Cambridge Road Garage

Cambridge Road (formerly Whetstone Road) Cosby

Cliff: This photo must be pre-1930 because the house that is there now is not shown, so it must have been our wooden bungalow that was there. That’s one of Neal’s buses just as you see it. Another thing, there was three pumps as I knew it, there’s only two there. One’s a Pratt’s, which you never hear of now and the other one’s a Shell. In the middle used to be a National Benzol pump and the petrol later on than this about five or ten years later was 1 and 5 a gallon (1 and seven pence). There was a man from the village, I won’t mention names, pulled up at the middle pump, which was National Benzoil. “Put me some petrol in”. As a youngster I used to love doing it. I put this five gallons of petrol in and he played hell when he came out because it were 1 and 7 a gallon instead of 1 and 5, which shows you the difference in money values.

This one is, I say, it hasn’t got the name Norman Branson, which it had, so I think it must be Alf Norman who is leaning on the pump, he started the business and then my father, Albert Branson came in later. And the house attached to the garage is Alf Norman’s house and his mother lived next door. When the bungalow blew up in the whirlwind the factory, the shoe factory opposite had two restrooms, as they used to in those days. One for the ladies and one for the men. While the house was being built we had to sleep in one and live in the other. You imagine that nowadays!

I know that was Mrs, oh the name’s gone now again but the top house was Mr Puffer’s. I think that he was the local postman. He used to live in quite a big house, he used to garden all the land. That was a Mr’s Parsons.

Interviewer: That lived in the house in the middle?

Cliff: That one, that middle one, yes. That’s it. But I’d love to know who the man is in plus fours and the old motor, which we distinguished the number as NR6875 and I say it’s before 1930.

Interviewer: And what are plus fours?

Cliff: Those things, the trousers rolled up just below the knee. That’s what we used to call them, what you call them know I don’t know.