Thursday 24 March 2011

Shapland & Petter shuts up shop.

I am afraid to report that there was a rather glum pall hanging over our corner in the Marshals towards the end of last week as news came through of the closing of Shapland and Petter, Barum's premier door making factory and one last vestiges of our town's notable manufacturing industrial heritage. It's decline has been somewhat marked over recent years as it has changed hands from one anonymous multinational concern to another, each spin off, divestment,  heralding a gradual whittling away of the workforce and site. As per usual in these cases it is always the poor so & so's who make the product the skilled workers who are the first ones to go those white collar worker, the sales teams etc. who produce nought, are to be retained but will move to a different location. Strange strategy for a business that apparently makes a profit and has orders on the go. Of course funny thing is that this announcement comes only days after it had been announced that the land has been bought up by Asda who hope to build a supermarket on the site. In the pub we was probably correct in assuming that the old Victorian works building are ripe for residential development and shall be marketed along the lines of loft living in North Devon in a highly desirable, prime riverside location. Another thing is certain, they'll no doubt be priced way out of the range of the youngsters who worked at Shappies. Infact,  they'll  more than likely be going at a price beyond the means of all average working people in the area. Still at least we will have another giant supermarket. By my reckoning that will be 11 which isn't bad for a town of some 50.000 people give a take a few.

Made in Barum

Shapland's has now gone the way of Brannam's potteries another local business with a proud history of producing finely crafted products whose reputation extended way beyond the North Devon borders. In the North Devon Museum you can see examples of that craft fine Barumware pottery and what they call Arts and Crafts furniture  that was produced right here in Barum which were then  sold in the showrooms of London and further abroad. It makes you proud to see such fantastic pieces on display.  Even when Shappies just concentrated on producing doors, they were doors of the highest quality and were shipped on a fleet of tricks all over the world. It has been said that the palaces of Ceaucescu in Romania and Saddam Hussein in Iraq were fitted out with doors made here in North Devon. No joke, of course back in the day they were not the bogey men they became just good clients. On a less controversial note I was always led to believe by Ian Stokey's old fella, who worked over there man and boy, that they made doors for Concorde. I reckon he may have been a bit off the mark there but still no doubt about it the finest doors in housing and commercial developments throughout the land came from Shappies. Stokey's old man could always tell a door from a door and he would come back from a away up to see a show at Bristol Hippodrome or a West End theatre trip. " We Will Rock You was blimmin' marvelous and I'll tell you what, they got Shappies doors in the Travelodge we was staying in"  That's one thing about the folk that worked over at Shappies they were always proud of that fact, not that they'd give on as they would bellyache about the place all time but to my mind they seemed to like it.

Years back when, the firm made it's presence felt in the town by the factory hooter which droned across the Taw first thing in the morning, lunchtime and home time.  Daily, my neighbour, Ernie Smale and his colleagues would get on their bikes and make a dash to get over there before the second hooter sounded five minutes later.  The lunchtime hooter would signal a hectic mass pedal back across the bridge which resembled a sprint finish in the Milk race.
They always had the best float in the carnival and their Christmas display was second to none, a true sign that the festive season was upon us.

My own experiences of Shaplands was limited somewhat to the Shappies Social club whose Friday night dos were legendary as they were always a good crowd who worked over there. A proper merry Bunch although I gather that mat have had something to do with the thinners that were used in polishing up the doors. A more raucous evening would have been hard to find. I had some fine old times down there listening to those fine purveyors of scrumpy and western, Shag Connors and the Carrot Crunchers, Jethro before he became world famous and other luminaries of the West Country club circuit like Adge Cutler and his then little known backing band the Wurzels.  A rare old time and  was always on the cards.

Another notable contribution Shaplands made to the town comes in the guise of shovehappeny. Many of the workers played in the leagues, they knew their wood almost spiritually and they were skilled at playing with the grain in order to get the rub of the board. They also knew what lacquers and spirits to apply to a board in order to give it a more "competitive" finish.  Our own family board that was crafted  by a master french polisher, who did a bit of moonlighting producing custom made boards and whose tips on how to maintain them have made ours the envy of the many folk who have been invited to play on it
How can a supermarket and some highly expensive flats ever make such a contribution to the life of a Town? Fact of the matter is it can't . Sad but true.

Here are some recently discovered photos illustrating some of S&P's fine contribution to the commercial architecture of the Town

Interior of the Gaumont, Classic and now Scott's Cinema which was fitted out by Shappies notice the fine period doors












I think that these are the original doors which they have just replaced. Typical.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Is it last orders at the Inn on the Square?

