Snapshot reveals what life was like in 1940s Cheltenham
» THERE is no date to be found in the Cheltenham guide book shown here, but the foreword provides a clue. It is signed by Daniel L Lipson, who served as MP for the town from 1937 to 1950.
Daniel Leopold Lipson was a teacher at and later headmaster of Cheltenham College who founded a house at the school for boys who shared his Jewish faith.
They were accommodated in a building in Bath Road.
He stood for parliament in a by-election in 1937 as an independent conservative, when the party chose not to endorse him as the official candidate.
He stood again in the 1945 general election as a National Independent and was re-elected.
That’s quite enough politics. The upshot is that the pictures you see on this page are taken from the guide book, which we now know dates from the late 1930s/40s. Fine photos they are too.
The Edward J Burrow company, which had its office in Lypiatt Road, produced this guide book of Cheltenham, as it did maps and similar books for towns across the country.
Edward Burrow was a benefactor to Cheltenham whose gifts included the organ in the Town Hall and the playing field in Leckhampton that bears his name.
Burrow’s commissioned the pictures from a photographer then new to the area named Eric Franks and examples on this page are his work.
Born in Nottingham, Eric Franks arrived in Cheltenham a couple of years before the Second World War and for the next 20 years or so he captured the town on film. He lived in Prestbury and his work is an important chronicle of Cheltenham’s changing face in the pre-war, wartime and post-war years.
If you thought that buskers were a recent sight on Cheltenham’s streets, the picture of the gents playing here prove otherwise. They were known as the Spa Harp Trio and had a licence from the borough council to perform for the pleasure of passers-by from a number of sites in the town centre.
One was Montpellier Walk, where they are seen in one picture outside the Cake Basket café, the other photo captures them in the Prom.
The latter picture was, apparently, staged. The trio usually played on the shops’ side of the Prom, but for this picture Eric Franks asked them to stand on the other side where the light was better.
They obliged for the consideration of half a crown (12.5p), but explained to him that they could only pose, not play, as this would be in contravention of their licence agreement.
The names of the Spa Harp Trio members I don’t know, but the gents on trumpet and flute look like brothers, or perhaps twins. They had the advantage of carrying easily transportable instruments, while the chap on harp faced more of a challenge each time they changed pitch. They were regulars of the
Liverpool Vaults, a pub in the High Street that was popular with the town’s musicians.
In 2000 a collection of photographs taken in Cheltenham by Eric Franks was published by Sutton Publishing and if you can find a copy you’ll discover it to be a delight.
His images capture mood and character, but perhaps best of all he didn’t only commit to film the pretty parts of the town seen so often. Take a look at the picture of the couple with a pram in the town’s Lower Dockem area and you’ll see what I mean.