On the corner of Brewer Street and Camden Street stood an old chapel. Sharps bought the chapel and used it as a factory for making hand crafted flowers for their best quality Easter eggs. They sold to the Stenhouse Organ Company (where I worked for two evenings a week and weekends while still at school).
Eventually Peter Preedy school of Dancing took over, I am sure if you know anything about Maidstone you will remember Peter Preedy. I attended his classes in the former premises in the Market Buildings, but with little success.
You had to be quick in those days as the boys practised one end of the hall and the girls the other, he would eventually say take a partner and the rush was on.
Below us, lived several families I would love to hear from, the Snoads the Mepsteads etc.
The Mepsteads were chimney sweeps and they were one of the four who had a vehicle. Most sweeps of the time would be seen carrying their rods on their shoulder while riding to there next job by pushbike.
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A Company called Louis G Fords had a shop come showroom just down the road from where I lived; the strange thing was that they were promoting central heating. Well the folks that I knew only had paraffin stoves placed strategically around the house for warmth, and even then, we grew up with ice forming on the inside of the windows in the winter months. Our own heating consisted of a paraffin stove at the top of the stairs and an open fire in the dining room. It is surprising that there were so few house fires although chimney fires were quite normal.
There is a path through into Union Street, in fact a grave yard path, but, in those days without the fence (I walked through recently and they have again taken down the fence). In the after-life I feel sure we will be excommunicated for the things we kids got up to in that grave yard.
Mr Auchin the neighbourhood electrician charged batteries for cars and radios. It may seem strange now but people used re-chargeable batteries for radios and they were huge by today’s standards.
Still further down the street was a Driving School called "Regent School of Motoring" run by two brothers the Bodiams. I cannot think how they made a living, as there were so few cars anyway; still I suppose there were even fewer driving schools.
Ken Bodiam was a very fine musician and he became my tutor when I played the accordion.
Opposite "Regent School of Motoring" the "Brewer Street Working men’s Club". It was a real treat when my father took me in on the occasional Saturday morning, probably to stop me getting under my mothers feet, for a glass of vimto and a bag of crisps.
Doctor Gunnery had a surgery still further down almost into Week Street, not where it is today.
This old picture shows two doors the one on t.
photos.app.goo.gl/ujpxQWlBNow2XIGA2I first started work in Brewer Street when I was fourteen. I was an un-indentured apprentice working for a Brigadier Fletcher who ran a workshop come factory. The workshop consisted of about a dozen lathes, two were self-contained and the rest driven by a single large electric motor connected to the lathes by belts.
We had a foundry there where we cast brass and alloys and aluminium. Three brothers worked here and they were patent makers as well as lathe operators. I remember getting in trouble and being sent to see the Brigadier. Nothing too serious.
Brigadier Fletcher had been the Mayor of Maidstone.