Friday 29 July 2011

More local history

Our local garage
Here is more information connected to the drawing shown in the last post.
Herbert Westfield, moved to the village around 1924/5 from Essex and set up a garage and shop at the former Reading Room, now the Clinic on the Green. He repaired cars and cycles, sold petrol and paraffin, charged accumulators and so on. His wife Elsie ran the little shop next door until Herbert retired aged 80 in 1951 and they moved to Attleborough. They sold the business to Leslie Loveday.
The drawing illustrates of how the place looked in 1947. The (very) amateur artist was Maurice "Pally" Large, who lived across the road (his father was Will Large). It probably wouldn't win any prizes in the village art competition today but is an intriguing depiction of how the building, which has undergone many changes over the years, looked at the time.
Incidentally, in contrast to the present day, the village petrol station thrived in those days. In the 1930s, Westfield's sold the cheapest petrol for miles around - at a ha'penny under a shilling (5p) a gallon. That's about 1p a litre!

No comments: