Maggie Souter ran a filling station with old-fashioned pumps which is where the Service station is now on Watling Street on the other side of the Park Street roundabout. Sue Bentley recalls being taken there with her father. She describes how Maggie lived and what she was like. Sue also remembers that there used to be a sewage works nearby.
Interview date: 9 December 2013. Interviewer: Sandy Norman
I lived just along the street from maggi her brother was the landlord at the swan in the village the manager of the sewage farm was Mr eddy who livid opposite the the garage when he retired his son took over Alan roe
I remember the old Park Street filling station well and Maggie Souter. I often used the public telephone in the little hut in the filling tation where truck drivers would stop for refreshment breaks. From 1.10.1966, following marriage to a Police Officer we were housed in one of the two Police houses adjacent to the garage, number 117, where we remained until March 1970, when my former husband was promoted and moved on. John Flint lived next door and was the local neighbourhood Bobby. Joe Mackie was the previous tenant in our house until his retirement when he had to vacate the property we moved into. I recall the immaculate garden with rows upon rows of vegetables, obviously tended with much love. An elderly Welsh couple and their dog occupied one of the bungalows next door. Our dogs never saw eye to eye. Old “Doll” lived next to them and a regular trial for the fire brigade who made regular visits to her home to put out her her chimney fires. She would never heed their advice about not putting paraffin on the fire to start it. No-one could get through to her, she was stubborn, but a real character. Mr. & Mrs. Notley lived next door to Doll in the first floor flat with their daughter, set back in the block. I recall Mr. Notley was a keen dahlia grower. In the village itself Mr Holden ran the butchers, where the gents hairdressers now is, and opposite what was the Swan public house. A little further down the road Mr. & Mrs. King ran the green grocers shop, (no longer there), and their daughter was a hairdresser. The pretty black and white cottages next to the car park was the Co op grocers, and the now local general store run by Raj has always been there, originally as a newsagents on exactly the same site. I remember the flats being built just past the newsagents and opposite was a bakers where the fish and chip shop is now on the corner of Park Street Lane. I worked at the Handley Page Aircraft Company based in Park Street and Colney Street until its’ closure and remember well the Victor Bombers and Jetstream. I worked for the Chief Security Officer George Halsey, a former retired senior Police Officer.