The stone building was formerly Lyneham Stores
in 1956 selling cooked meat, groceries and parrafin
to villagers. The shop keepers were Mr and Mrs Frank
Kerton. who opened one of the first ever supermarkets
-- then called "Self Service Stores" -- in the West
Country, replacing the shop that had been in the front
room at 45 Church End.
Nigel Kerton, son of Mr and
Mrs Kerton recalls his memories of the shop - "I can
remember officers remonstrating with lesser ranks actually
inside my parents' shop for not saluting them. I also
recall the winter of 1963 when Lyneham was cut off
for days and suppliers did not get through to the shop
with their own vehicles for weeks and I believe the
RAF actually laid on some six wheel drive trucks to
bring supplies in."
We served paraffin from a tank at
the bottom of a large garden behind the shop and we
were unable to reach it because of about five-six feet
of snow. When an officer maoned that he needed paraffin
urgently to heat his home, my father gave hiim a shovel
(I recall he was the husband of one of the shop assistants
called Marian Biggs). About tow hours later, red in
the face and puffing like a steam train, the officer
came back in the shop and said: "I have dug a path
through to the tank!. I was in my early teens and
I delivered boxes of groceries to outlying farms including
Park Farm on the Dauntsey Road and to Tockenham...
those were the days. Quite a few RAF personnel got
about by ski. " With thanks to Nigel Kerton for sharing
these memories.
In the background stands the former Lyneham
School which
eventually
through
large pupil numbers was moved to the newly built
school in Preston Lane. The school building was used
by Aqua Data
Services, an established company specialising in
instrumentation for monitoring inland and coastal waters.
This company
moved to Townsend Court, Poulshot, Devizes in September
2007. |
