Corsham Characters

When I was growing up in the small Wiltshire town of Corsham there were some great local 'characters' in the town. Perhaps one of the reasons that they remain fixed in the memory is firstly that as a child you notice far more than you do as an adult more often than not, and also that the town was a much smaller place in those days than it is now, hence the 'characters' stood out more from the crowd. Or perhaps the answer is simply that then, as now, I loved 'collecting' people! No matter what the answer is, the fact remains that there were some wonderfully eccentric characters who helped to people my childhood.

Miss Bryant

One such person was Miss Bryant. I don't think that I ever heard her first name, or even knew what she did, but she's right up there in the forefront of my memory nevertheless. She lived in a house that was diagonally opposite ours to the right (towards the Town Hall) and next to the old Nursing Home where I and my brothers and sisters were born. I think that one reason that she stood out from the crowd was because she was somewhat bohemian in her dress, and was probably the only lady in town who wore trousers rather than dresses or skirts. Corduroy seemed to be one of her favourite materials, and as well as corduroy trousers she also wore a red corduroy jacket. She had a kind face, handsome rather than pretty, and medium length grey hair, always tidily brushed from her face, which was invariably framed during the summer months by a straw hat. She seemed to be an artistic person, and in my memory that is exactly how she remains.

Miss Spackman

Another great looking 'character' from my childhood days was Miss Spackman. Back then we would never presume to be on first-name terms with our 'olders and betters' as the expression was then, and so once again I do not recall her first name. The thing that I remember most of all about her is the way she dressed. She seemed to have an extensive wardrobe of clothes that were different to everyone else's that I knew, often very dark, often very flowing, and almost always wearing a large picture hat atop of her somewhat pinched features, which were enhanced by rouged cheeks. She lived in a house towards the top of Priory Street, sharing it, as far as I remember, with her cats. She came from a well-respected Corsham family, and I believe that she was what would have been referred to in those days as a 'gentlewoman'.

Joan Pictor

Joan Pictor was great local eccentric. A reclusive millionairess, she was the last surviving member of the Pictor mining dynasty. She lived in Arnold House, a large 17th Century house roughly in the middle of Corsham High Street, which she bequeathed to the town in 1959. How well I recall her shabbily dressed figure sitting in the window seat of Arnold House, gazing out onto the passing world through net curtains that were so dirty that they would fall apart if they were touched. She could often be found sitting on the bench outside the Town Hall watching the world go by, dressed in a raincoat that was so dirty it looked more like an oilskin, such was the greasy grime that held the cloth together. Not very tall, Miss Pictor was slightly overweight in a warm sort of way. Her kindly rounded features were topped off by the permanence of a black beret, which as a child I assumed she never took off, such was the permanent nature of its appearance. Then again, considering how eccentric she was, maybe I was right in my assumption! After her demise the town benefited by the bequest of her house and contents for the town's use, and it is now the Corsham Information Centre. Miss Pictor is said to haunt Arnold House to this day, according to local folklore. Certainly, many people have recorded strange phenomena in the house, and unexplained door openings and closings, coupled with recordings showing on the Visitor Counter when there were no visitors present, do much to perpetuate local belief that the house is haunted, although to date there has been no conclusive proof as such.

There were many other local characters in the town that spring to mind, although not as eccentric as some of the ones whom I've mentioned. Some were simply well-known for a variety of reasons; people like Joe Damond, the baker who had a shop on the opposite side of the High Street to the Town Hall, and whose reputation with the ladies was the stuff of legends. Then there was Mr Hobbs who had a cycle repair shop not far from my own home, and who could be seen sitting in his tiny shop with a grey dustcoat on, effecting repairs to somebody's bycycle wheel, or something similar. He was a benign looking character with steel-rimmed spectacles behind which his eyes twinkled and lit up his face. he always seemed genuinely pleased to see visitors to his shop. Then there was the Rev'd Alan Bevan, Corsham's first 'Trendy Rev', who lived in a flat on the top floor of a cottage near the old fire station in Lacock Road. Many is the time that a group of us youngsters would be welcomed for an informal chat, and somehow he managed to make us feel that we were important, not only to the church but also to the town.

It's good to have experienced a childhood that was so rich in the things that form our future memories, for as the years pass by it is the people that we knew, especially the ones that stood out from the crowd, who we recall, mostly with great affection, and so they still manage to live on in some way through our memories of them. I'm thankful for Miss Bryant and Joan Pictor, and all the other characters of my childhood years, for the memories that they inadvertently bequeathed to me. Of course, at the time in your formative years that you meet these 'characters' they don't seem eccentric to you, only different enough from the crowd to stand out, and that's of course what they always were. They were different, not odd. Eccentric in some of their ways or in their mode of dress, but not strange. It's these differences that make us all the interesting people that we have the opportunity to become so, when all is said and done, 'Vive la différence!'