Broadmayne, Dorset

A Family Business

To anyone local to Dorchester this was a familiar scene day in and day out for almost 50 years. My grandfather Ben Courtney started selling 'fruit and veg' in 1947 from hand-carts on the roadside. His son Doug started in 1950 and various members of the family helped out through the week.

This picture shows my Aunt Isabel serving a regular customer with his two sons. Her father Ben is behind in his hat, serving, and her brother Doug is extreme left, carrying a box. My father (Doug Courtney) tells me his wife Joan was not at work at this time because she was expecting me to be born, in the June of that year!

Doug took over in 1960 and Trevetts worked alongside from the mid 1960s. Doug, Joan, Win, Isabel and Glad were the familiar faces that served. I did my fair share, working on busy Saturdays to ease the load. Everything was seasonal, and spring into summer brought a surge of fruit and veg which was eagerly looked forward to from winter time.

I always remember Christmas time was manic, we sold Christmas trees which had to be dug up and hauled to the store by the hundred. Nets and nets of piled up sprouts would disappear as fast as they were opened. Boxes of tangerines were stacked everywhere. A sack-truck-full of brown paper bags would be used in a few days. Most items were sold by weight so every bag was weighed and priced and added mentally to the total with large orders helped by a pencil on the bags.  

It's early spring in this photograph and everyone is wearing overcoats. Working on the 'barrows' as locals called them was hard in foul and cold weather as there were no canopies or covers allowed for many years. Summer-time brought  the problem of wasps who found grapes irresistible. Doug would scold customers for swatting at the wasps, saying they would get angry and sting him later, which quite often happened!

Doug Courtney traded here through the years as the supermarkets appeared, then the trade dropped off slowly and the streets of Dorchester changed forever. Doug finally retired in 1994. Trevetts still worked on for a good many years but the supermarkets take almost all the trade today.

'When we were young'

‘I remember when’ - yes, I remember market day in Dorchester very well – when your picture was taken I was 10 years old, and could well have been one of the children in your picture. On Wednesdays, during school holidays Mum took my brother and I to Dorchester on the bus and we would go'‘into town’ first to do the weekly shop.

This photograph shows South Street (facing south) where they also (and still do) had stalls selling vegetables everyday - Dorchester Market itself is still held in Weymouth Avenue, which is approximately half a mile from South Street.

I think the stall holder was called Neville (Trevitt?), the lady could well be his wife. I also recognise the gentleman on the right with the cap, I think he was someone 'important in Dorchester' in those days, but his name escapes me, he must be now long gone, 54 years later!

On leaving school at 15, I work in 'Boots the Chemist' which is the dark-looking building with the sun blinds on the right of the picture, the stone building next door - if I remember correctly - is the Antelope Hotel which is also still there.

My father worked on the opposite side of the road for Shepherd and Hedger (which is out of the picture), they sold 'posh' furniture, and were also the local undertakers (as they were called in 1955).

I married and lived in a caravan in Dorchester, Neville used to give me old wooden orange boxes to burn that kept me, my husband and later on my two young sons warm during the cold winter months, as money was tight, a bit like the present climate we are in now.

I still visit Dorchester regularly as my elderly mother still lives there; every time I do it brings back such great memories!

My Gt Grandparents lived at Hangmans Cottage

My great-grandparents lived at Hangmans Cottage sometime during the late 1800s or early 1900s. My dad Robert Mitchell was born at Friary Cottage in 1904 which is a short walk from Hangmans Cottage. He used to tell me about his time spent with his grandparents at Hangmans Cottage when he was a boy. Sadly I am not sure as to whether it was his paternal grandparents which would have been called Mitchell or his maternal grandparents which would have been White-Matthews that lived there. I would really like to know, but sadly there is no-one left to tell me. I have visited both cottages on several occasions with my late father and have since taken my children & grandchildren to see both places. We now have several pictures of different generations standing outside Hangmans Cottage.

Fond Memories

My family moved to Eastbrook House in 1970 and lived there for about 11 years, I was ages 1-11 at that time so my first memories and experiences were of Eastbrook, Upwey, Dorchester and Weymouth in that order.  I drive through Upwey whenever I can on nostalgia trips and always stop outside Eastbrook to reminisce and to see what changes are going on.  My wife thinks I'm obsessed with Upwey and especially Eastbrook!  Maybe she's right.