Reference
AU10/91/3
Title
Letter from F.G.Brightman in Luton to Andrew Underwood:
- he had enjoyed studying the photographs sent by AU and enclosed notes [see below]:
- he joined Ampthill fire brigade about 1905 as a probationer, the members then being: captain H.Smith, Fireman J.W.Bonness; Fireman G.Stapleton; Deputy Fireman Sugar; Fireman A.Putman; Fireman H.Freeman; Fireman W.Stapleton and Engineer A[rthur] Lowe; Probationer H.Stapleton; Probationer G.Dillingham; Probationer F.Dillingham; Probationer G.Sugars; Driver Brooks;
- photograph 116 was Arthur Hensman, engineer, who lived on Park Hill;
- photograph 313 he believed to be George Robinson, harness maker of Dunstable Street [see X291/77/405];
- photograph 337 he believed to be Miss [Tot] Parr, whose father worked at the Brewery as maltster [see X291/77/47];
- photograph 392 believed to be a Methodist preacher who worked at Clophill Mill [see X291/77/22];
- photograph 116 Walter Inskip on the back row, first left also Tom Izzard and Peer [see X291/77/308];
- photograph 26 believed to by Len Aspin, a horse breaker who lived at Crown & Sceptre in Bedford Street opposite the Fire Station;
- photographs 129 and 227 believed to be a man named Geary who lived opposite the Brewery in Bedford Street and was in charge of horses and transport at the brewery [see X291/77/168 and 267];
- photograph 136 believed to be Berwick of Claridge & Berwick, grocers on the corner of Woburn Street [see X291/77/472];
- photograph 346 had: George Stapleton, Brigade foreman; George Stapleton junior "I was often in his company until he joined the Metropolitan Police"; Henry Stapleton "my mate" in the Brigade and Wesleyan choir, 65 years ago he and Henry Stapleton had gone to Luton to watch them play football against Northampton "I have never seen them play since, not being very interested"; Albert Putman, a ladder man in the Brigade, with whom the writer competed for speed [see X291/77/333a];
- he included photographs of himself [see AU10/91/4-8, one missing - of him outside Abbots Bakery in Dunstable Street, taken by Mercer c.1905];
- he was born at Field Farm, Houghton Conquest on 21 Oct 1890 and began school aged five in a building built over the Almshouses in Houghton Conquest and left aged ten and a half to go to work at Field Farm where his father was bailiff for nearly fifty years;
- his father also took a small farm at Ampthill called Warren Farm, also known as Lavender Farm since lavender, penny royal, Turkish rhubarb, aconite and other unusual crops had been grown there for distilling, though his father grew potatoes and peas and had dairy cattle making deliveries in Ampthill twice a week and Bedford weekly; they also supplied horses for hire to firms such as Claridge & Berwick [grocers], [Edward] Coleman & Sons [grocers], [Charles] Franklin [coal merchant], W[illiam] T[homas] Sharpe [builder] and the Duke of Bedford;
- in 1910 the farm was sold to J[oel] Manyweathers and the writer's father died in the following year;
- the writer lived in Oliver Street after his marriage and ran a cartage contracting business from premises in Austins Lane until the First World War;
- during the Great War the writer spent three years on the Somme and moved to Luton in 1928, carrying out landscape gardening in the town and in Harpenden [Hertfordshire] until 1964 when he retired; though he still looked after gardens in Luton despite a retirement pension and a 100% disability pension from the army as he was totally deaf
Date free text
16-18 Apr 1973
Production date
From: 1890 To: 1973
Level of description
item