|
| |
|
Willingale One Name Study
Willingale Family Tree
|
 |
|
 1936 - 2005 (69 years)
1 2 Next» » Slide Show
Loading...
Willingale's Restuarant
Willingales Restaurant 72-74 The Broadway, Leigh on Sea, was started by my parents some time early in the 1930's. I don't have and exact date as I have no documents that relate to it. My father, Walter Willingale, ran away to sea when he was very young and served on the cruise liners that were very popular at that time. He worked his way up to being a 'bedroom steward' for the first class passengers. After he met my mother he sent all his wages to her to save for their future venture. After they were married in Janury 1930 they opened a small tea/cake shop in the Broadway, Leigh, in the section that bends round by the Grand Hotel.
My mother had been trained as a professional cook so it wasn't such an unlikely venture as it might seem. She had been the head cook at the restaurant in Boots' the chemist in Southend High Street (amazing to think of now - they also had a lending library there too, very genteel ). She taught my father to be a pastry cook.
The first small shop was obviously sucessful and, with the money they made, they moved to a larger property further round the Broadway.
The two shops were amalgamated into one for the restaurant by my (maternal) grandfather, Bill Matthews, who was a builder/ architect. He installed mirrors to give the illusion go space and the whole was decorated in cream and green. The external tiles were green and black. The kitchen was lined with embossed tin (difficult to describe,and I've never heard of it since) to avoide condensation damage. The living accomodation at the rear of the two properties was taken up by my parents at no.72 and at 74a by my maternal grandparents, their unmarried son, Barnard Matthews and their daughter, Gwen and her husband, Reginald Willingale.
Aunt Gwenny did the waitressing, my mother did all the 'plain cooking' and my fathre did all the pastries. It was extreemly popular with the business men in the area for lunches, 1s 7d, that's about 15p., in todays money, for a 3 course lunch! Afternoon teas were popular too. Roes , tomatoes or sardines on toast and a huge selection of cakes and tea cakes. No evening meals though. Soon after the war began, in 1939 ( I was 3 by now ) German bombers came up the Thames to bomb London and also to vere off to bomb the midlands where the munitions factories were. Any unwanted bombs were dropped in the estuary on the return journey, several arround Leigh I believe.
By this time my grandfather had developed a weak heart and it would seem the family decision was to evacuate, voluntarily. As my grandmother had spent her early life in the country with her grandmother in Wallingford (at the Falcon Public House, Crinny Lane, now Falcon Cottage, a private house house) they decided to go there. As you will understand being only 3 or 4 at the time not much of the details impinged on my memory. Accomodation was found about the area, my mother and I living in a flat above a jewelers and my grandparents and Gwenny went to lodgings in Brightwell cum Sotwell. All the men of the family went to Coventry to work in the munitons factories.
My mothe, after joining the WRVS, took up the running of the British Restaurant in the Corn Exchange in Wallingford with the help of grandma on the till. Grandpa kept chickens on an allotment and Gwen joined the land army for a short while.
After the war we all trooped back (sadly with out grandpa) and, after cleaning up the bomb and vandal damage the restaurant opened again, It continued to be very sucessful until the mid '50's when the landlord put up the rents beyond the means to pay and it had to be given up. It was a very traumatic and rather sad time for all the family. They were all split up again, my aunt and uncle going to a flat in Southend and my side of the familt to Orsett Golf Club where my father became the steward and my mother did the catering.
Ann Carter 16/02/2004
1 2 Next» » Slide Show
|
|
|
|
