Nellie Alice May Hart Autobiography Part 4

Mr. Goodacre told me that if I wanted anything in the future just to let him know and he would see that I had it sent at once. Straight away I said that I would like a goldfish pond in the garden. Next morning two lorries arrived and four men and they built this pond.

I could write a book about this affair and it would be a bestseller. All the workmen in the Park wanted to know why George Inglis had two pay packets every week but we never let them know.

Not long after that episode, war broke out and for four years we spent every night in the air raid shelter either in the Park or Bournemouth Road or in Bert Yeatman's dug out in his back garden.

One day a German plane was shot down in Alexandra Road. I well remember going to see it, the pilot was dead and it was a dreadful sight.

However after what appeared to be a lifetime, the war finally ended and we were able to go back to sleeping in our bed's a night instead of sitting on a plank in a dugout.

After all this Norman, Betty and myself decided to leave the lodge and all of the misery we had put up with and go and live with Percy and his wife, May in their house in Springfield Road. At that time Percy was away in Yorkshire working for the government selling surplus stocks of war equipment. Life was far from rosy there for us in that household. During this time my cousin George was trying to regain possession of his house from the people he had let it to when he joined up during the war. After two court cases in Poole he finally won it back. He was still in hospital at the time. So for the last time we hoped, we packed up and came to live at Montana, Wimborne Road, where we have been able to live in peace and quiet ever since.

George and Percy - my two brothers.

George was the eldest, born Feb 22nd 1898.

When he left Longfleet School he went to work at the shoe shop next to the Poole Head Post Office for a few months. Then he changed jobs and worked for a local laundry, then changed jobs again and went to the Pineland Laundry at Upper Parkstone. He went with the driver delivering laundry all over Bournemouth. In 1915 he joined the Royal Flying Corps spending some time in Yorkshire before going to France.

When he returned to Yorkshire in 1918 he married Cilla Middleton of Tadcaster,York.

He moved back to Poole and got a job looking after the electric plant for a big building firm, Vale and Co. When the firm returned to their depot in Stourport he went with them and served as their engineer until he retired.

He had two children named Cyril and Jean.

At the age of 88 he is still enjoying his retirement.

Arthur Percival Hart

Now, brother Percy was born April 24th 1901.

Being younger he had to spend some time with Dad and Eliza at the Shah Cottage.

Dad was always harsh with him and Eliza was horrible. So, one day he ran away from his so called home and for two years we never knew where he was.

He turned up later when war broke out and he was in the army driving great truckloads of army stuff. He eventually married May Lambden, whose brother had bought 52,Emerson Road from us. After the war he used to sell lots of all kinds of cars. He used to buy them for £5 and sell them for £6. He came to the lodge at Alexandra Park one Sunday with a lovely big German car an Opel which he offered me for £6.

He had a different car every week which he used to take us out in the country or for a picnic with his wife May.

Then Percy became a "bookie" and he had an office in Poole High Street over a tobacconist shop.

I used to collect bets for him and he would collect them before the race started. I think that was when I started betting 6p or 1/- every day. I had to give it up as all you did each day was to wait for each race to start to see if you had won or not!!!! However Percy spent nearly the whole of his life with cars and betting.

He was on holiday in Spain in 1963 when he was taken ill and died. He was brought back from Ibiza to be buried at home. He lived a life of luxury with no thought for tomorrow and who could blame him.

All of our family were christened, married and buried at Longfleet Church. Dad used to sing in the choir and was a Sunday School teacher.

THE BURDEN FAMILY AT LYTCHETT MINSTER

My Grandfather and Grandmother on my Mum's side of the family was Mr. & Mrs. Edward and Florence Burden.

They had two children, Ted and Alice (my Mum)

My Grandfather was well known all over Poole and Lytchett as "Blind Burden". For the last twenty years of his life he was blind He was a marvelous man for he still dug his garden and walked to Poole and all around the villages with his walking stick, whistling everywhere he went. For years he was a great supporter of the Salvation Army, he went everywhere with them, playing his accordian, marching and singing his head off. He lived to a good old age and there are still people in the villages who remember him.

His son, Ted went to work on the railway finally ending up in Dorchester in a railway cottage. Ted married and had two children, Jack and Mary.

Jack eventually became one of the first "AA" men on the road on motor bikes. It was practice then to salute every member as they passed on the road.

Jack's sister Mary came up to see Granny one day with her Mum and Dad and on the way back she fell off the railway platform and was killed. She was about eight years old. Her Mum never got over the shock and was ill for a long time after. It was very sad as her Dad, my Uncle Ted, had spent all his life on the railway.

Grandfather's daughter, Alice (my Mum), I have already written about her short life.

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