A Boy in Tetbury [Paperback]

His insight into life in Tetbury and frequent anecdotes provide a rich social history of the time.

Buy yourself a copy of A BOY IN TETBURY

An authentic recollection of his life... between 1905 and 1930.

A BOY IN TETBURY is the personal story of Frank Peters between 1905 and 1930 in the Cotswold town of Tetbury. He began to write his memoirs when he was 90 years old and finished shortly before he died in September 2000. It is not a local book, except in the obvious sense that the setting is local. It is about a particular sort of working class life in England at a period which is not so long ago but now as remote from modern experience as the battle of Waterloo.

Frank had to work from a very early age: he said that he didn't learn to read and write properly until he was forced to stay on at school: 'I was always working!' he would say. That usually meant that he had to be up at six am for his first job, be at his second job by eight, go to school, back to work, back to school and then back to work. 'The rest of the day,' he says, 'when there was no gardening or fetching water from Tetbury for drinking, I had to myself.'

Some episodes are historically interesting: there is 'the first aeroplane I ever saw' and a child's-eye view of the Australian Air Force which had its head quarters in Tetbury (there were no planes in Australia then) and an account of making bread in a wood-fired oven.

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Francis William Richard Peters was born at Upton Road, Tetbury in December 1905, and died in Yorkshire in September 2000. This was Frank's last photograph, taken at the Croda Christmas dinner 1999 at Hull Guildhall; Frank at 94 was the oldest surviving ex-employee.

He attended the Tetbury National School from 1910 to 1919; he was errand boy for Mr George Gale, the grocer, of Long Street; he worked at The Priory for the Pellys, for Charles Hedges as a lorry driver, and for Mr Jim Pegler the baker at Oxford House in Long Street.

He left Tetbury for a job in Yorkshire but he always considerd himself a Tetbury boy and used to visit the town at least twice a year, even when he was the only survivor of his family.

At the age of ninety he decided to write his memoirs. A BOY IN TETBURY is Frank's own story, in his own words.

Frank Peters was the eldest boy in a family of nine children. He was redundant on his first day at work - he wanted to be a garage mechanic, and thought he had a proper job - and then became a baker, partly because he had been working part-time as a baker but mainly because it was the only job he could get. He did several other jobs including house boy, lorry driver and chimney sweep; but he decided that he was a baker and for most of his working life that is what he did. He left Tetbury for a job in Yorkshire, but he always said that he was a Tetbury boy and he used to visit as often as he could.

He went to work for a relation in Hull, and married a girl who was a friend of his cousins there. During the second world war the family lived in Tetbury again, but then they all went back to Yorkshire. Frank died in Beverley in September 2000

The First Part - A Sort of Dream

I had a load of manure delivered. It's in my front garden, doing good. Pooh! what a smell! But it's a lovely smell for those that like it. It reminds me of living in the country.

I had a sort of dream the other day, that I was going round Tetbury on my calls (as a baker, you know) and when I got to Northfield there wasn't anyone there I knew. Everyone I called on, I said 'How is so and so?' and they said 'They're gone, you know.'

There was the carpenter, and the builder, and the man we sold the dog to, and Eric Vick and his sister Gladys, the butchers from London Road. I got to another house and I said 'How is Fred Bond?' and they said 'Oh, he's been dead a long time!'; and I asked about Phil Potts, who was Fred's pal. They used to ride motorbikes together.

'Oh, he's been gone a long time, too!'

'Gone?'

'Yes, Phil's dead, too.'

I couldn't stop giggling at this. I felt glad, and then I felt sad. I thought, I'd better get out of here!

When I was young in Tetbury I knew everybody. And now there's nobody to be seen. Not even relatives.