When Frankwell was like The Wild West

THE VEGGIEBURGER and cheesy chips seemed rather decadent at 4.30 on a Saturday afternoon, but, I have to say, they were very good indeed.

And it was too early (for me, at least) to be drinking alcohol. And so, having been somewhat dazzled by the amazing variety of drinks on offer, I went for a ginger beer float (ginger beer crowned with a generous dollop of ice cream).

This, of course, is not everyone’s, er, cup of tea, but I found it very refreshing.

We were in Franks (yes, I know, it is the Frank bar and diner, strictly speaking, but everyone seems to call it Franks.) And then you get into that whole argument about whether there should be an apostrophe in there, but I’m pretty sure it’s not Frank’s as in a diner that belongs to a bloke called Frank. I think it’s just Frank as in Frankwell, that mysterious, historic, haunted bit of Shrewsbury, just over the Welsh Bridge.

It was while sitting there with my sons and a couple of friends, trying to look sophisticated as I sipped my ginger beer float, that I looked out of the window at the old Welsh Bridge and began remembering what my dad, a Frankwell boy, used to say about this part of the town.

Our dad (he passed away in 2007) told us that when he was growing up ‘between the wars’ Frankwell was a close-knit community with a strong Welsh element. He also used to refer to it as ‘the Wild West’ – a part of the town where fights broke out frequently between the young men, where there was a great deal of drinking and womanising, and where you had to be tough to survive.

Only separated from the town by the Welsh Bridge, Frankwell nevertheless seemed to be another world, Dad would say, and its nickname, The Little Borough, confirmed this.

The title actually dated back to when tithes and taxes were paid at the bridge on the town side by traders entering with their goods from nearby Wales.

The Little Borough elected its own mayor and had its own annual carnival procession, a quite separate one from Shrewsbury’s.

A banner declared: “Frankwell maintains its rights.”

Our dad, born in 1922, lived at number five, Severn Square. He told us that every winter, when he was a small lad, the square  became an island with the rain and the snow cutting it off from Frankwell Quay.

At this time, the Anchor pub was a lodging house run by a couple called Millie and Sticky. Sticky always used to be in the annual carnival, dressed up as the invisible man, Dad recalled.

Frankwell had the legendary Natty Price, who was mayor of Frankwell at one point, and ran a barber’s shop. Dad spoke also of other big characters: Teddy Millington, another hairdresser whose shop was opposite the fish and chip shop.

He told us: “We always seemed to have pigeons flying about the barber’s shop. Everybody seemed to keep pigeons in those days. In fact, my old man had about a hundred pigeons.”

Memories

We put together Dad’s life story a few years back which is how I can now reproduce his memories here in his own words.

“My old man would usually be in the Cross Guns. I used to go up and see him to get a penny for the gas, but then I’d go and get a penny’s worth of chips instead of using it for the gas.

“Then of course there was Mrs Jackson’s Tripe Shop near Teddy Millington’s

“Everybody seemed to fight a lot in those days. I remember at the age of 14 or 15 I used to be sparring with Tommy Braddick or Jimmy Braddick. There used to be boxing down the lane where they lived. They always used to go and box at Pat Collins’ Fair whenever it came to Frankwell.

“From the age of 14 I went to work in the General Market for Mrs Griffiths for five shillings a week.

“It was a greengrocer’s selling anything from potatoes to carrots to bananas. My job was to ride a three-wheeler bike to the Mytton and Mermaid at Atcham with a hundredweight of potatoes in the box in the front – plus the other orders as well. I worked for Mrs Griffiths from eight o’clock in the morning til seven o’clock at night. And that was for five shillings a week.”

Dad told us that, at one time, Frankwell had more pubs than any other part of Shrewsbury. Two of the most popular were The Crow and The Anchor.

“Mrs Sayce would send me to The Crow to get a quart of beer in a jug. I often had a sip on the way home and then topped the jug up with water from the conduit. She often said the beer was getting weaker.

“The old fella went to the Cross Guns in an evening and I would wait outside about ten o’clock, hoping he would remember to send me a penny so I could go and have a warm in the chip shop.”

And now here was me, 80 years later, having a warm not in the Frankwell chip shop, but in Franks just across the road from the chippie, and sipping not a beer on this occasion, but a ginger beer with a dollop of ice cream on top. What a wimp!

Sorry, Dad.