Many of you locally, will remember Wynn working on the Estate properties for Sarah Rosselli. He always had a cheery word, a joke and sang a good tune.
In those days there was The Estate Yard in Overton, (opposite the chemist) with the office building attached to St Mary’s House.
There were four estate workers of which Wynn (the bricklayer) was the foreman. Doug Jones was the plasterer, Clem Robinson-joiner and Vince Tapp, the woodman.
Wynn also worked with Wally Partington, Jim Stowell, John Swinburne, (who was brother to Walter Swinburne, the late flat jockey’s father!) and with Ghillies- Gibson Hewitt, Roddy Livingstone and Frank Thelwell.
One day Wynn, Clem and Doug were working down at Royton Farm, concreting, when Jim Younger (a Ghillie and woodman) came to request help, as a tractor was stuck at Dee Bank. Wynn said they would all go and help to get it out. When they got there they found that the tractor had slid sideways down the bank and was nearly in the river! In those days Harold Wason had a tow truck for the garage in Overton and he came to pull it back out.
There were lots of anecdotes about Wynn taking Sarah Rosselli to see things going on on the estate every week. One day she must have thought Wynn had done a particularly good job and asked him what he ate for his lunch. She then took him down to The Cross Foxes where he tucked into his favourite sausage and chips (I don’t think this was his lunch every day) As he was enjoying this, another diner joined them at the table, none other than the late Sir Watkin Williams- Wynn himself. Wynn told me that at the time he was very nervous to be seated between his boss and his landlord!
Another time they were damp coursing in Tanners Row,Overton and after they had drilled from both sides they thought the drum of liquid was disappearing fast. They discovered that the holes had aligned and it had gone straight onto someones carpet. The carpet had to be given remedial care!
There were also two small boys wanting a basket ball net and they had a terrier called Mickey who bit everyone.When their father was standing drilling in his shorts the terrier jumped up and bit him in a very vulnerable place and he had to be treated for tetanus!
I hope you have enjoyed these old stories and I am glad to say Wynn and his wife Wendy are very happy in their retirement but Wynn did say to me ( before I left him enjoying a very good cup of coffee) that ‘they were the best 13 years I’ve ever had’.
Claire Rosselli
May 2018