Recalling Collings and co

His father Oliver was also a farmer and a regular customer of the firm who knew many of those in the picture. Russell can also remember some and the new workshop being built in Sun Street (now Preens).

“In the middle row, third right next to Gordon Dilley is Jim Grenfell, office clerk. He had a set of false teeth which he would roll around his mouth to the amusement of my father” says Russell.

“Bill Hitchcock (back row, first left) was head welder. He was very possessive of his company welder but he allowed me to practice with it as we only had a small welder at the farm.”

Russell also remembers Maurice Albone (next to Bill), who he thinks went on to run the town’s taxi firm; Terry Hutchinson, store manager (front row, first left) and Chalky White (front row, third left), a keen snooker player who emigrated to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon).

“Eric Sparrow (middle row, fourth left) went on to work at Bowmans in Hitchin and Alec Reid (front row, third right) became a teacher at Sandy School in Engayne Avenue. He taught my son engineering” says Russell.

Russell also knew Alec Collings’ son Ron very well (back row, fourth left) and Ron’s sister Sylvia, now Brinkley.

“Alec always used to wear a trilby. You rarely saw him without one. He would go around the farms on a motorbike with his toolbox in the sidecar mending tractors. Other times the sidecar was used for his wife!”

Like the Collings family, Russell’s great grandfather originally came from Cornwall. “Alec had a house in London Road called Tremade next to the BP garage on the corner of Dunton Lane, now demolished” says Russell.

Alec later moved to The Willows in Ickwell and his daughter Sylvia still lives in the village.

“Sylvia’s son Mark farms at Meppershall, which Alec used to own” says Russell.

“I remember Alec loved cars. One of his favourites was a black Buick. He also liked Austins and bought a lot of cars from Austin dealer Owen Godfrey on the corner of Dunton Road.”

Alec’s father Lewis Herbert had a radio shop on the corner of Hitchin Street, L.H. Collings Radio. Alec’s brother Ralph later took over.

Of Lewis’s seven sons, Russell also recalls Gerald Collings, a machinery dealer who had one son, and Norman and Gordon Collings who owned a tractor dealership at Abbotsley, “on the right hand side between Waresley and Eltisely”. He believes Gordon had four sons.

Russell still has a 1962 tractor from H.A. Collings.