Sunbury Matters loves receiving letters and emails from residents old and young, still living here and those who moved away but have a fondness for the village. We received this, an extract of a nine hand written page letter, from Enid Illsley who now lives in Devon, but whose daughter still sends her a Sunbury Matters every month.
Sunbury really does matter! (editor)
I was born in Charlton Village, Shepperton but moved to UPPER Sunbury when I was 8 years old, into Cavendish Road.
Everybody writes about LOWER Sunbury – I liked it too – but it wasn’t ALL of Sunbury. We used to walk from Upper Sunbury ‘down’ to the river for the Regatta, but back to upper Sunbury, Vicarage road in particular – it started at ‘the Cross’ where all the roads crossed.
It came alive on Race Days. The pubs were open all day. The ‘charabanc’ stopped there on the way ‘back home’. All the pubs, like the Running Horse etc were open all day. The local men and boys used to leave their bicycles leaning against the railings and go and join in the fun.
We kids used to stand outside and wait for the race goers to come out to rejoin their particular bike. Some were a little worse for wear and we used to shout “throw us your mouldies” as we used to call loose change – and they did! If you were lucky and got a tanner (sixpence of old money) or a crown from the loose change, you were delighted and took it home to mum.
Back to Vicarage Road. St Saviours Church, at that time was served by Mr the Reverend Godfrey and his wonderful wife. Rev. Godfrey was totally out of place in such a community. He would stroll around Sunbury in his garb and nod to the grown-ups and pat the heads of the young. His wife was a wonderful woman. She aided the whole community. Girls who got themselves ‘into trouble’, pregnant without being married and thrown out by their families, would be taken in and then trained as maids to the gentry and put on the road to a proper life.
If a woman had a drunken husband Mrs Godfrey would get him straightened out too. There were a lot of problems like that. What I am saying in short is she was an angel! We kids would never have seen the seaside if she hadn’t arranged all the outings she did. She would hire a charabanc and give us packed lunches – all eaten before we got to Brighton (the lunches were donated by Bentalls of Kingston, sorted out by Mrs Godfrey).
Though the church was only half built inside, the High altar, the choir stalls etc including the beautiful altar cloths, candlesticks etc, we kids had our place in a little corner to the side.
More memories from Enid to follow….