Marlborough Tower & Town: The Magazine Of Marlborough's Community And Churches

Tower and Town, July 2019

Family News

Many of us have fond memories of Alan Jewell when he was Head of Preshute School from 1976 until 1992. Sadly he died on March 27th leaving his wife, Sarah, his two children and four grandchildren. We send our sincere sympathy to all the family.

John Bower may be the only D-day veteran in Marlborough now. He thoroughly enjoyed joining in the ceremony at Portsmouth on the anniversary of the D-day landings. He went with Babs and their family, Brian and Jane, and stayed in a holiday let from Tuesday until Thursday. They joined his former comrades for the 75th Anniversary Parade. He was interviewed for BBC news, and shook hands with Teresa May and Emmanuel Macron, the French President. He had not accepted the British Legion’s invitation to board M V Boudicca to spend several days attending ceremonies in France. Had he not been in Portsmouth, Marlborough Town Council had hoped he would join them at their wreath laying ceremony on the Common where the US Army hospital had been. John is rightly proud of his role in keeping Hitler out of our country. He was still busy selling poppies outside Waitrose last November 11th.

Ian Philpott sent in the following:

On 29 May, the town turned out in large numbers to say farewell to its much-loved former Town Crier & Beadle Alf Johnson.

Crowds lined the streets around the Town Hall and applauded as Alf made his final journey following a fitting tribute at St. Mary’s. The service reflected his involvement in a remarkable number of local activities in his lifetime and included his time as Tower Captain of the Bell Ringers at St. Mary’s; musician with Marlborough Town Band, Kennet Vale Band, St. Mary’s Church Band and the Territorial Army Band of the 4th Wiltshire Regiment; as a long-time volunteer at the Jubilee Centre; a leading light in the Kennet Singers; chorister at St. Mary’s and treading the boards with the town’s Amateur Dramatic and Operatic Society.

Alf also had a lifelong interest in Marlborough’s Mop Fairs and used to give talks to local groups on their ancient history. He made intricate, fully-working models of some of the rides, side stalls and transport.

Alf spent all his working life in the town: at Redwood Brothers Gentlemen’s Outfitters in Kingsbury Street; as a shoe repairer for Mundy & Sons; as an accomplished leather-worker for F J Chandler, the renowned Saddlers at number 1, London Road; as a postman for the Royal Mail and delivery driver for Hayden’s Bakery.

It will be as Town Crier that he will be best remembered. Over the 21 years that he did the job, he revived the ancient duty of ringing his bell and proclaiming the news of forthcoming events to all those in the High Street. He made over 200 of these shouts and also reintroduced one of the centuries-old roles of the Town Crier, that being as the town’s official ale tester visiting all of the town’s hostelries on one single evening. Not bad for someone who was teetotal!

With all that he achieved it came as no surprise when in 2014 he was declared Marlborough’s Citizen of the Year!

Jessy Pomfret

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