Brandon Heritage

Category: Memories of Brandon

  • Home deliveries

    Cherry Rogers remembers a time when deliveries to your door were common place. For our grandparents and parents, ordering your shopping and having it delivered was quite normal.  The internet was non-existent but almost everything could be delivered to the door. I can remember the knife grinder coming round.  He came once a year on…

  • Dad and his shopping habits

    An insight of the shopping habits of Cherry Rogers and her late father. Shopping when I was growing up was quite a social activity.  You went shopping with your list, to the market or to a shop, and sat down while the shopkeeper assembled your order.  Sometimes there was a discussion about your purchase with…

  • 1950-60s Scouts

    Leon Rings recalls adventures in Brandon Scouts during the 1950-60s. We had a scout leader in Brandon late fifties to early sixties, who was an American by the name of Joe Janacek.  Joe would spend hours with us teaching rope tying, fire lighting and we experienced sleeping in our tents in the wild.  He taught…

  • Evacuees reunion

    Dorothy Hagarty shares a photo of a reunion between her family and wartime evacuees who stayed with them on George Street. This is a photo taken at the back of my grandmother’s home at 30 George Street in Brandon.  I am the one back row right.  Next to me is my ‘aunt’ Connie, who was…

  • Newspaper rounds and the bookstall

    Cherry Rogers reflects upon her youth – buying a book from the railway station bookstall … I was just thinking how times have changed, when I was listening to two young children chatting while I was out shopping.  Talk about being grown up! It got me thinking about my childhood and growing up.  Playing down…

  • Wash day in Thetford Road

    Cherry Rogers remembers her mum and nan on wash day … Monday was washday.  Tuesday ironing.  Wednesday bedrooms.  Thursday front room, which was only used at Christmas, so why it needed cleaning every week I don’t know – a quick dust and that would have been it, blinking freezing in there anyway!   The only…

  • Growing up in ‘Tip

    John DeCamps was born in Town Street (Tip).  His mother was Brandon-born, nee Dyer, so he has a few memories of his time there … “I was born in my grandparents house in 1942.  Mum and I lived with them till dad was demobbed after the war, then we moved to a Nissen hut on Rattlers…

  • Jean Dodwell (nee Claxton) remembers: part 1

    Jean Dodwell, nee Claxton, Was born in Santon Downham in 1921, moving to Brandon a few years later when her father ran the Fox and Hounds pub on Thetford Road.  Jean now lives in Bournemouth, and has been sharing her memories of her time in Brandon before WW2 … “When we lived at the pub,…

  • ‘Courting’ in the 1950s

    Cherry Rogers remembers courting in the 1950s … The thing to do in Brandon in the late fifties and early sixties (same in most places I think) was to go to a café or coffee bar.  In Brandon it was the ‘New England’ at the bottom of London Road, next to Alf Cunningham’s garage.  Or…

  • Memories of Calders Wood yard

    Cherry Rogers, remembers working in Calders wood yard … “I would like to share one or two memories of my times at Calders. I started work there at the age of fourteen in the July of 1959.  My birthday was in September so I was not really eligible to leave school until Christmas, but my…