Crying shame that's all I can say. Well not quite.  Tuesday night me, Charlie Street and old Stokey turned up outside the Inn on the Square, Golden lion tap, Mugfords whatever you call it, to find that it was all shut up. We'd gone down there to have a bit of a darts practice as we have a mind to get the old legendary team back together again, the Tangerine Dreamers who latterly morphed into the Ebberley Archers as we were playing out of the Ebberley Arms back then. Knowing that the GLT had quite a good board, although the oche is a bit skew-whiff, and an electronic scoreboard so you don't have to do any sums we arranged  to head down over there with our new darts which I bought over at Lidls last Thursday, quality German tooling at superb prices. I am obviously not spending out too much at this juncture, I'll bide me time and see if we can get back to a competitive standard before popping in to Apex Sports and investing in state of the art arrows. The other advantage with the GLT was that in the week there's hardly anyone in the place so as we are trying to keep this operation hush hush, under wraps so to speak, we could have a couple of games of mickey mouse without being seen. I do pop in there from time to time as I like to sit in the window and have a good old gawp at what's occurring on the square. Apart from the odd dipso coach tripper, who has regretted signing up to the Shearing's  Charity Shops of Barnstaple excursion and has taken themselves off for a quick pint, before heading back to 'Combe and the Dilkhusa Grand for supper, the place is often empty, especially at this time of year. I've heard it does tend to get busy at holiday times when the youngsters and students come home. Presently though, I always wonder how it manages to stay open. It obviously doesn't.
So there we were stood outside, arrows in hand wondering where to go next  when Wes Twardo walked past with his son and daughter in law. Wes looked a bit sheepish, he'd been found out. He was supposed to be coming along to the darts practice but cried off saying he felt a bit poorly.  Anyway he said he was going to Lilico's. Lilico's blimey!  I tagged along. Why not seeing as I'd never been in the place. I never thought it was for us sort of old boys, those who don't quite brush up that well even at the best of times and who don't tend to stand on ceremony.  Stokey and Charlie Street shuffled back up to the Marshals for a pint of Steradent as Wes's boy insisted that was all they served up there.
Tell you the truth turned out it not too bad in there, a young crowd but they all seemed very welcoming. As they don't sell draught cider  I opted for a glass of San Miquel.  Me and Wes took ourselves off and sat in the corner of the window and looked out on the Square. From what we could gather no one seemed to know what was going on at the GLT. Of course after a few pints of export continental lager Wes and I began to reminisce. We remembered that back in the day, when it was Mugford's Golden Lion Tap we used to go in there quite a bit for a pint of Devenish ale or a firkin of the unbranded cloudy cider poured from a gurt barrel propped up on the bar. This was before it was all opened out and refurbished in the 80's and the Mugford's name was dropped. I remember two small front bars one of which looked like someone's front room and a games room out back. There were other rooms as the place was a regular warren of locked rooms, store rooms and other vestibules. Upstairs they had a grand, mirrored, etched glass paneled meeting room. Looking back the place would have probably fared better if they'd stuck to the original design especially in these straightened times. While we were yacking on, I remembered Pearl the barmaid who had a heart of gold and had never quite forgotten the time years before when she was the apple of the eye of a few of the GI's based down at Raleigh Meadow. A local forces sweetheart was Pearl, the Rita Hayworth of Yeo Vale. She was always dressed up to the nines, garishly made up and I vividly recall her often modeling a luridly coloured floral jumpsuit.
The Satans Slaves - well known local hard nuts
 Another couple of pints prompted us to remember the gleaming rows of motorbikes that would be lined up outside every Sunday afternoon as the pub became the meeting place for the local road rats. At the time I had a James 90 lovely old British bike but only a moped compared to the machines lined up on the pavement. All sorts of classic British bikes. At lunch closing time they would tear off up the A377 to Eggesford Forest where often as not they had a dust up with the Satan Slaves who rode up from Exeter to head them off. They would invariably retreat in the face of their much feared and infamous adversaries, turning back up in Barum in dribs and drabs throughout the afternoon. After parking their bikes up once more outside Mugford's and contenting themselves comparing machines,  doing burn ups along the Strand or Taw Vale and recounting exaggerated tales of derrin' do from that afternoon's run down the Taw valley.
We watched all these comings and goings with increasing amusement from Divito's Ice Cream Parlour front window. It was then we realised why the aspect out upon which we were gawping looked so familiar we'd found ourselves that very evening sitting in that exact same spot. Lilico's is on the site of Divito's. Although apart from the view you wouldn't know it. I thought Divito's was where we sat, Wes thought it was on the other side by the bar.The current layout of the place is obviously the original one and at some point way back when someone divided the place into smaller premises, Divito's occupying one of them. But despite of us going outside and trying to figure out the exact location of DiVito's I said in one window he said the other and we also to pressed the staff into providing an answer but they looked at us as if we were crazed and maybe regretted letting us in the place, we just couldn't see eye to eye on the matter.  I reckon I'm right. So as soon as possible I'm off down to the library to do a bit of research in one of the many books of old photos they have down there. Anyway we agreed to disagree and finished up the evening discussing an idea of writing a a book together on the history of Barnstaple as told through it's pubs or maybe something entitled, 'The Disappearing Pubs of Barum'. Now that is definitely something to look into.

A customer complaint.


Nothing like making your point succinctly and directly. This message was posted on the wall outside the driver's office at the bus station. Obviously not too much book learning going on there or maybe they were just deliberately saving on spray paint. Fair 'nough.

Thursday 3 March 2011