Ken—Now how about the Market Place. What sort of things took place in the Market Place—the centre of the town really?
Cecil—On a Tuesday there was the regular market which enabled Wokingham to call itself a market town. It was quite an affair, because on a Tuesday morning, the borough men would come and set up pens on the square. The hurdles to make these pens were kept at the back of the Red Lion pub and these were set up early and farmers used to drive sheep and pigs into the town and put them in the pens for sale.
If they came from anything of a distance they would be brought in by horse-drawn vehicle of some sort. Cattle were tied up to railings that went all round one side of the town hall on the side where The Rose Hotel is now. There was a long rail there and I’ve seen dozens of cattle tied up these especially Christmas time.
Then there was a chap who had an office up Broad Street, I forget the name of the firm, who used to come down and conduct the sale. When the cattle etc were sold they were taken away in the same way that they arrived—either driven down the street by a drover or in a horse-drawn vehicle.
Inside the town hall yard, which is now covered in, there were such things as butter, rabbits live or dead, chickens and odds and ends that were brought in by farmers for sale. The market didn’t pack up until 4 o’clock in the afternoon when it was hosed down.
Ken—That was the original marker charter. Markets were to be held peaceably on a Tuesday and that dated back to 1219. So Tuesday was the official Market Day
Cecil—Then there was a market at Bracknell, of course, and for some reason that became more popular than the Wokingham one. So
Wokingham’s market deteriorated and eventually disappeared as we knew it. There was a small one held at the back of The Bush Hotel.
Ken—For some few years actually.
Cecil—Yes I know. My wife used to go there to buy chicken and butter and eggs
Ken—Not animals such as cattle or sheep.
Cecil—No.
Ken—It was purely rabbits
Cecil—Yes, and it disappeared altogether
Ken—Other things in the Market Place, that I recall, such as the opening of Carnival Day.
Cecil—Yes, that came later. The first carnival was in 1929. Old Ernie Maris, the harness maker (Thomas Maris, harness maker, 41 Market Place) had been talking about a carnival two or three years previously. I used to drop in and see old Ernie because we knew the Maris family so very well. When I first came here I know I was often taken into the Maris’ place that had a whacking great room at the back—a great loft room. They lived above the shop which is near the corner where Boot’s is.
Young Ernie was always talking about having a carnival in Wokingham. I don’t know whether he influenced Frankie Perkins who was in collaberation with the manager of Barclays Bank. Anyway these two ran the carnival as joint secretaries. I remember because I had just started work in Wokingham. The carnival was a success but the secretaries realised that it would be a bit of an undertaking to organise a carnival every year and so abandoned the project.
Two years later David Goddard decided he would take over the secretaryship. Old David was a great chap. He had a great flair for organisation. So David ran the second carnival, and being a booking clerk at the railway station, he had the advantage of knowing everybody. He raked in everybody from all walks of life and I know he made a first class job. The processions started on time and he made the local fair people pay to bring their fair to the town.
Ken—I well remember too having done all that work on the day he was very involved in the children’s fancy dress parade. He got the kiddies together, to have them judged, and handed out the prizes.
Cecil—There was great enthusiasm. Everyone took part in the Wokingham Carnival in those days. Eight o’clock in the morning it went on until two o’clock the next morning. Special trains and buses were laid on to get people in and take people home.
Ken—Well I’ve seen articles in the Reading Standard and Mercury and they used to have big spreads about the primary event in the south—the Wokingham Carnival. It was really some event and it brought in thousands of people from round about.
Cecil—I remember one year David said to me that he’d just finished the financial side of the last carnival and he’d handed £600 to the Royal Berks Hospital which was what it was run for. Now the pound was worth fifty times as much then as it is now so fifty times £600 is about £30,000. So now when you hear of a carnival being run in Wokingham, and they hand over £2,000 or £3,000, it’s just chicken feed.
Ken—Do you think that this 1929 carnival was engendered by the peace celebrations after the First World War, when they had a procession, and had lots of things going on?
Cecil—I remember the peace celebrations well enough because all the demobilised men who had served in the war were treated to a lunch on Langborough Recreation Ground. There was a procession in the evening but it didn’t compare with the Wokingham Carnival processions. They went on every two years until 1939, and the 1939 Carnival was cancelled, because war was imminent. They were always held during the first week of September and we never had a wet day—always got good weather.