11 St John Street

Francis White

Francis Arthur White was born on 5 September 1923.  He was the son of Harry and Kate White.  He was born whilst the family were living at the laundry in the Hollow at Kington which was being operated by Mrs Kate Maishment, Francis's grandmother.

The family moved to 11 St John Street when Francis was two.  He started at the Council Infants School in 1927 When he left the Council School, he took up an apprenticeship with the Tucker Brothers.  He remembers being paid seven shillings a week in his first year and 14 shillings in the second year.  He left Tuckers to take up an engineering apprenticeship at BAC.

He joined the Army and became a member of the Airborne Division where he thought he might have the choice of becoming a paratrooper or a trooper carried in by glider.  He would have chosen the former because he "liked the idea of having a parachute when flying, just in case something happened...".   In the end he was forced to go into gliders, although he was very fortunate in that he was never dropped behind enemy lines as he was trained to do.  When the forces of the British Airborne Division undertook Operation Market Garden at Arnhem, Francis was transferred to Cheshire to cover for other men sent to Holland. 

On leaving the Army, he did some work in a voluntary capacity for the Sheiling School.  Here he met a German lady - Elizabeth – who was gardening there.  When she later returned to Germany, he went to see her there in Freiberg.  Eventually they were married and lived there for a short time.

In 1951, Francis bought the house at 11 St John Street for his parents.  They had been renting the house from the Tuckers for many years.  He insisted that the Tuckers re-instate the garden and build a wall dividing his garden from their own.  When the Tuckers had purchased the three houses (Nos 11, 13 and 15), they re-arranged the garden layout to provide them at number 15 with a very large garden, leaving numbers 11 and 13 with just a small court area. 

Francis returned to England where he lived at Rose Cottage, Crossways.  After his father's death in 1969, Francis moved back to St John Street to look after his aged mother.

Francis was a very skilful man, and particularly liked working with wood.  At the time of the Millennium, he made a map of Thornbury as he remembered it which was used for the Thornbury Community Play and he made models of the houses in Thornbury.  These were auctioned after the play, but sadly the auctioneer did not realise that his models (unlike many of the others) were made of wood rather than card and they were sold rather cheaply.

We became very fond of Francis over the last few years of his life.  He was very quiet, respectful and modest man and was very helpful in sharing what information he had about the area and the people who lived here.  He died in 2008.

This page was last updated: 30/10/2008