Page 44 - Colin Wheeler's Memories

Redditch Heritage My Palace Theatre and other Memories

I knew the Gardner family she mentioned quite well, at their corner fruit shop

there was Noah and his wife, son Peter and two daughters Beatrice and Daisy.

Noah was a very colourful character and every year on the St Luke’s Schools
Annual Sports Day held on the playing fields, he would arrive, sit on his orange

box wearing a straw hat sporting a large yellow daisy and shout the top end of
his voice to teams consisting of blue, yellow, red and green “Come on the yellows”.
His son Peter would collect the provisions from market, his wife would serve with

Beatrice in the shop and Daisy had her own fruit shop just a couple of doors down
from where the present Heart Foundation Charity Shop now stands in Market

Place.

One of my first memories at the age of around six was of Mr Stanners, who was

a solicitor, and lived at the Rookery, which was a large house situated at the rear
of the Seven Stars, was tragically killed whilst out fox hunting at Foxlydiate

when a car hit him knocking him from his horse. I can clearly remember seeing
his young daughter Molly, who would have been around the same age as myself,

walking with two elderly ladies up the drive which served the house and also The
Rocklands which in those days was the family home of the Heath family from the
factory.

During the period 1920 to the late 1940s (during my childhood and before)
Headless Cross had an amazing number of small businesses, shopkeepers and

pubs. A number of the shops were operated from small terraced houses, two up
and two down, the front living room being the actual shop.

Page: 44 © Redditch Heritage 2018