From fighter pilot to frozen food pioneer
Following on from our recent series of articles on Maidstone Zoo, reader Dennis Usmar has sent in a photo of his own visit there - on Tuesday, July 13, 1954, that’s 65 years ago.
Dennis, from The Laxey in Tovil, who was only five at the time, knows the date because it’s written on the back of the photograph. He admits: “I don’t look very happy.
“But I remember seeing bears, camels, elephants, lions, zebra, goats and many other animals. “It was a great day out.” Dennis was living at Walnut Tree Lodge in Weavering Street. His father, Robert Usmar, ran a green-grocers and floristry shop in Week Street, and also kept two orchards and a small holding at a farm, where he grew some of the produce to sell in the shop.
The business, known as Walter Usmar, had been started by his father, in 1879, and was at number 60, sandwiched between Littlewoods and Sergeant and Parks hardware shop. Dennis recalls that everyone lent a hand. His gran helped in the shop, his mum did the books, and young Dennis was roped in for odd jobs too. He said: “I had to go in every day to feed the shop cat, which I didn’t mind too much. What I didn’t like was when the celery came in in big bales in the winter, covered in soot. My job was to break open the bales and wash the celery - in cold water. It was freezing work.”
However, he admitted his father worked the hardest of all. He said: “The shop was open six days a week, but he was often also in on a Sunday, doing preparation. Occasionally we would have a family holiday in a beachhut at Dymchurch, but my father could never stay, he always had to get back to the shop.
“Twice a week he would take his Commer van to Covent Garden in London - sometimes in the school holidays I would go with him. We’d leave about 5am, park just off Drury Lane, then my father would go and haggle with the traders.
“Then barrow boys would wheel round whatever he had bought to our van. We’d get back about 3pm.”
Tennis was the only pastime the hard-working shop-owner found time for. Both he and his wife were keen players and he was on the committee at the Bearsted Tennis Club.
Floristry was a major part of the business, and Robert Usmar would have flowers delivered from London by train to Maidstone West, which he not only sold himself, but also acted as a wholesaler for other smaller florists about town.
Occasionally Dennis would get to help make up the Christmas wreaths or bouquets. Ironically, Robert Usmar had never intended to go into the business.
He went to Maidstone Grammar School - he was there at the same time as Richard Beeching, who was later to achieve notoriety for the Beeching Cuts to the country’s railway system. When Robert left, it was midway through the Second World War and he joined the RAF. It was while training at RAF Turnhill flying Harvards that he met local girl Hilda, who he was later, in 1946, to marry.
Then he was sent to Texas in America to re-train with P47 Thunderbolts - the American equivalent of the Spitfire. Finally he was posted to Burma with a Thunderbolt squadron.
But Dennis said: “After all that training, he flew very few missions. It was right at the end of the war and in fact his last mission was dropping leaflets over the enemy’s position to tell them that Japan had surrendered.” Nevertheless, Robert Usmar had enjoyed flying and had wanted to continue in civilian life. Dennis said: “Unfortunately, his father, Walter, died suddenly and that was it - he was lumbered.”
Initially, the business thrived and Robert employed eight women in the shop and a chief florist. He tried to keep up with the times - indeed in 1956 his shop was the first in Maidstone to introduce a frozen food counter, but eventually competition from the new retail phenomenon - the supermarket - put paid to the business, which closed in 1963. Robert Usmar died in 2003, aged 79. Dennis said: “He was very well known in the town. In fact people still stop me now and say, didn’t your father used to run that shop in Week Street?”
If you have any photographs of the Walter Usmar store, email ajsmith@thekmgroup.co.uk