This is the final part of the local Gazette & Post’s, ‘This is your Street’ series, which appeared on 28th February 1958:
‘When 23-year-old Bernard Cload was a small boy, doctors said he would never be able to read a newspaper because his eyes were injured.
Now reading is Mr Cload’s second favourite hobby. The first is photography. And his eyes are still injured.
“But that hasn’t stopped my son making his way in the world,” said Mr Cload senior at their home at 36, Kelmscott Gardens, Askew Road.
His son explained: “I went to a school for partially sighted children. Naturally I was not able to do much athletics, but I wanted an outdoor hobby – and photography seemed to be it.”
About eight years ago the schoolboy, Bernard, bought his first camera. At first, he took holiday snaps and pictures of his friends and family.
It took him about 18 months to decide that photography was his hobby. So, he bought a bigger and better camera and began to practice different kind of pictures.
“At first I tried street scenes, then animals, but I’m still trying to decide what line I shall specialise in.”
When Mr Cload first started to develop his own photographs, it was a question of using what rooms were available.
“Sometimes that was the kitchen or the bedroom, or the bathroom,” he said. Now he uses a room over his father’s printing business in Askew Road.
Mr Cload works in the pricing department of the National Electric Supplies Co. King Street, Hammersmith.
Would he like to take-up photography professionally? “No, I don’t think so. It is an absorbing hobby, but if I had to do it all the time, I might not like it so much,” he said.
One of the oldest residents is 82-year-old widow Mrs Mary Rietiker, of 38, Askew Road. She came to the road as a young bride in 1908 and she has been there ever since.
Mrs Rietiker can remember the old horse-drawn transport buses, the trams, and the oil-lit Coster barrows that stood outside ‘The Traveller’s’ public house.
She has seen the road in its carefree moments and has seen it when it was a roaring inferno after the raid on the road on October 10, 1940.
When Mrs Rietiker first came to Askew Road, most of the houses had servants.
She was born in Gilling, Yorkshire, and for many years was a school teacher. Her husband, who died two years ago, was a painter and decorator and well known locally.
Mrs Rietiker is a regular member of many of the groups that attend the Askew Road Methodist Church and follows with interest activities run by youth clubs.
“If she was ever to leave the street,” said the secretary of the Methodist Church, “her loss would be greatly felt.”
The West London Observer reported in February 1957 that Mrs Louise Alton had passed away. She had a flower shop in Askew Road for 42 years:
‘A crowd of over 200 gathered outside a house in Rylett Road, Shepherd’s Bush, yesterday afternoon, to watch the funeral cortege of 73-year-old Mrs Elizabeth Louise Alton drive away.
As the hearse and five cars carrying mourners drove off, the crowd stood completely silent and some women wept.
Mrs Alton, who is believed to be the oldest trader in Shepherd’s Bush, was buried at New Southgate.
She collapsed while walking along Stamford Brook Road, Hammersmith, with her daughter Mrs Ivy Batterebee, and died on her way to Hammersmith Hospital.
Another crowd stood waiting in Askew Road for half-an-hour for the cortege to pass Mrs Alton’s flower shop, almost opposite the new Askew Road Methodist Church.
One car was completely filled with wreaths and flowers which had been sent by relatives and by over 70 local traders.
Mrs Alton opened her flower shop in Askew Road 42 years ago, and as a child she used to sell flowers with her sister, Dinah, on the steps of St. Clement Danes Church.
Her sister, who is 75 and was among the mourners.
Mrs Alton married when she was 21and went to live in Rylett Road. Mr Alton died in 1941.
Her eldest daughter, Mrs Elizabeth Penny, told me: “We just can’t believe that mother is dead. She was such a good, kindly lady.”
Mrs Alton regularly sent money, flowers and food to Nazareth House, Hammersmith’s Catholic orphanage, and two sisters from the orphanage spent yesterday morning with the mourners at Rylett Road.
Mr Richard Hall, proprietor of a nearby fishmonger’s shop, said: “I have known Mrs Alton all my life. She was a grand old lady who would do a good turn for anybody. She was always so straight forward and good.”
Local firms who paid their last tribute included Richard Hall & Son, A. G. Hedges and staff, and Clifford Davis, the car firm.
Family mourners included her daughters and sons-in-law, Mr and Mrs John Penny, Mr and Mrs Matthew Batterbee, and Mrs Raymond Bamford and her grandchildren, Jean and John Penny, Alan, John, Stephen and Christopher Bamford, and also Peter Batterbee.’
Steve Russell
(Thanks to Colin Woodley for his assistance. The postcard is from my collection)