{"id":381,"date":"2017-04-25T21:05:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T20:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brandonheritage.org.uk\/?p=381"},"modified":"2017-04-25T21:05:07","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T20:05:07","slug":"381-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/?p=381","title":{"rendered":"Memories of Calders Wood yard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cherry Rogers<\/span><\/strong>, remembers working in Calders wood yard …<\/p>\n

“I would like to share one or two memories of my times at Calders.<\/p>\n

I started work there at the age of fourteen in the July of 1959.\u00a0 My birthday was in September so I was not really eligible to leave school until Christmas, but my Dad wouldn\u2019t let me go back to school as I had the job in Calders Office as a junior –\u00a0making tea, answering the phone and doing all the mundane jobs no one else wanted to do.\u00a0\u00a0Calders was a bigger set up than most people knew about and had branches in Rotherhithe, Epsom and several places north of us.\u00a0 One place made top quality parquet flooring.\u00a0 The head office was Eros House, Regent Street and the company was incorporated into several large concerns over the years but that is by the way.\u00a0 When I started work the company belonged to Sir James Calder<\/strong> <\/span>who lived at Lynford Hall.\u00a0\u00a0Sir James died a few months after I started work and I remember the funeral with representatives from all the branches attending.\u00a0\u00a0I believe it was held at the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

The trees were bought in parcels,\u00a0felled by Wally Poplawski<\/strong> <\/span>and hauled into the yard by Jimmy Drew<\/strong><\/span> and his brother\u00a0Curly<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 They drove a large red oxide coloured timber drug which was an old Scammel, like the ones used in the desert during the war.\u00a0 That\u00a0timber drug could be seen driving down the High Street and over the bridge nearly every day.\u00a0 The timber was then milled and used for gates and fencing.\u00a0 We were well known for the high quality of our gates and they were shipped to most parts of the country.\u00a0 We did top quality fencing for studs in Newmarket and Surrey, and for the Queen.\u00a0 We also did motorway fencing and our erectors were sometimes putting up guard rails in the central reservation while the traffic rushed past –\u00a0they wouldn\u2019t do that today. \u00a0We did at one time have a railway siding by the creosote plant and our gates went off by the truck load.\u00a0 All those consignment notes to write out, they would be computerised now.<\/p>\n

At one time the logs were hauled by horses.\u00a0 They were stabled over the road where the Lignacite factory was built.\u00a0\u00a0Jock Bain<\/strong><\/span> came down from Scotland to live here and look after the horses.\u00a0 There was a blacksmith forge in the yard, but wasn\u2019t used when I was working there.\u00a0\u00a0We had teams of fence erectors, some who stayed out all week and only came home at the weekend.\u00a0\u00a0Alfred Zelke<\/span><\/strong> and Joe Zawiasa<\/strong> <\/span>had a caravan parked by the motorway or wherever they were working.\u00a0 A tiny thing with sausages hanging from the roof.<\/p>\n

Lots of families had two generations working in the yard or mill at the same time and several brothers worked there.\u00a0\u00a0The Challiss<\/span> <\/strong>family, the Smith<\/span> <\/strong>family, the Elmer\u2019s<\/span> <\/strong>, Adams<\/span><\/strong>, Ted Beales<\/strong><\/span> the boiler man (who when I was a child lived with his family on Calders site and was night watchman) and his son\u00a0Harry Beales<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

My connection to Calders was that my grandfather, who was a builder and undertaker, at one time made gates for Calders.\u00a0 He also built the office and sadly my great uncle, Clive Dove<\/strong>, <\/span>was killed while driving the timber drug in 1947.\u00a0 He was 34, the load slipped and a large log went through the cab.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember much about him, just vaguely remember sitting on his knee at Aunty Nell\u2019s house.\u00a0\u00a0 We had some real characters working in the yard, one was Harold Lockwood<\/span><\/strong>, who had been a Japanese prisoner of war.\u00a0 He was our maintenance man.\u00a0 Nothing fazed Harold and he could swear for England.\u00a0\u00a0We had funny, happy and sad moments.\u00a0 Sad when poor Hector Elmer<\/strong> <\/span>was knocked off his bike in front of the office and sadly died from his injuries.\u00a0 Funny when Jimmy Hulme<\/span> <\/strong>the creosote plant operator dropped his teeth in the tank.\u00a0 He gave them a full overnight charge with the fencing posts and then rinsed them off in the morning and wore them usual.\u00a0\u00a0They would have been preserved for a lifetime!<\/p>\n

The conditions the men worked in was not good, nothing was spent on anything new and everything was bodged up.\u00a0\u00a0I suppose that went back to wartime.\u00a0\u00a0Men wouldn\u2019t be allowed to work in those conditions today.\u00a0 They worked on those saws in the freezing cold and couldn\u2019t even feel what they were doing.\u00a0\u00a0I even heard one man apologise for cutting off two of his fingers.\u00a0\u00a0The office wasn\u2019t wonderful.\u00a0 One end was\u00a0lovely with parquet flooring and wood panelled walls, while the other end, our end, had\u00a0walls made of asbestos.\u00a0 Yet\u00a0I had some happy times and over the thirty-two years I worked there I made friends with some lovely girls, mostly grandmothers now.”
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Here is a photo of some\u00a0long service awards at Calders.
\nBack row left to right –\u00a0<\/em> Jack Knight retired Manager, Jon Bullivant Head Office, Fred Crozier New Manager, Bernie Challiss Carpenter, Ted Beales Boilerman, Jack Adams Foreman.
\nFront row – <\/em>\u00a0Harold Lockwood Maintenance , Geoff Southgate Office Manager, Sam Ridgeon Sawyer, Tom Martin Crane Driver and Lennie Smith Storekeeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 My birthday was in September so I was not really eligible to leave school until Christmas, but my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[57,85,88,97,104,106,118,160,161,163,175,176,178,180,258,276,295],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memories","tag-alfred-zelke","tag-brandon-heritage-centre","tag-brandon-suffolk","tag-calders","tag-cherry-rogers","tag-clive-dove","tag-curly-drew","tag-harold-lockwood","tag-harry-beales","tag-hector-elmer","tag-jimmy-drew","tag-jimmy-hulme","tag-jock-bain","tag-joe-zawiasa","tag-sir-james-calder","tag-ted-beales","tag-wally-poplawski","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}