MEMORIES OF OLD TAUNTON
by Robin Cassell

The day that I started school is but a vague recollection. It was September 1954, and at almost 5 years old, my world had become suddenly a much larger place. The school was Holy Trinity, located in Trinity Street, next to the church. Alas, the building no longer standing, demolished many years ago to make way for a housing development. I have a profound memory of the school’s heating system - two huge coal fired boilers, one in each section of the building, that dominated the classrooms in which they were situated. My memory is of the school caretaker, Mr. Adams, a rather large man, discreetly sidling into the rooms on several occasions throughout the day to put more coal on the fires.

Another memory from my days at Holy Trinity is the occasion when a policeman came to the school to tell us that Taunton was about to get its first set of traffic lights. It was about 1957. There were to be three sets, in fact, situated on The Parade in almost the same location where they are to be found today.

Taunton throughout most of the 1950’s had an early closing day. This, I seem to recall, was on Thursday afternoon when all of the retailers closed their shops at lunchtime and took the rest of the day off. Even the multiple retailers’ took part in this practice. Some famous names, which have disappeared from the ‘High Street’ since that time are Timothy White’s, International Stores, Dewhurst, Lipton’s and Mac Fisheries.  In more recent years Co-op and C&A have also gone. Two local companies no longer trading are P. Taylor and Son and A.J. Baker. There are doubtless several others.

Mac Fisheries had premises adjacent to the south side of the General Post Office in North Street. My father and grandfather like myself both worked for The Post Office, and I visited the building on several occasions with them at various times in the early years of my childhood.  In the 1950’s there was only one entrance to the post office counter. This was via the north door, that adjacent to the archway.  The south door led, via a corridor, to the sorting office located behind the main building. The sorting office was relocated to Station Approach and the counter was extended at some time during the 1960’s. The south door was then made into a second entrance. Just inside this door was located two telephone kiosks, which were to remain in place until the mid 1980’s. 

My grandfather was employed as a cleaner at the building. He started work at 6am each day in order to clean the public and counter areas before 9am, and when necessary warm the building - which had a coal fired heating system - prior to the arrival of the workforce. My grandfather normally finished his day’s work at lunchtime. During the school holidays I was often placed in my grandfather’s care. My memory is of one occasion dating to about 1957 when there was no one other than my grandfather to look after me, and he had to return to work on overtime in order to receive a large delivery of coal.  There was no option other than for me to attend work with him. The coal had been tipped under the archway in North Street, and it was my grandfather’s task to shovel the coal through a small opening into the cellar in the basement of the building. In the 1960’s an oiled fired boiler replaced the coal fired heating system.  The small black steel door, which conceals the entrance to the old coal cellar, can still be seen under the archway. I often have occasion to recall the day that I stood and watched my grandfather at work, and wonder if he was possibly the last person ever to use that facility for its intended purpose.       

At the front of the post office building could be found a newspaper vendor, who sold evening newspapers from about 4pm to 6pm. In the 1950’s the newspaper was called the Evening World. This went out of circulation and was replaced by the Evening Post.  There was also an evening newspaper vendor outside Lloyds Bank in Fore Street, who I think sold the Express and Echo. On Saturday there was also an evening newspaper called the Pinkun and Greenun, which, I think, carried the latest sporting results?  

On Saturdays, my grandfather would often take me to the market to see the animals.  A scene much the same as you will find today. The lorries were perhaps a lot smaller, and not so many of them. A collection of portable wooden buildings adorned the boundary of the market with Priory Bridge Road. These buildings, which resembled poultry houses, had cast iron wheels, which over the years had become part consumed in tar macadam.  The buildings amongst other businesses housed a barber’s, a farm supply and a rather gruesome looking tea bar.  

Also to be found in Priory Bridge Road was Mitchell’s Bakery. Situated close to what is now the entrance to the car park. They had a shop in East Street between the Coop and Brakes (now Courts). On the other side of Brakes was a butchers shop (Perkins, I think!). My memory is of the delivery boys who delivered the bread and meat on strange looking bicycles with small front wheels in order to accommodate a carrier into which a wicker basket could be inserted. The delivery boys and their funny bicycles have long since gone. But, there still remains tiny cast iron blocks set into the kerb stone where the delivery boys inserted poles in order to park their bicycles against.

At the top of East Reach, in premises now occupied by The Plasterworks, was to be found Hooper’s Record Shop. The records were 78’s and sold in a rather flimsy brown paper record sleeve with a large circle removed in order to read the record label. The records were not displayed as they would be today stacked in front of each other and at waist level, but rather placed around the walls like plates on a Welsh Dresser.  In the 1960’s, the Rainbow Café occupied the site.  By the 1990’s, an air of dereliction was beginning to hang over the collection of shops at the junction of East Reach and Silver Street. Today this has been reversed. Led by the Plasterworks in the mid 1990’s the area has now rejuvenated and boasts a small group of well-presented and well-stocked shops. Indeed a very pleasant and attractive part of town. We wish them all well.

About 50 metres into South Street could be found Mr. Vickery’s fish shop. My recollection is of the street lighting in this part of town. Old gas lamp standards that had by the 1950’s been converted to electricity. Light was provided by a single 100-watt light bulb, which was not enclosed in any way. Each evening a man on a bicycle carrying a long pole turned on the streetlights in that area. I watched him as I waited with my mother to catch the bus home. Presumably he turned them off again the following morning, although I was never around to witness this. In those days we got on the bus at the rear and there was a conductor to collect the money and provide a ticket.

In Station Road at the junction with Whitehall could be found the Railway Hotel. Here was to be found a scale model of a locomotive on permanent display. This was always a source of attraction to me as a small boy. Next to the Railway Hotel was the Joke Shop. Every schoolboys delight, where a dastardly spine chilling armament of Itching Powder, Invisible Ink and Stink Bombs could be obtained. Happy carefree days! 

Robin Cassell