Read Family Memories

We have been passed on some memories by the family of Arthur Read, which I think make an interesting read.

Arthur Reid in 1916

A native of Saxilby born in 1894, Arthur Read was the licensee of the Marquis of Granby in Warrington for 15 years until his death in 1961.

Educated at Lincoln Grammer School, he was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I and was mentioned in despatches.
He was a Wing Commander in the RAF during World War II stationed at Bradgate and Blackpool airfields.
Arthur was well known in sports circles, having played as centre-half for several seasons with both Gillingham and Lincoln City.

The following newspaper article is included in the papers. It is not dated but may be from 1960.
Harry and Edith Ford
RETIRING. Saxilby Post Office, which has been in one family for the last 76 years, changed hands last week.

Saxilby Post Office

It is inevitable that time brings changes, but to most residents, the Post Office and the name of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Ford (who are retiring) have become almost part of an institution in Saxilby village life.
Mrs. Ford’s father, Henry Read, took over in 1884 from Mr. Rook, one of the founders of Skinner and Rook, Nottingham.
Mr. Read built the new premises and moved there in 1904.
He died in the influenza pandemic of 1918, and Mrs. Ford took over in January 1919, while her husband was still serving in the army of occupation in Germany until August 1919.
Mrs. Ford, and her two young children aged six and four were ill in bed when she took over, as was most of the village.
They have retired owing to ill health and the whole parish will wish them many years of better health in their retirement.
Elizabeth Read’s two sons both lived in Saxilby.
Henry (Arthur Read’s father) became the postmaster and William lived at Hope House (now Duck Egg Blue) with his grocer’s store adjoining.

The following article was published in the Lincolnshire Gazette in 1907.
Elizabeth Read 1809 – 1912
In the Old Arm Chair – Bassingham’s Oldest Resident – Hard working at 98

Not only in the village of Bassingham, but for many miles around, everybody knows Mrs. Elizabeth Read, the oldest inhabitant of the parish.
When you have passed ninety, the people who attained that age are mighty few.
Bassingham has an inhabitant of that age however who is incredibly vigorous considering her years.
Once or twice, with the idea of affording the old lady relief, our representative turned to her daughters, themselves ladies grey of hair, for information concerning Mrs. Read, but it was always the senior of the party who promptly answered anything and everything.
A native of the village of Branston, where her recollections still stray time and again, and where she still speaks of people she knew as a little girl, Mrs. Read left that village at the age of ten years, going thence to Harmston.
She was married at Bassingham [11^th February 1840], and recalls with pride that her wedding took place in the same week as that of the late Queen Victoria. [the wedding was to have taken place on Victoria’s wedding day, but owing to a public dinner being held at the inn to celebrate Her Majesty’s wedding, Mrs. Read’s was postponed until the following day].
She has had a residence of seventy years in Bassingham where she has had her ten children, and was wont, years ago, to regularly attend Lincoln market, sometimes riding behind her employer on horseback (if the horse was not required for other work), and if not walking to Lincoln.
To Lincoln market Mrs. Read has thus carried many eggs, many pounds of butter, and countless ducks, geese, and table pottery generally.
On one thing the old lady counts herself specially fortunate, and that is she was given a “good schooling”.

For that, she expresses emphatically her gratitude, for on the day of this interview she had been reading the morning paper with interest.
She speaks therefore with thankfulness of Miss Bainbridge’s Board School at Waddington where first she learnt the rudiments of her reading.
But her chief interests lie in Bassingham where her father kept the Bugle Horn Inn for many years and from which her late husband, who was a native of Bassingham, took her as a bride many years back.
Mrs. Read has been a widow for twenty years. Living in her own house, however, she has living several members of her family, three daughters residing in Bassingham.
Two sons live in Saxilby, one being the Postmaster and the other the well-known Saxilby grocer.

Mrs. Read, aged 102, on a visit to Saxilby, with her two sons, two daughters, grandson, and great-grandson.

Mrs. Read has her likings and aversions for means of travel.
She has travelled by coach and horses from Lincoln to Cambridge, and has journeyed by train time and again.
“I like the train,” says Mrs. Read, “but I don’t care for bikes, and as for those stinking things” (a motor car had just gone tearing past the window) “I can’t bear them. I would rather ride in a wheelbarrow than one of those things!”.
Mrs. Read has capital eyesight. She still does her own sewing, and won’t hear of having anybody to thread the needle for her.
She wags her head wonderingly when one talks to her of old customs and modern innovations, and sums it all up in one expressive sentence, “the world is turned upside down!”.