Delivering the Bread

Just recently people have been arriving at the Market Lavington Museum blog having searched for items about bread delivery carts and vans. This post, which follows on from yesterday’s offering, adds a different dimension to bread delivery – via the motorbike and sidecar.

The people are the same as those shown yesterday – Jim Sheppard in control with Chris Cooper behind. Jim was Easterton’s ‘Tip Top’ baker and Chris was an employee.

Jim Sheppard and Chris Cooper complete a bread delivery round in Easterton – late 1920s

The photo isn’t a brilliant one. Clearly it was taken more or less straight into the sun. The location is just outside Jubilee Cottages. Perhaps this was the end of a delivery for the motorbike is about to cross the bridge over the stream in front of the garage. Behind them we see a section of the terrace of houses that still line the Easterton Street.

Unfortunately, we can’t make out what the motorbike is but the sidecar is clear enough. It clearly has boxes for bread and the standard baker’s bread basket for delivering to the door. It was probably very suitable transport for a new business in the late 1920s.

Our next hope is to know more about Chris Cooper. We’ll take a guess and hope somebody will tell us if we are wrong. We only find one Chris Cooper in the area. He was born in 1909 in Little Cheverell but his father, brick worker Sidney was a Market Lavington man and Chris had an Easterton born granny. In 1926 Sidney and his wife Lottie appear on the electoral roll as living at Fiddington Sands so it seems a fair bet that Chris would have lived in the area too, although at a mere 17 years of age he’d not have been an elector. We suspect this Christopher is the young man in both today’s and yesterday’s photo.

Tags: baker, bread, delivery, Easterton, Fiddington, Market Lavington, motorbike, motorcycle, Museum, sidecar, trade