‘Nice little earner’ Machines in the loos that protected pubs’ finances
YOUR May 3 edition is richer than ever and provokes many memories. On dispensing machines: when I was a small boy in the 1940s, my mother would send me down the road with a shilling to place in the machine for a packet of 20 Players cigarettes.
The price was actually 11½ pence and the halfpenny change I pocketed and spent on a small packet of sherbet which had a tube of liquorice attached through which I could suck out the sherbet.
On lit-up adverts: in the 1950s, as a proud Bristolian I showed a friend of mine round the city and when we reached the Centre it had become dark. He suddenly turned to me and said, “This is a funny place you have taken me to”.
I looked up to where he was pointing and saw the words lit up on a building saying ‘SEX TOURS.’
On closer inspection I found that it was an advert for Wessex Tours but through a faulty circuit the letters WES were still in darkness!
Again on dispensing machines: in the 1960s, the landlord of a pub in south Somerset told me that he had discovered a cost-free way of adding to his weekly takings. He had installed a condom dispensing machine in the ladies’ toilet but never put any stock in it.
When any lady put a £1 coin in hoping for a ‘pack of three’ nothing emerged. They were always too embarrassed to complain so he found it to be a ‘nice little earner’!
Moving to a the topic of the moment, the local elections, in the 1970s I often did the job of an election agent and at the ‘count’ I would be asked to inspect the spoilt ballot papers.
The one that I remember most fondly was the paper that had marked on it a large arrow pointing to one of the candidates with the words alongside it saying, “I wouldn’t vote for that b ***** if he was the last man in Bristol.”
Happy Days!
Tony Everett
by email »
Editor’s reply: I think that many male readers might have had similar experiences to the women attempting to use the dispensing machine in the ladies’ toilet.
If you’re a young lad, and possibly an under-age drinker at that, and you put your money into a machine in the gents’ toilet and nothing comes out, you, too, might be too embarrassed to complain to the landlord. Or so I have been told. Ahem.
Re spoiled ballot papers; some other BT readers must have officiated at elections before now. Do tell us if you saw any good spoiled papers. The ruder the better! And if these involve swear-words, don’t worry – we have a big box of asterisks ready and waiting.
Chocolate conundrums
✒ REFERENCE the photograph of the Swann’s Chocolate delivery horse and van (BT, April 26): This photograph appears as plate 102 in Reece Winstone’s Bristol’s Suburbs in the 1920s and 30s.
The caption reads “The 1920s EASTON, Claremont Street, where Mr Wetton poses outside his home at No 64. SWANNS CHOCOLATES on the van became WEBERS
CHOCOLATES, also a bygone name … ”
Presumably, Reece Winstone obtained Mr Wetton’s address from a street directory and then assumed the standing figure was Mr Wetton, when the houses in Claremont Street matched those in the photograph.
The houses are just about recognisable today, although the house on the left has disappeared; now a motor vehicle repair shop and health centre car park.
So, what was Mr Wetton’s link with Swann Chocolate? Was he just an agent?
Also, in the same Reece Winstone volume, Plate 92 shows that Mr Wetton and Sons seemed to have prospered as they now aspire to a Model T Ford van and it is parked in Hillfields, a new housing estate.
The photo is dated to circa 1926 presumably by using the van’s registration number HU 529. Can the same number be used to determine the owner’s name and address?
Perhaps of more interest is the sign writing on the vehicle. The photograph is a three quarter rear view of the rear doors and the passenger side of the van body. The sign writing on the rear doors reads “Buy From W.H. Wetton & Sons, Agents for Maynard’s Quality Brand Confectionery”. On the side panel the signage reads: W.H.WETTON & SONS BRISTOL EAT LOVELLS MORE TOFFEE REX
THE KING OF TOFFEES MAYNARDS WINE GUMS ORIGINAL AND STILL THE BEST
So, no more Swanns. Could this mean SWANNS had disappeared circa 1926 or has Mr Wetton acquired a more lucrative agency? Maynards is of course recognisable, but who were Lovells?
Sadly the Model T photograph does not include any human figures, so confirmation of Reece Winstone’s ID of Mr Wetton cannot be made.
As usual more questions than answers.
Pete Withers by email » Editor’s reply: Thank you Mr Withers. More questions than answers indeed, and as we have observed, along with chocolate historian Hugh Evans in our April 26 letters page, the Bristol confectionery family tree is indeed complicated.
I did a cursory search of local newspapers hoping to find some adverts for Swann’s or W.H. Wetton, but with not much joy. There are a couple of small ads from the 1920s and 30s in which W.H. Wetton of 25 Ellbroad Street (now disappeared beneath the multi-story car park next to the Castlemead building at the eastern end of Castle Park) is selling items which might be related to confectionery, including an ice cream tricycle.
Swann’s is more of a mystery. We can find very few references to the firm, though in 1936 there is a list of donations which various people and organisations have made to the Children’s Hospital.
Charles Bond Ltd – yet another local confectioner! – donated various sweet treats, including ‘Swann’s chocolate marshmallow acorns’ and ‘Swann’s chocolate marshmallow motors’. (Car-shaped chocolates?) Could this mean, perhaps, that Bond’s had taken over Swann’s by this time but was still using the brand name?
As Mr Withers says, more questions than answers. So if anyone can offer any information or pictures, please get in touch!
Cashpoints... what’s the point?
✒ THE photo of Reg Varney using a Barclaycash machine brought memories flooding back! (Latimer’s Diary, BT May 3)
In the 1970s, before having children, I worked for a branch of Barclays Bank in the East Midlands, and when I was promoted to counter clerk one of my duties was to look after the Barclaycash machine.
This was not a difficult task because it was not used very much.
As your amusing article states, you needed a book of ‘cheques’ (if I remember correctly they were not technically cheques but vouchers) to put into the machine.
These came in a special little plastic wallet, and were for set sums (£5 and £10, I think) and customers had to order them in the first place.
If they were a technological breakthrough, we weren’t very impressed. As far as we were concerned they were more trouble than they were worth.
Very often I would check the machine on a Monday morning and find it had not been used at all.
They were used even less during the week and I don’t remember any of the staff ever using it either.
I recall the chief clerk explaining to me that the only people who used it were rich young men who owned sports cars and sometimes needed cash in a hurry in the evening when the banks were closed if they were trying to ‘wine and dine a young lady.’
Shortly before I left, Barclays and the other banks started to install modern machines which took plastic cards and which automatically deducted the money from the customer’s account.
These modern new machines were just like the ones we use today, and the staff were very keen on them because they were much more convenient, and they could tell you how much (or how little) money you had in your account.
We noticed that at lunchtimes there were fewer people than usual eating their sandwiches in the staffroom.
This was because a lot of the younger male staff found it tempting and very easy to just withdraw £1 at lunchtime. Back then, this was more than enough for a couple of pints at the pub round the corner.
A few weeks later the manager held a meeting and complained that “some people who shall remain nameless” were causing too much wear and tear on the machine by just taking out £1 at a time, and all at around 1.02pm each day. Could everyone just take out £5 at the start of the week, please?
I suppose that nowadays the manager would complain about people drinking at lunchtime, but those were different times!
Name and email supplied