doors after entry had been made by a court bailiff. It is much harder in a smaller community to get away with poor behaviour, or even crime and misdemeanours as everyone either knows each other, or knows someone that knows you. With expansion and largeness Spalding has lost this element. It also has to be remembered that police were usually living within the town, on every new council estate and at other key areas would be police and fire-men’s houses. Police were known by name, equally they knew you, and it would not be uncommon for some coppers to nip in the back of the shop whilst on duty for a crafty fag. It is to me that a larger, more diverse population in Spalding in 2024 is served by a smaller number of police over a wider area.
One example of inter-business co-operation was the creation of Star Relay in Spalding. Television was a rapidly growing leisure activity, but availability to some was restricted by regulations restricting the erecting of TV reception aerials. This was made harder because the footprint of radio transmission was such that Spalding and the surrounding area were on the edge of the transmission areas. As described earlier the Fens are often subject to isolating practises by geography. This meant that larger aerials and sometimes additional amplifiers were required. Even FM radio often required an aerial on a mast or house chimney. You see this in 2024 where the DAB radio signal can be very patchy in the Spalding area and local FM radio is also poor until you go further north towards Lincoln.
There was also an issue in that there were regulations restricting the erection of aerials, especially on Council properties. Star Relay – a cable relay service was to get around this. In 1959 Star Relay was launched with an initial share issue of 15,000 £1 shares. This enabled the establishment of TV reception aerials 110 feet up and a relay station to be established at Chatterton Water Tower. The Company was formed initially by seven Spalding television and radio retailers: Adlingrtons, Beales, Elsden’s, Huxfords, Tombling’s and Wilson’s. By April 1960 Star Relay had over 20 miles of cable and the manager Dave Philo oversaw the running of the system that hoped to make aerials old-fashioned and obsolete on the roof tops of Spalding’s houses.
By 1966 Star Relay was continuing to expand, but improved aerial transmissions, better receivers and the freedom to erect aerials together with the working capital requirements of the system would over time undermine the service and it eventually ceased to trade. It was perhaps, in the current internet age and expansion of fibre optic networks, ahead of its time. It was also the product of smallness – it is highly unlikely that large multiple electric retailers such as Rumbelows, Radio Rentals or Currys would make similar investments in a local community. In 2024 I see a similar investment in fibre optic cable where I live in Northumberland by local firm Alncom. You would also see the smaller competing businesses helping each other out with spares, technical knowledge and advice. This is in contrast to larger firms who would seek to compete on price.
I recall one of the large national shops having their staff note the price’s in my father’s shop window, they would then drop any of their prices that were higher than his. Whilst usually this would not bother my father or grand-father, I do recall once, on a portable TV, they played a game on this one item by dropping the price in the window to £1 below the chain store until they had won out on the price drop! Yet this was unusual as they never sought to compete on price as they viewed they could only do so much business as a small shop and had to make an appropriate margin. It is price competition that has seen the demise of the independent electrical retailer that has then accelerated in the 21st century with the advent of internet market places.
They did, however, compete on service and the parochial nature of what was still a relatively closed area compared to nearby Peterborough. This meant they had trading practises and behaviour that would not be possible to maintain in today’s Spalding or a more competitive and diverse environment. My father’s mark-up, or gross profit, on a TV would be typically 20% higher than the larger chain stores, however he would not charge for installation and would only repair colour televisions he had supplied. It has to be realised that colour televisions in the 1970’s were not matching supply resulting at times in waiting lists. The reasoning was that a small business was only capable of selling a certain quantity and not to make adequate profit out of sales would make the business unviable. This is not an unreasonable line to take when I consider professionally how I have seen farming contractors bidding to rent land or get contract business by competing on price or paying too high a rent chasing volume before profit.
