Mrs Peddle and me

The re-imagined story …

Life’s circumstances can create some unusual friendships. In the case of Mrs Peddle and me it was the death of our husbands.

We didn’t have a lot in common. Mrs Peddle had money and I didn’t. I had a houseful of children and she had none.

I don’t think she much enjoyed living in Swindon. She told me she was born in a village called Keinton Mandeville in Somerset and she was a country girl at heart. Her back garden was full of old fashioned country flowers like night scented stock and grandmother’s bonnet. My garden was always full of washing.

I’d never known anywhere other than Swindon. I’d been born in the railway village and lived there until I got married. My dad was a railwayman and so was his dad and just about all the boys I grew up with ended up working in the railway factory. My husband Fred was a steam hammerman.

I don’t know why Mr and Mrs Peddle moved to Swindon in the first place. Mr Peddle had worked as a house painter and decorator. Perhaps he looked at all those red brick terrace houses and thought there would be plenty of work for him, but of course everyone took care of their own properties in those days. Few of us had the money for an interior decorator. So like every other man in town, Mr Peddle found himself sucked into the railway works.

Mrs Peddle would come across to my house most afternoons. She seemed to enjoy the noise and chaos the children created and I was grateful for someone to hold the baby while I caught up with some household jobs.

Then afterwards we’d have a cup of tea and we’d talk. We’d talk about really personal stuff, things I’d never spoken to anyone else about. She told me why she’d never had any children and I told her why I had so many.

Before the year was out I married William, one of Fred’s friends, and moved into his house in Clifton Street. He had lost his wife around the same time Fred died. I needed a breadwinner and he needed a mother for his children. More kids! And we soon had one of our own together.

After that I only saw Mrs Peddle occasionally. The intimacy of those few months in 1911 was gone. I’m not sure that either of us wanted to be reminded about some of those confidences we shared.

It’s a funny old world. Death drew us together but life pulled us apart.

The facts …

Emily Jane Louisa was baptised on August 27, 1865 at the parish church in Keinton Mandeville, Somerset, the daughter of John Cox, a labourer and his wife Matilda. Emily worked as a dressmaker until her marriage to James Peddle in the September quarter of 1887.

At the time of the 1891 census James was recorded as living at No. 12 York Place, Swindon, where he worked as a painter and glazier. On census night 1891 Emily was staying with her widowed mother back home in Keinton. By 1901 James and Emily were living at 76 Radnor Street, their home for more than ten years. On the 1911 census James is described as a house painter employed by the railway company. James and Emily had been married for 23 years and had no children.

James died on August 4, 1911 and was buried in plot D1473 on August 9.

In 1916 Emily married widower John Parker, a carpenter who worked in the railway factory. His wife Eliza had died in December 1914. John and Emily lived at 33 Wellington Street.

It was a brief marriage as Emily died on November 15, 1919. She was buried on November 21 with her first husband James Peddle in plot D1473.

John Parker outlived Emily by more than 30 years. He died on November 17, 1952 and was buried with his first wife Eliza in plot D1302, not too far from James and Emily.

John and Eliza Parker share their grave with their grandson Alan Parker who died in 1931 aged 8 years old.

Image published courtesy of Robin Earle taken in the 1980s.