Carrs – the Butchers

Just when Howard Keel was getting his deep baritone voice around ‘Bless your beautiful hide’ in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in the fifties, so Robert Lionel Gillson Carr (Bob) and his wife Elizabeth (Betty) had brought their seven daughters to Market Deeping where they set up shop on the Market Place. The butcher’s shop now proudly bearing the name R.L Carr and the telephone number 276 had been a butcher’s for years before – the name Shuttlewood was still discernible on the window. It occupied a large plot stretching down to the river by the Coach House and included the site where Linfords Fish and Chip Shop is now, which was the sitting room, and was extended to include a sizeable bake-house and slaughterhouse at the rear. Bob also had another shop in Lincoln Road, Peterborough. He moved his young family from the Chestnuts in Peakirk, where they had lived since ’47 to Deeping in 1952. Eventually Bob sold the Peterborough shop.

But while butchery was Bob’s stock in trade, his first love, inherited from his father, was for horses, and it was opportune that the Market Deeping property included three loose boxes and a store. It was here that he kept Ruby the hunter on which he rode to hounds with the Cottesmore. He was also a familiar figure at the point-to-point meetings in the district, riding Scarlet Viking, one of his school of ponies which he would transport using the same horse box in which he would bring cattle back from the Monday market at Stamford. No surprise, then, that Maggie McKay (née Holmes), who was bought up at the Imperial Café at the time, remembers him always wearing his riding boots. Ethel Webber

Silver was the most popular of all of the ponies in the stables, bought from Mr Tebbs of Deeping St James originally for Pauline, the eldest, but all of the girls, when considered old enough to ride at age seven, learnt on Silver before graduating to their own ponies. Reported in a local paper, Bob sustained head injuries when returning from the Leicester races in his shooting brake – he collided with a six-wheel lorry just outside Tallington near the Dow-mac gravel pit entrance. Fortunately he was only in Peterborough Memorial Hospital for a week before returning home and to work. Bob then went on to ride at the Fitzwilliam point-to-point with 40 stitches in his head!

Bob Carr’s father, Robert William, was the first of three sons born to Robert and Jane Carr (née Gillson) and was baptised in 1884 at Witham on the Hill. He had started his career in butchery working for Samuel Maylon in Great Shelford. He later moved to Leeds where he worked for Dewhurst the Butcher, and it was here that he had met Ethel Webber, a very talented milliner who had made hats for Queen Victoria and who had a position at Schofield’s, the premier department store in the city. They married at Leeds Emmanuel Church in 1908. A Sergeant during the First World War, he served in the 14 th Northumberland Fusiliers based in Melton Mowbray. As well as being a farrier he trained horses to pull gun carriages and was involved in the procurement of local horses for the war effort.

Robert William and Ethel had nine children, all treated by their Victorian father as little soldiers, a regime that Robert Lionel rebelled against; he absconded twice, once at twelve and again at 16 when he went to London and worked for a butcher, but was brought home by his mother. When he did finally leave home he rented a small wooden shop in a Bedfordshire village near Luton Hoo. On one notable occasion he had taken his Reliant Robin to collect eggs from a local farmer. Using a washing basket for the job, all was going well until he saw the local hunt and followed it, when he did finally get back to the shop all the eggs were broken!

Bob met his wife Elizabeth Knott in Skegness where she worked with a friend, Elsie, in Woolworths. Betty’s family had been surgical instrument manufacturers in a cottage industry in Sheffield. After their wedding in

Spilsby they lived in Spring Gardens, Spalding, where Bob became a butchery manager.

Eventually Robert William opened a butcher’s shop in East End, Langtoft, and after his divorce from Ethel married Nelly. Ethel then spent time with all her children but especially Eileen who had settled In Peterborough, and Ethel returned to her old trade working in a department store in the city.

It was at this time that Robert Lionel’s brother Frank became a stuntman driving a horse-drawn coach in the 1945 film The Wicked Lady with Margaret Lockwood. He was involved with the procurement of horses for the film industry at Elstree, after becoming a jockey and later a doubleglazing salesman. the few with TV at the time. The wet day hadn’t stopped the community entering into the spirit of the day with a Tug o’ War across the river, a beauty pageant won by Pauline’s friend Elizabeth Smith, and a parade led by Pauline on Ruby and Janet on Silver, both wearing heralds’ costumes made of felt – the girls became multi-coloured later when the dye of the felt ran in the rain!

Gillian Berry, née Witt, who lived at 4 High St (on the site of the Iron Horse) remembers being friends with Joan whose bedroom was slightly removed from the rest of the family over the archway. This allowed for some late-night shenanigans worthy of an Enid Blyton Famous Five story; Gillian remembers when the two of them quietly stole down into the shop in the dead of night, grabbed some sausages and then returned to the bedroom where they cooked them on the primus stove! Then as dawn was breaking the two would make off down the river in a canoe!

