Son opens the window on the father who carefully catalogued a time gone by

IT was an era when youngsters hung around the greengrocer’s in hope of specks and fought like terriers over a freshly minted heap of dung. The days when a character down Swindon Market extracted aching teeth with rusty forceps and the horse drawn Fever Van struck fear and sadness into the community.

Sundays were special – that’s when the muffin man paraded up and down the streets of New Swindon balancing a tray of freshly-cooked treats on his head. But what’s all this to do with piddling in the ink at school – and how come all the Chinese launderettes high tailed it out of Swindon 100 years ago?

You’d be surprised… Following his retirement after more than half-a-century at Swindon record player firm Garrard, and having invented a contraption that enhanced the lives of millions of music lovers, Edmund ‘Monty’ Mortimer began to write his memoirs – or at least set down his recollections of growing up in Swindon during the early years of the last century.

Monty died at 80 in 1985 but now, 31 years later, his typed manuscript has finally seen the light of day after his son Brian and granddaughter Karen Eagle published One Life – Memories of Edwardian Swindon which opens a fascinating window into everyday life in our town over a century ago.

Brian, 76, of Stratton St Margaret, who also worked at Garrard, said: “The book is a document of social history, providing an interesting and graphic picture of day to day life in a provincial town at the start of the 20th Century.

“There are some lovely stories of what it was like growing up in Swindon all those years ago. These things would be lost forever if it wasn’t for books like this.”

Monty began delving back to his boyhood years around 1970 – and his recall was remarkable. Added Brian: “We thought that publishing the book would be a fine tribute. My father was cremated, there’s no gravestone. This book is his memorial.”

Edmund Walter Mortimer arrived in Swindon in 1905 as a baby boy in the arms of his mother on the tailboard of a horse-drawn furniture van from North Cerney, Gloucestershire.

His father Joseph landed a job as a groom to the Swindon Advertiser’s proprietor but wasn’t paid much so he headed downtown to New Swindon and worked “inside” at the Great Western Railway Works.

Times were tough, especially in the winter when a stone ginger beer bottle filled with hot water served as a water bottle. Whenever the chamber pot under the bed froze it had to be warmed on the fireplace before it could be emptied.

While noting well-documented institutions that governed life in Edwardian Swindon – from the railway hooter to the annual Trip holiday – it’s the down-to-earth stuff that captivates.

“Every Sunday afternoon a man carrying a large tray of muffins on his head shouted his wares along the street, as did a woman carrying a wicker basket over her arm selling bunches of watercress.

“During the week travelling gypsies often called peddling blocks of salt from their horse drawn cart.”

Other callers included “Breton onion sellers from France pushing bicycles with strings of onions and gypsy women selling clothes pegs.”

Horses played a huge part in everyday life, hauling among other items, two-wheeled milk carts straight from local farms twice a day. Bolting horses were feared, prompting a mad dash for shelter as they often caused many accidents, some fatal.

“The streets were kept clear of horse droppings by youngsters who could get a halfpenny for a bucket of manure from almost anyone with a garden.”

As such, nags were keenly watched – and one relieving itself prompted a crazed rush from mobs of youngsters with buckets and shovels.

“By unwritten law the first to arrive could claim sole rights to the pile of manure.”

But many a brawl broke out among those bent on claiming the steaming heap.

“Fights usually finished with the contestants becoming smothered with the contents of the pile.”

A fairly common sight was a boarded-up home in defence from “bums” – bailiffs attempting to confiscate possessions of those in debt.

When someone “had the bums in” kids, being kids, would rush over to “watch the fun as the broker’s men tried to gain entry.”

Too often seen on the streets of New Swindon was a four-wheeled horse drawn wagon that was tall, black, narrow and covered – the Fever Van.

The “dreaded vehicle” mostly carried off youngsters with potentially fatal diseases such as diphtheria, a high proportion of whom sadly never returned. The town’s colourful characters included a Swindon Market pedlar with a battered suitcase full of tinned powder. After his regular crowd-pulling patter he plucked a young imp from the crowd and asked him to open his mouth, which invariably revealed “dark grey to black” teeth.

He proceeded to dip a grimy handkerchief into a tin of powder before polishing the juvenile’s gnashers. “As the teeth had probably never been cleaned before the result was spectacular.”

As a profitable side-line yer man extracted aching pegs with a pair of rusty forceps produced from his top pocket – tuppence a tooth.

“No tooth was ever known to resist the mighty pull of this huge man,” noted Monty.

Can’t beat the good old days…

 One Life – Memories of Edwardian Swindon is available at Swindon Central Library (£4.99.)

  •  CHINESE laundries were common in turn-of-the-century Swindon, their speciality being to wash, starch and iron shirt fronts, cuffs and collars.
    And then, one by one, they upped and left. What new innovation could possibly have forced them out?
    Monty explains: “Later on collars, shirt fronts and cuffs were introduced made of celluloid.” That’s right, the fire prone compound later used – but not any more – in the photography and film industries.
    Celluloid items did not require laundering – only a wipe over with a damp cloth to clean them.
    Adds Monty, 60 years hence: “I often think of the danger we must have been in, especially we boys who played about with fire tins and fireworks while wearing highly inflammable celluloid collars around our necks.
    “One spark and they could have burst into flames.”   
  •  AT12 Edmund was appointed headmaster’s monitor at Ferndale Road School, a position that included stoking the boiler and doling out the teachers’ pay.
    It also involved mixing the school ink powder with water. “There was a tradition handed down from monitor to monitor which was necessary to improve its quality by piddling into a one-gallon stone jar in which the ink was mixed.
    “My predecessors used add one pint of urine, but I never did this, with the result that I was often told by teachers that it was not as good as previously.”
    He felt he’d done the right thing, however, as so many pupils sucked their pen nibs...  
  •  An extract from Monty’s book, describing a scene near the long-gone Empire Theatre at the bottom of Vic Hill, commonly known as The Gaff:
    “The wife of the theatre manager did a lot of good work in the town without any publicity. One story which I know to be true was that one day she entered a local greengrocer’s shop opposite the theatre to do some shopping. 
    Inside were two small barefoot boys asking for ‘specks.’ These were fruits which had become over-ripe and were starting to go bad. For this reason they could not be sold and were given away to the poor children.
    The theatre manager’s wife asked the two boys why they were not wearing boots. The answer was ‘ain’t got any mam.’ She told them to be in the shop the next day at the same time and she would do something about it.
    The word was spread around and the next day about 20 barefoot boys crowded into the shop.
    When the good lady arrived she did not show any surprise but took the lot of them into a nearby boot shop and proceeded to buy each one a strong pair of boots.
    The story was told to me by the owner of the greengrocery shop, my auntie.”
  • ON the kitchen table at his home in Whiteman Street, Gorse Hill, Edmund ‘Monty’ Mortimer invented a machine that revolutionised the way music was played for generations.
    During the 1920s he was working for Swindon firm Garrard which made motors for gramophone players.
    At the time machines on which records could be stacked and played automatically were complex and expensive. 
    But with the aid of a sewing machine and a piece of stove pipe, Monty concocted a ‘pick-up’ arm mechanism that Garrard chiefs swiftly patented.
    The Swindon invention went straight into production and as well as becoming a milestone in British engineering had an immediate impact for millions of music lovers around the world.
    In 1973 Monty was made a Fellow of American Audio Society and his reminiscences of hi-fi trade were recorded by National Sound Archive