Jack Smith & Son Butcher.

Jack Smith & Son Butcher.

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Originally I knew this butchers shop as Dudley Sims Butchers. Dudley Sims was what is termed as a gentleman farmer, with quite a large farm at Dorney Reach. He also had a second butchers shop in Maidenhead. He lived with his family at Georgian House in Maidenhead Court. Located on the Lower Cookham Road at the corner of Islet Park.

Behind the shop at one time of course was the village slaughter house, but that had closed down before I was born. Though I do remember very well the pheasants and partridges in season hanging from the shop front awning. Then it would be geese and poultry at Christmas time.

Jack Smith was with Dudley Sims for quite awhile, together with Dick Brown, who lived with his family of all girls except for his only son Bob. Who when he left the top school went as an apprentice Dental Technician in Maidenhead. The eldest of the girls were Ena who worked as a pearl stringer for E.T. Biggs, the jeweller in Maidenhead. Joyce was well known as a local bar-maid. Then the youngest was Rita, what Rita did when she left school I do not recall.

One other thing that I remember quite well was during the war a large bomb was dropped very close to the railway bridge over the Thames, which now part of the Golf Course. A fragment of that bomb landed in the High Street just outside the shop. This Jack Smith displayed in the shop window for quite sometime.