Meanwhile, Robert Lionel and his family were enjoying a riotous life in Market Deeping. On one notable occasion Bob had driven the trailer to Stamford market where he had bought a bullock. On the way home there had been a bump in the trailer but it wasn’t until he had arrived home that he realised that the bullock had gone missing. The following spring local farmer Erick Hinch asked if the bullock had ever been found. No, came the answer, but Erick was not surprised, it was the only explanation for the bullock grazing with his heifers at Ryhall. How it had crossed the railway line continues a matter for conjecture. On another occasion Pauline chased an errant sheep that had got away, first onto an air raid shelter at the back of the premises, then onto a muck heap and then it jumped into the river, Pauline in hot pursuit. Eventually she had to let go but the sheep calmly got out of the river and into the field on the opposite bank. The family were living in Deeping at the time of the Coronation, and many gathered in their house to watch the proceedings on the TV as they were one of Janet, Julie and Joan all attended the Endowed School in Market Deeping presided over by Miss Moffatt. Pauline was employed in the business along with Mrs Medcalf and a housekeeper to help with chores. Deliveries were taken out to the villages by Pauline, either in the converted

Austin van with double doors in the back or in the Ford. She would travel to Greatford Hall where she delivered to Mrs Dowsett of Dow-mac concrete fame. Slaughterhouse men would come to despatch the animals and Peter Duffin, youngest son of the late Mr Duffin of Stamford Road and Mrs Brightman worked alongside Bob in the shop, later going to open his own shop in Bourne. Two years after starting work at Carrs in September 1958 Peter married Dorothy Andrews who was employed at the Bluebird Café across the road. Peter had given his wife a gold watch as a wedding present which she wore on the day with her pink floral nylon gown paired with a white hat and accessories and carrying red and white carnations. Carole Patman, her niece, was bridesmaid, wearing a blue nylon dress with a matching feather headdress and carrying pink carnations. Her diamante necklace was a gift from the bridegroom. The organist was Mr E .Bullimore. After a reception for 30 guests at the bride’s home in High Street, Maxey, the happy couple left for a honeymoon in Wells, the bride wearing an oatmeal suit with white accessories for travelling. They were to set up home at 31 High Street Maxey. The shop opened from Tuesday until Saturday, Monday being market day. Beef would be hung for a week before being ready for sale and the shop also sold lamb and pork. Miles of sausages would be made and sold and pork pies were made in Pauline, Susan, Diane, Joan holding the reins of Silver on Market Deeping bridge. Before Pauline passed her driving test she used this pony and cart to deliver meat to the Milton Estate from the Peterborough shop.

the bakehouse – everything was fresh and nothing pre-packed. The shop itself was resplendent with white tiles, and there was a traditional butcher’s block which would be scraped clean before being washed with scalding hot water and soda; Bob was scrupulously clean. Christmas was remembered as a very busy time with all hands to the pump plucking chickens, geese and cockerels.

Pauline tried her hand at rearing pigs herself – first given a recklin or a runt of the litter by Reg Addy. Not considered good enough to eat, the pig was sold at market having added to the general mayhem by taking all the clothes off the line. The proceeds bought an in-pig gelt but unfortunately there wasn’t enough milk for all the piglets which died, and Pauline was left with the big old sow in the stables.

18 Research: Pauline Butler, Joy Baxter, Gillian Berry (nee Witt) Words: Judy Stevens When meat came off ration regulations were put into place to modernise the buildings before a licence could be given for the slaughterhouse. Changing rooms and loos had to be built for the slaughterhouse men, and the old wooden block and other elements of the shop changed to stainless steel. All of these improvements ate into Bob’s capital and so with a heavy heart he sold his business. He went to work for Bakers, a wholesale butchery in Northamptonshire. Not used to working for someone else, Bob tried again to strike out on his own and acquired a little shop in a back street in Far Cotton. The couple went on to take the Nevill Arms at Medbourne and had a mobile shop before taking on the old Co-op shop, also in Medbourne. The couple celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1984 with a family party held at their old pub, the Nevill Arms at Medbourne where they had been licensees for more than a decade. Six of their seven daughters assembled for the event. Jane had moved to the USA to realise her dream of becoming a top model and a high flying friend of the stars, including Frank Sinatra and Pavarotti, and was unable to be present. Susan, who had made the cake, had been a nurse at Stamford Hospital, later moving to the Brompton Hospital in London. Julie worked with horses with Major Cavanagh and later moved to Illinois. Her son, Samuel G. Thrasher, was proudly involved in the Apollo 11 project. Janet became a hairdresser having trained with Sybil Crane in Peterborough. Diane, the youngest, took up a career in horticulture and after attending Brooksby College worked at Rockingham Castle. Joan had been a companion/help with Mike Vergette for his family and stables, later marrying the trainer Jack Calvert based at Hambleton House, Sutton Bank in Thirsk. Joan came second on Kulaunmidza in the Newmarket Town Plate run on the Rowley Mile, a race created for ladies by Charles 11. After ladies were allowed to race Joan was the first lady on the flat and cousin Evonne, the first lady over hurdles.. On June 15 th 1974 Joan won the Ragusta Plate at York races on Desperate D trained by husband Jack Calvert. Pauline had gone to Switzerland to look after five eventing horses for two owners. Here she met Pat Smyth, the first British lady Olympian and Pauline returned to the UK to work in her stables near Cirencester for three years before back pain rendered the work untenable. The family remain close, holding a reunion at the Stage in October 2017, 26 years after Bob died, and they are still involved with horses; Janet’s daughter Katy Addy of Frognall trains Connemara ponies from Ireland. Jane achieved her ambition to become a model in the USA

Pauline with Pat Smythe at the Horse of the Year Show in the Personality Parade with Scorchin, Border Terrier Fena on Pat’s knee.