by Valerie Clapham

on 01 Feb 15

My mother, who as Miss Dick Stafford, had been manageress of 205A for the owners, Miss Clark and Miss Jackson, before my father came on the scene.

My father, K.F.Mayes, bought 205A in March 1933 for £3,300. Misses Clark & Jackson providing a mortgage on the property of £2800. I remember on several occasions over the years going with father when he made his regular payments to these two ladies in retirement & living in Westbury on Trym.

My parents married 14/02/1934 and later that year, September 1934, bought 205 from Mr. and Mrs. Tapner for £1900 with a mortgage from "The Trustees of the North Gloucester Women's Conservative Benefit Society".

The mortgage seems to have been paid off by my grandfather, F.W.Mayes, in 1942. By that time my father was in the RAF, my mother and her two small daughters, myself and my sister Sue Colyer, were living in Uley, away from the bombing of Bristol and "C&J" was in the able hands of a manageress, Miss Morgan and the loyal "girls" (staff), for the rest of the war. Some of these "girls" stayed until Father retired in 1967.

I was born in the front sitting room over the shop in March 1937, and was married from there in December 1964. My mother died on 24/05/1993, my father on 23/01/1994.

Valerie Clapham (nee Mayes)