He stocked, whenever possible, British made items. For televisions it would include various makes, but as manufacturing moved abroad to Singapore, Japan and Europe the British manufactured brands of TV dwindled with him mainly stocking ITT and Decca manufactured in Kent and Shropshire. I recall one person going into the shop in the late 1970’s asking if he stocked a Japanese brand of TV. My father replied that he did not wish to stock anything made in Japan. When the prospective customer stated that the Japanese made excellent electronics he responded, “If the Japs were that good at making stuff they wouldn’t have needed British prisoners to make their railways.” Such a jingoistic approach would not work in a different time or place. Working for yourself can give you a certain freedom. I remember sticking “Made in Britain” stickers on items of stock. The early 1980’s saw Decca TV’s taken over by the Taiwanese firm Tatung. I recall meeting the Tatung people at a hotel near Baker Street, London and they reassured him that they planned to continue manufacture at Bridgenorth in Shropshire.
My father and grand-father had what could be considered a level of belligerence that also bizarrely gave them an element of protection. For example, prior to the eighties electrical devices did not come with ready fitted plugs. There were some practical elements to this as the early twentieth century had seen some variations on sockets before the standard three pin socket that is recognised as normal in the UK today. This was illustrated by the various sockets that my father retained on his repair bench to cater for old style plugs on devices. I recall a customer bringing in a radio mains lead and a plug asking my father to put a plug on it. He asked them where they bought it from and when they said “Boots” he told them that they had better ask Boots to put a plug on it. He followed up by pointing out that they were a chemist and you didn’t see him selling pills! On another occasion a lady came in with several new electrical items requiring plugs in the Harrods shopping bags in which they had been bought and he suggested they take them back to London for the plugs. Turn this apparent belligerence on its head it has to be recognised that he would not sell any electrical item without it being fitted with the appropriate plug and, if it required, batteries were fitted and all included in the price. “For what is the point in selling an item that cannot be used immediately.” You would not find this in chain stores. Each light bulb sold to a customer was tested in front of the customer so that they knew it worked. Adjacent to the till was a live light bulb socket at waste level which you quickly placed the bulb in to test. The down side of this is that my young cousin got an electric shock when he decided to stick his finger in the socket.
Televisions in particular were expensive. Especially in comparison to incomes of the time. I recall a large special edition colour TV in a cabinet produced for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 being around £1200 and colour televisions typically costing between £300 and £400. The average wage of that era would typically be £90 per week and around Spalding considerably less. This meant that there was a substantial rental market for television that tended to be dominated by larger firms, most notably Radio Rentals with some operating coin-operated boxes attached to the TV for people to pay for rental. The downside of this is that it tied up a lot of working capital in TV’s that were being rented out. Rather than pursue this market CF Elsden & Son provided finance. The ability to borrow money in the seventies was severely restricted with credit controls in place in an attempt to curb inflation. This meant that they had their own credit terms of hire purchase. A hire purchase – known popularly as “H.P.” , “tick”, “monthly payments” or “never say never” was a simple means of credit that meant people paid a weekly or monthly payment for an item that was technically owned by the vendor until the last payment was made in final settlement – effectively hiring the item they were buying until the last payment purchased it and transferred their right of ownership. Whilst C.F. Elsden & Son were licenced to issue credit I suspect the legality of their agreements was a bit vague as to keep it simple the interest charges were 10% for ten months and 20% for twenty months. Unlike many firms, they stood their own credit and did not rely upon a finance company. This meant that they could chose to give or decline credit as they wished, but some people were able to borrow that would never have normally gotten credit. A particular group of customers were seasonal workers whom incomes varied and whilst they could never save a penny they would always pay their debts. There are several customers that come to mind. One would happily come in on a Saturday morning having been paid on the Friday, pay his HP payment in the knowledge he could then go to the pub to drink the rest of his cash. Another customer was a gypsy lady that bought a radio on HP. My grandfather knew her by sight as she came in seasonally each year to buy some item such as batteries or a torch – you got used to seeing the same seasonal travellers, indeed a pattern I followed as I was a rural bank cashier. In this case she had a radio and paid for it each month as she travelled around sending a postal order and her payment card with an address of a post office to send it back to each time. She made every payment apart from the last one and she wasn’t seen again. We reckoned she must have died or suffered some mishap for if she was to default on payment she would not have left it to the last one.
