Page 24 - Thrapston Life January 2022

GLANCE
AT THE
PAST
Eric Franklin looks back
To begin the new year, I am giving a flavour of some of my planned items for 2022. These will include;
• The military camp on Huntingdon Road
at the beginning of World War 2.
• Cafes in Thrapston including the Lounge
Café, Olive’s Café and Mrs Onley’s Café.
• Barnett & Spites motor works in Bridge Street.
• Rushworking in Islip.
• St John Ambulance in both Thrapston and
Islip including the 1954 parade (top right).
• Thrapston Town Ladies Football Club (which
has been going for less than 10 years).
I shall also devote one month purely showing some of my old previously unpublished pictures.
If you have any memories, pictures or artifacts which could illustrate any of these articles which you would be willing to loan me for a few days to scan for use in this magazine (with the usual full credit for the source being given) I would be pleased to hear from you.
When I wrote the first of these ‘Glances’ in May 2016, I thought they may carry on for a year or so, depending on how well they were received and whether I could come up with enough ideas to maybe manage two years’ worth. It is much credit to you, my readers, that not only have you given me topics to research and write about, but also for the regular kind comments about how they are received which has sustained me thus far.
As ever, I am always open to suggestions for future topics. There is a possibility that for my July 2022 item I will give a brief precis of the Aldwincle Historical Pageant held in 1909, an event of such proportions that a temporary grandstand accommodating 1000 people was constructed at a cost of £800. I have many old postcards showing scenes from the pageant.
To end, I show an old sepia photograph, made into a postcard (above), which was given to me in 2021 and is part of the ‘Barbara Knight’ archive of local pictures some of which will illustrate my St John Ambulance item. The Woolnough/Vase Press pictures shown in my article a couple of months ago also form part
of this archive. This card carries no written message or named publisher, just a card number (0439) and the location is unknown, although
it believed to be somewhere either in Islip or Twywell. The children in the cart are dressed in military/nursing uniforms and the man holding the reins wears a badge. They could well be about to join a parade. Has anyone any idea who these people are and when it was taken?
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Please keep your ideas for future articles coming in: ericfranklin2@hotmail.com