This year the production put on by the Tiverton Sign Post Club was “Cinderella". As usual, this was very much enjoyed by everyone.
One person commented that she enjoyed the show better than a pantomime she had been to a few weeks previously, which has been a professional production in which a TV personality had been starring. Well done Tiverton!
The monthly meeting of the Club again took place at Newton St Cyres Parish Hall. The speaker was Spencer Kingdom from Uffculme, who gave a talk entitled “Open Nearly All Hours”.
As might be guessed from the title this was going to be something about a village shop, shades of Ronnie Barker.
Spencer started his talk regarding his early life working on a farm in the Brayford area. He then went on to say that he and Pam, his wife, went to work on a pig farm in the Melton Mowbray area, which unfortunately was not what he had been led to believe.
On leaving this, he became a lorry driver, and for many years enjoyed this. However, a family tragedy had him thinking that perhaps he should return to Devon. So in the mid 1970’s he and Pam decided to buy a shop.
He asked his then employer if he could take a day off to go and look at a shop in Uffculme, very generously his employer agreed – he could have Saturday afternoon off, but to be sure to be back to start work on Monday morning.
This was in the days before the motorway network had been completed. They arrived at the shop very late in the afternoon. After a good look around an offer was made and accepted for the premises and business.
They borrowed the books and accounts, and on getting back home to Leicestershire, took the accounts to an accountant for advice. He advised them not to go near the business with the proverbial barge pole! Nevertheless, Spencer and Pam decided to carry on regardless and bought the place.
They soon got into the hang of what people wanted, and being on the road that lead to Coldharbour Mill meant that there was a steady stream of customers popping in for something on the way to or from work.
Spencer went on to talk about how he managed to buy up a large quantity of ground coffee just before a world shortage of the product, and also how he purchased a large quantity of potatoes in the year that there was a potato shortage.
The road outside the shop was apparently narrow, not enough to two vehicles to pass. One day the inevitable happened, a car from one end and a lorry from the other. Neither was going to stop where it was safe before the narrow bit. On they came, and at the last moment the lorry took avoiding action and collided with the telegraph pole outside the shop.
Now, the lorry had been laden with chicken pellets and the ensuing crash sent the load cascading through the door and window of the shop. Spencer said that the place was covered in chicken laying pellets. He wondered how he was going to clean the place up.
The Uffculme bush telegraph must have been a wonderful thing, as in no time people were around with buckets and spades, and soon the shop was clear of pellets.
However, there was a downside for the shop in all this, in that for some time after hardly anyone in the area wanted to buy any eggs as their chickens were laying so well.
Eventually Spencer and Pam decided that it was time to sell the shop and premises and retire. The shop has now followed the fate of most small local stores these days and been turned in a wholly residential premise.
Spencer was warmly thanked for his interesting talk by the Chairman.
The next meeting of the Club will be on March 20, at Shobrooke Village Hall at 2.15pm, when Mrs Rose Chanin will give a talk entitled “A Brimful of Nonsense”. This title sounds intriguing, so why not come along and find out.
Norman Gale