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Brentford Families - Pitcher

My maternal grandparents George & Isabel Pitcher lived at 38 Clifden Road. They bought the plot, had the house designed, built and moved in, in Dec.1925.

Isabel had attended Ealing Road School as did my mother Renee, subsequently. My mother married my father Eric BALDWIN in April 1941 at St. Paul's Brentford and we came back to live at Brentford in 1950, initially staying with George & Isabel until we moved to 41 Hamilton Road in early 1951.

My father was very accomplished at DIY and amongst other things, built the brick wall (and adjacent coke bunker) in the picture (between the back gardens of 41 & 43) and also built the front brick walls of 41 & 43 (adjacent to the pavement), if they are still there. At the time Mr & Mrs WILTSHIRE lived at No. 43.

George & Isabel moved to Portsmouth from Clifden Road in late 1951 and we moved from Hamilton Road to Orpington in Apr.1956.

Family associations with Brentford go back even earlier than 1925, because Isabel's parents James & Isabella FORD, lived at Rose Cottages, Ealing Road in the early 1900s. Rose Cottages were on the north side of Ealing Road School. The Rose Cottages site later became the Dome Garage (SE corner of the Ealing Road junction with the Great West Road). From memory, I think the Dome Garage also occupied the NW corner of that junction.

James Ford and Thomas Pitcher (George's father) were both "at The Fountain" and became founding members of Brentford Market in 1893 and that's where George & Isabel first met in the years leading up to WW1. George took over his father's stand after WW1 and finally left Brentford Market in 1938, when he moved to Spitalfields Market.

1953 birthday photo

Page published September 2011