Interview with Mike Blackmore December 2025 by Anne Stone
I’ve lived in Clutton for sixty years and first remember the village from when I was around twelve or thirteen. We used to come over to the village hall from Temple Cloud to play snooker and play cards in the back room.
I lived in Temple Cloud until I got married in 1959. To start with I lived at the police station. My dad was Sergeant Blackmore until he retired in 1947 and then we lived in Cameley Road. Temple Cloud was very peaceful and quiet, it was just lovely. At the station the other policeman used to play and make things for me. The police station was divided in two. My dad and family lived in one side of the police station; the side nearest the church, and another policeman lived the other side. They covered an area, so dad had a car to get around. There was a policeman from Paulton, one from High Littleton, one from Compton Martin I think, so it covered quite a large area. The court and the cells were still in use, a magistrate used to come - and I used to have my birthday parties in the courtroom. During the war, when there were air raids, we stayed in the cells because they were the safest part of the building, very solidly built. I remember standing outside the police station watching the german planes going over, but I don’t remember any bombs or anything.
When I did my national service, we were supposed to get posted to Germany but there was a national rail strike on. That meant that no one could get to the camp to catch the ship. So instead, we were posted to Hong Kong for eighteen months. Most national service didn’t go that far. I was a driver, so used to drive to Kowloon and the new territories, servicemen were posted all around there. We could even see the Chinese guards on the border.
School - I went to the primary school over the road, a very pleasant little school. Most children came from Temple Cloud, a few from Clutton and Hinton Blewitt as well. And it was good fun, not really strict. I liked winter. The playground was on a slope and we made it like an ice rink! The Head teacher was Miss Brookman, I think Clarice. We knew all the kids, everyone played in the fields together, and both Clutton and Temple kids went to the Secondary Modern at Timsbury. The brainy ones went to Norton Hill if they passed the exam. So the coach picked us up in Temple, went along the main road and then down Station Road, up Clutton Hill and that way. Everybody knew everybody. We used to play in the two quarries along Eastcourt Road, one was at least 60 feet deep. Your parents didn’t say don’t go and nobody ever fell in. Right along the end was the old aircraft factory. I remember seeing carriers going along Eastcourt Road with the wings of planes on them , being transported. It was surprising what was back in there being manufactured. It was quite important, so tucked back into the hill. The glass factory used to make cats' eyes for the road.
House in Clutton - I have brilliant neighbours here. When we first moved in here, we didn’t have the wall then, and people used to walk from Clutton to Temple Cloud & back. If I was in the garden, I couldn’t get any work done because people would stop & talk. We got married in St Augustine’s church and had our reception in the big hut that was by the entrance to Batch farm. My wife was a Clutton girl. She lived in one of the cottages along Northend. Her dad worked at Tyre soles where they used to retread tyres. He rode a bike there every day.
Shops / businesses -There were lots of shops in Temple & Clutton. In Temple, there was Chivers running the butchers, a newspaper agent with all the bits & pieces and the hairdresser. Then there was the garage as well. The Free’s had the coal merchants and leading down to Peterside there was a builders. He had a two storey place there & used to make coffins, the lot. Cecil Smith was his name. There was a general stores, Dando’s, where the Old Store’s place is now, a shoe repairer, sweets etc. On the green there was a telephone exchange and garden. Osmonds timber merchants was at Paulwood drive and a mine shaft went from there down to the old iron mine on the Cameley Road. In Clutton there was about half a dozen shops, including the sweet shop by the Railway pub, an ironmongers. And when Valley view was built, there was a chappie up the top that had a shop, Ron Harris, and he owned some land there and he had the shop built because of Valley View. It was a very good shop for a long, long time, selling groceries, newsagent, the lot. And everybody used it. The post office was opposite the school. I remember the trains along the line, goods trains I believe, the passengers had more or less stopped, I think ‘59 or 60.
There was talk of a Temple Cloud bypass back when my dad was in the police force, going in by the Warwick and coming down by Temple Bridge, but I don’t think it’ll happen now.
Housing - Carlton Close was started and built back in 1968. We had no notification; we got up one morning, we thought whatever is going on down there – it was all being laid out. That was a bit naughty! The field it was built on belonged to the farm – Jeff Willcox. Rogers Close & Moorsfield were already there. Venus Lane – there was the cottages obviously, the bungalow next to the shop and the bungalow where Rick Sage lives. And that’s all there was in Venus Lane, nothing else when we moved here. The allotments were all over there, all being used until Valley view was built on them in about’63, three years before we moved here.
Pubs - You weren’t allowed into pubs until you were eighteen and because everyone knew your age, you couldn’t get away with it. I used to get taken to the Temple Inn opposite when I was very young. My mum and dad used to go around in the back room and have a drink, so I used to go with them. There was the large pub room behind but there was a proper farm as well. The farm was in the pub. Dennis Chard had it, and it was his mother’s before that. He took over as landlord and he was also the farmer. So you went out the back of the pub and through some farm buildings. Then you had the yard where the cows came in to be milked, a proper farm. Then there was only Oaklands on the left hand side, nothing else, not even Goldney House. That was built when the workhouse closed. No children in there then in the ‘50s, ‘60s, one chap the same age as me maybe.
There was also the Plough along towards Hallatrow, the Crosskeys on the Lower Bristol Road, The Warwick, The Hunter, the Railway - all drinking pubs, the favourites were the Warwick & the Railway.
GP surgery - You used to go up the stairs outside and go in. The waiting room was in front. In the middle of the room was a table with an ashtray in the centre and everybody sat around smoking. Then you went along the passage, past the dispensary in the middle and the doctor was on the end. Nothing was used by the surgery on the ground floor. The doctor lived next door in Humphreston House. You could go up and get tablets or cough mixture at the back door of the doctors, so different than today. He did rounds as well, visiting patients. That all changed when Neil Marshall came and he had it all altered.
Churches - There was St Barnabas C of E next to the police station, & the one at Cameley, the one in Clutton and then there was the Methodists on the main road, the Congregational up next to Clutton school, all running back then.
Clutton Horticultural Show - I was chairman of the Flower show for three years back in the 70s. It was massive in those days. Over the field you used to have a great big marquee with local traders – people that used to sell cookers & all that sort of thing. Then in the far corner, it used to be the caravan club which used to come. Across the road, they used to have the donkey derby. There was evening entertainment laid on, even wrestling. The flower show itself was the main attraction, loads and loads of it, there was so much competition between people.
Employment - I worked all my working life at Purnell’s in Paulton. I started when I was 15. It was a great place to work, you wouldn’t get a place like it today. In its heyday, there were about 3000 people who worked there. I was an engineer. I did my apprenticeship there and stayed in the role all my life as a printer’s engineer, looking after everything, all the workshop as well as lathes and mills and all that sort of stuff. A responsible position, I retired in 97 and it wasn’t too long after that it all folded. I was lucky.
Recreation - We always used to go to Bristol for the cinema. Before I had a car, to get from here to Bath, you had to go from here to Bristol. So it was easy to just go straight to Bristol. The buses used to run every half an hour, at 10 past and 20 to the hour. People didn’t really go to Norton for anything because there was no transport there. We used to get food from the local shops. My mum used to go up & order her stuff from the shop and they used to deliver. Paulwood was large and beautiful, lots of wild daffodils until the wood was cleared, not sure why.
I was a member of the Clutton Pirates speedway team back then. Our track was in the quarry on Eastcourt road, no brakes or gears and rode around the village on the bikes as well! We were Somerset champions twice.