A further customer was a farm-worker at Deeping St .Nicholas. He was a giant of a man, but could not count or barely write his name. I suspect he had dyslexia or was even autistic. His only means of transport was a small Yamaha motorbike that he came into town on looking quite comical because of his large frame in comparison to the size of the bike. He was a very good customer and bought numerous items such as televisions, radios and stereo music systems always on HP. Each time he would make payments from coins and notes that he came in with that we would have to count for him, often repaying in full within a few weeks. My father would then waive interest charges. Such a person would find it hard to open a bank account, let alone obtain credit. A few years later my friend’s partner from putting a tiny baby he and his wife had into the box on the back of his motor cycle to come up town with. Sadly they were not mentally equipped to be parents.
Despite the ad hoc nature of their HP arrangements the business experienced very few losses.
In 1961 my grandfather took on a job for the local vet Roy Trawford of wiring a three phase electricity supply to a giant blower fan for a large cinema organ. The organ was a Compton cinema organ that he purchased in 1960 that had originally been located in the Cameo Cinema in Charing Cross Road, London. Roy Trawford was a larger than life character and a polymorph that as well as being a veterinary surgeon had a great musical skill. He was generous with his abilities and used them well as a stalwart of the local amateur dramatic society. As we shall see following with Dan Morgan, in an area like the Fens where the arts can be relatively remote such talented and generous people are key to creating opportunity for others to experience the arts. I would have had little or no access to musical theatre had it not been for my grandmother taking me to the productions of Spalding Amateur Dramatic Society.
Whilst doing this job Cyril walked through the surgery whilst a dog was being castrated and the vet said to him, “Hop up onto the table Cyril, I’ll do you next.” Such was his sense of humour. I would often see him down the cattle market, usually inspecting pigs and whilst he was popular with a brilliant sense of humour he had zero tolerance of the slightest form of mishandling of animals and would tear a strip off any perpetrator.
This wiring job was significant for my father as it was where he met my mother, Rosemary Parish. She lived in and worked for the family with her role being housekeeping duties and looking after a young David Trawford and his sister Jill. It is perhaps the nature of the old parochial Spalding that David was to become my dentist and I would also encounter his younger sister Ruth when were involved in developing a sketch for the Grammar School’s annual review that was based upon a letter she had sent the local press in rhyme about traffic shaking and vibrating her home to the tune of “On the Street Where You Live” from the musical My Fair Lady. She had inherited her father’s musical skill.
With no succession in the business and the changing nature of products and sales my father ceased trading from 4 New Road in 1989, renting out the shop to and similar business that sold and repaired washing machines and vacuum cleaners. However he did continue to trade from home selling new Televisions and doing repairs into his sixties. He also took on other electrical jobs doing assembly work for a local agricultural device manufacturer on an ad hoc basis in a shed in the garden.
To quote a letter of the era referring to the shop and complimenting the service, “There’s a lot to be said for the diminishing breed of family business.”[vii]
[i] If – is a movie released in 1968 that satirizes public schools of the time and it ends with a schoolboy running amock with firearms from the school’s armoury.
[ii] Spalding Guardian 3rd August 1935
[iii] Spalding Guardian 30th Oct 1936
[iv] Spalding Guardian 5th July 1940
[v] Jack Whetherell’s main job was working for Soames brewery in Spalding, it was the nature of the time that people did various jobs on the side, for example Tom Fryer the tailor helped erect aerials, another casual employee was Horace Pitts.
[vi] Nickobein was a means of navigation using a radio transmission along a line. Unfortunately, Spalding was the last town before the Wash to be on this route resulting in bombs that had not been dropped being discharged on the last available target before the sea.
[vii] Mr. W. H. Cunningham of Pinchbeck.
Comments