Treacle Toffees And A Picture Of The Queen (9 September 1978)

Back in 1927 Celia was a bright-eyed little girl who had reached what I can perhaps best describe as the doll’s pram age.  Her father, Mr. E.C. Cook, was head of the Bletchley Road Senior School for Boys, and they lived in a brand new detached house along Buckingham Road.  She so loved being taken for walks that she has set down descriptions of them on paper, together with photographs and drawings.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading them.  They bring personalities of that era all the nearer for being seen through the eyes of a child.  Here are excerpts from one of them, which I am sure you will equally enjoy

“My longest walk in Bletchley was one which I used to take with my father.  Then I left both doll’s pram and tricycle at home, because I used to finish it riding piggy-back behind him.

“This was a walk which began at Lady Leon’s front door in the mansion of Bletchley Park.  Lady Leon was Chairman of the Managers of my father’s school, and he often had to visit her regarding school matters.  Sometimes it was just a question of handing-in a bulky envelope to Mr. Coe, the butler; other times it meant being ushered into the drawing room of the mansion where Lady Leon, who looked very like the White Queen in “Alice Through The Looking Glass” with long stiff starched skirts, sat in state with her feet on a footstall.  She would talk at length to my father and I would be given a treacle toffee from a rather endearing chipped old red tin with a picture of Queen Victoria.  We would leave again very quietly …

“Lady Leon seemed to conjure statutes and memorials out of the air.  There were two horse-troughs presented by her to the horses of Bletchley.  One was near the station for horses to have a drink on their way up to Meager’s Hill to be shod by Mr. Meager.  This had a lower storey for dogs to drink from, and I thought how kind and considerate Lady Leon was to think of this; it was just the right height for their chins.

“There was another at the junction of Vicarage Lane and Aylesbury Street and a delightful memory of Bletchley people was to see circus elephants refreshing themselves from this on their way to `set up a big top’ in Market Field behind a pub known as the `Half-way House’ (where the Bletchley Arms now stands).

“Both horse-troughs were inscribed as being presented by Fanny Lady Leon.  I thought Fanny was a very suitable name and was sure that Lady Leon always carried a fan on the occasions when I did not see her!  Although she did not know it, she was always known affectionately in the town as `Old Fanny’ and I’m sure that horses and dogs called her `Old Fanny’ too when they drank her health ….

“After leaving the mansion we would look across at the charming cricket pavilion and sometimes my father would chat to old Mr. Heather, the groundsman who had been at The Oval for many years.  Then, by-passing the maze – a miniature of the one at Hampton Court – we went up a narrow path between the orchid houses to come out on a magnificent expanse of meadow land filled with the Leon’s pedigree sheep”.

Here Mrs. Duncan talks about a long walk through beautiful country before coming out on the Fenny High Street near King George’s Cinema, where she enjoyed looking at the posters.  Then we went up and down Dr. Nicholson’s steps at the Red House, an elegant Georgian mansion in the High Street”.  She continues:

“If my father should encounter Dr. Nicolson, I would have a long wait while they talked, as he was a fellow Yorkshireman, from Whitby.  He would always pat me on the head and give me a sixpence and sometimes a `parogolic’ sweet, as he understood that these were my favourites and they were his too.

“Once round the corner where Mr. Leo Durran lived with numerous dogs, and cats in a `haunted’ house with a kitchen door which they would never go through – and a window full of spectacles and watches, as he was an eminent oculist and for a hobby a watch mender – we would go and look at Marie King’s window opposite Messrs Moss, the grocers, in Aylesbury Street.

“Here, all by itself, on a papier-mâché hat stand, would be Lady Leon’s Ascot hat, Marie King was known as the `Royal Milliner’ and Lady Leon’s hat, the size of a turkey dish, covered in a confectioner’s delight of flowers, was important enough to preside alone in an otherwise empty window, sheltering discreet pairs of mauve and pale lemon pearl-buttoned gloves and the occasional Dorothy bag and collar of Buckinghamshire lace.

“Marie King’s husband was a collector of wild orchids and Bletchley’s most cherished naturalist.  The orchids were mounted in albums and carefully protected by blotting paper.  They would be fetched out from behind the glass cases of hats to amuse husbands while their wives spent hours trying on Marie-King’s concoctions – cloche hats of velvet and garden party straws swathed in yards of ribbon.  If the husbands became too impatient, Mr. King would bring out his collections of bird photographs.  Marie King, a thin, fierce lady in a perpetual black afternoon gown, had a thriving business, and governernes carts and limousines would be parked nose to tail alongside the pavement.

“Across the road was another delightful shop window belonging to Mr. Walter Mundy Vigor, the chemist.  The window glittered and glistened with huge bell-shaped bottles and pills, such as Gough Soluble Pearl Coated Tablets —-  Inside, by the counter, was a delightful chair issued as an advertisement by Burjois of Paris.  On the front of the chair-back was a single red rose in a white, fluted vase and on the reverse a similar vase contained elegant stylised violets.  I always loved to sit in the chair while by father purchased his shaving sticks and Mr. Vigor was to give it to me nearly fifty years later when he retired…”

Mrs. Duncan goes on to write of passing the aforementioned market field and dusk was falling and the naphtha lamps on the stalls were blazing; of time when fairs were held there and she would have a ride on a dobby-horse; of passing a straggle of shops in Bletchley Road and of negotiating the gloomy depths of the railway foot tunnel with trains chugging overhead.

Finally:

“We would emerge into the cool night air as the moon came up over the elms along the road and arrive home, where my mother would be sitting beside a fire, toasting muffins bought from the muffin vendor, who called late in the afternoon, ringing his bell and with his tray on his head”.

I almost forgot to mention that Celia is now Mrs. Duncan of Nash and a grandmother.