‘A talent for being in certain situations at the right time’

Colourful owner of Jack and Danny’s Shelia Gwilliam tells Richard Mills her stories of the Great Train Robbery, meeting Brian May and being held at gunpoint in eastern Europe, all before opening her well-known shop

❝ I didn’t know what Jack and Danny meant at first. People were asking me ‘who are Jack and Danny?’ but I didn’t know the answer. I was later told...

Imagine meeting the people who would carry out the Great Train Robbery stealing £2.6million in 1963 - a week before it happened.

Picture being ordered to get out of a car by a certain John Madejski – a man who would later earn a knighthood and become Reading FC chairman – for singing too loudly.

Contemplate being left by the side of the road in a land where you don’t speak the language aged just 19.

Envisage being held at gunpoint by the military in the old Yugoslavia or being misquoted by a newspaper, with a front page quote saying: “I don’t want my baby in jail.”

Or how about being paid £5, which for some was a month’s rent in the 1960’s, to run naked across Hammersmith Bridge as a dare.

All of these events, and more, have been experienced by Sheila Gwilliam, the owner of Jack and Danny’s Vintage Shop in Bath.

The 74-year-old, who has run the shop in London Street for 51 years, is one of the most remarkable people you’ll ever meet.

“I think I have a talent for being in certain situations at the right time,” she said,

A statement which is something of an understatement.

Sheila was born to parents Arthur and Jean Gwilliam in the Forest of Dean in 1944.

At the age of seven she was dropped off by her parents and her elder brother, Michael, at Hampton House boarding school, near Bristol.

“I thought my parents had left me for good. I had always been interested in orphans and when I was sent to boarding school, I decided I was one,” said Sheila, whose shop has been visited by musical giants such as Kylie Minogue, Noel Gallagher and Brian May.

She then went on to Ellerslie Boarding School until the age of 18.

After putting in a very impressive, and not entirely truthful, advert about herself into the Times newspaper to get a job, she landed a teaching role near Reading at Ascot Priory which was run by nuns.

One night she ventured out and went to a nearby conservative club, despite being rather apolitical.

It was there she met a girl called Betty, who had run away from Scotland. That very night they agreed to live together in Reading, 12 miles away.

On their accommodation hunt, they met a Reading University student, named Colin. Together they found an attic to share.

“One time I had to choose between a bus home and no food or for some food and a 12-mile walk,” she said.

“I was starving, so I got some bread and walked 12 miles home – it took ages.”

Eight months later, Colin and Betty got married and a baby was also due. Sheila was the couple’s bridesmaid.

In an effort to earn more money, Sheila got a job at a restaurant in Reading - a job she held while teaching.

The woman who owned the place was the mother of singer Marianne Faithfull, who had a highly-publicised relationship with Mick Jagger in the 1960’s.

“I was bonkers those days. I told the school I had flu so that I could work at the restaurant and viceversa,” she said.

“There was a restaurant colleague of mine who was friends with the people who would go on to carry out the Great Train Robbery.

“I had met them the week before they did it in London. They were great fun and very nice. Little did I know what they were planning.”

That same year, a 19-year-old Sheila went on holiday to Spain with a friend called John Madejski.

“He had a shiny sports car, so I thought, ‘this is a good idea,’ but maybe it wasn’t,” she said.

“We fell out on the way. I think I was singing loudly in the car. I wouldn’t stop singing so he chucked me out in Cannes, in France. I had no money and had to live off scraps.”

Somehow, she made it home, but not before she somehow schmoozed her way onto the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier and joined the American crew in going to over 30 strip joints.

After completing a college degree in Roehampton at the age of 21, Sheila and friend Jenny travelled to Greece.

What followed was one of the most eventful summers of her life.

“We were at a wedding and I passed out from drinking - I was never much of drinker,” she said.

“I woke up in a room full of communist Russia posters.

“When I was a child at the boarding school I used to trick the children that I went to Russia when I went down to the roots of a pine tree – and here I was, in Russia. Or so I thought...

“It turned out that this room belonged to a young Greek communist leader who was in jail.” Things got worse, however. “On that same trip we were somewhere in Yugoslavia. There was a sign that we couldn’t read, it must have been one saying ‘no entry,’” she said.

