Basics

People

Properties

Can You Help?

Roads Off

Janet's Research

Sources & More

Douglas Chinnery's Memories of 1950s and 1960s Brentford

The Beehive was grandad’s local. Indeed as a child I thought that the generic name for pubs was beehives as that was the one which was mentioned. When I was a child I went to buy his bottle of Guinness each evening for him, keeping the bottle deposit as my fee. But at the age of nine the law was changed and I was no longer able to buy it for him and so lost my pocket money!

My father was Alfred Chinnery born and bred in Brentford, living his early life in Town Close, near the ferry to Kew. He lived there for most of his early years before moving to a new council estate in Isleworth.

My grandfather was a Dorey, I do not what his forename was. He was always Pop to me as I am to my grandchildren. He came from a family of boatees and was the first of his family to leave the canal, but he did not go far working in the docks at Brentford.

My mother’s family were brought up in New Spring Gardens, just off the High Street, and we lived with there with my grandparents, for a while before one of the other houses became vacant and we moved across the alley. Other houses up there were occupied by some of my aunts and uncles.

Links

Top

Published October 2019