“Next thing we know, military guards are pointing guns at us, demanding we pay £15, before taking our passports.

“We only had £12 to get home. I told Jenny to get in the car and that I would handle it – she was terrified.

“I moved very quickly, snatched back our passports and ran back to the car and we drove off as fast as we could. My heart was racing.”

The famished pair, who drove around in an old Volkswagen, were travelling back to England on the ferry and came across two wealthy young men at a fancy restaurant onboard.

They sweet-talked their way into joining them and promptly ordered as much as they could on the menu.

“That was one of the best meals I’ve ever had,” she said.

“After finishing, I said I needed to go outside. I ran back to the car and hid in it. Jenny did the same thing and we managed to get out without paying. It makes me laugh thinking about it.”

Sheila spent a couple more years in London, much of which she spent teaching at a school in Lambeth, running stalls to sell all sorts of items and getting chummy with a chap called Ron.

Ron, who had a 40-room mansion near Marble Arch, near Mayfair, used Sheila’s flat to put a multitude of his theatrical clothes in and went around in a horse and cart.

The horse he owned ended up being known as Hercules in the 1960s/70s sitcom, Steptoe and Son.

During this time, Sheila met Bob Mickleburgh.

Bob had an eye for antiques, as well as being part of the successful

jazz band Temperance Seven, and was a regular at the famous Bermondsey market.

He had grown tired of London and convinced Sheila to move with him to Bath in 1967 – she duly obliged.

Sheila then opened a shop of her own in London Street.

“This street was lovely in those days. There was a real sense of community,” she said.

“People went to the Bell pub at lunch time, but things have changed.”

There was one proposal, however, that threatened to quite literally wipe her shop, much of the road it was on and where she lived in Chatham Row, off the map. That came in the form of the proposed Buchanan tunnel scheme in the 1960s.

The idea was to have greater control of the through traffic. The plans involved new dual-carriageway roads being built and tunnels constructed.

“We set up a Bath action group against the campaign. We did all kinds of stunts,” she said.

“Prime Minister Edward Heath was visiting the old Royal Mineral Water Hospital but I was not allowed to go and see him because I was known by the police at this time.

“At the time, the Redhouse Bakery was very well known but that was going to be knocked down so I wanted to bring him some of their Bath buns. I still ended up giving the buns to his secretary, mind.”

What followed was many years of campaigning, demonstrations and being thrown out of council meetings.

“One time the Western Daily Press had a front page of me when I was heavily pregnant,” she said.

“It said, ‘I don’t want my baby in jail.’ It was linked with the tunnel protests, but I never said that.

“I would have gone to jail though but when I received a fine, a man paid it for me, so I ended up not going.”

On one particularly slow news day for a local news outlet, Sheila received a call asking if she could stage an impromptu rally.

“It was on a Monday so we had a small group of us. Bob was on the trumpet and others had instruments,” she said.

“Luckily, a bus full of German tourists arrived at the Royal Crescent, just as we were doing a demonstration there with our placards.

“When they got off the bus, I handed lots of them the protest placards that were against the tunnel plan and they joined in, despite having no idea what they were doing. It was all filmed and made for great TV.”

Sheila went onto have three children with Bob – Simon in 1967, Robert in 1970 and William in 1972 – although the couple never married.

Sheila has seen a few famous faces through the doors of her shop over the years.

“Kylie Minogue was in here once. She was lovely and gave me some cuddles,” she said.

“Brian May came in. I helped him put a belt on. I am totally bonkers about Freddie Mercury so having him in was great.

“Noel Gallagher came in, too. He was a bit of a non-entity. I didn’t warm to him.”

One name Shelia can’t account for is that of the shop itself – Jack and Danny’s.

“I didn’t name it actually. A family member actually named the shop – it didn’t have a name for a long time,” she said.

“I didn’t know what Jack and Danny meant at first. People were asking me, ‘who are Jack and Danny?’ but I didn’t know the answer.

“I was later told it is cockney rhyming slang. You can find out what it means. I was shocked when I found out.”

In the coming weeks, the shop is closing for a refurbishment but Sheila is looking forward to adding to her wonderful collection of stories in years to come.

“It has been quite a ride and it is still going strong,”