Businesses

Christmas Eve at the Front

An interesting letter has just been received by Mrs Packer, of Broadclyst, from her husband, Corpl Packer of A Company, 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, who is serving with the Expeditionary Force in Northern France. In the course of a letter he describes a remarkable incident which occurred on Christmas Eve between the British and German trenches.

Fatter wage packets were being taken home this week by North Devon glove workers.

March 1st was the date from which local glove manufacturers had agreed with their employees to commence paying the increase awarded of 2d an hour for men and 1½d an hour for women.
Within the next few days manufacturers from Bideford and Torrington, together with the Regional Industrial Relations Officer, will be meeting the Ministry of Labour Conciliation Officer to discuss the position arising out of their decision to abide by the agreement reached with their employees not to pay the wage increase until March 1st although an arbitration committee had upheld a union claim for payment from the date of the award, October 9th.
Mr E F Day, managing director of Messrs. Sudbury’s Gloves, said payment of the wage increase now was going to mean a loss to the firm for the next two months. ‘We compromised on March 1st but the Spring trade does not cease until the end of April and we are paying out of last year’s prices which were fixed before we had any knowledge of this new wage award’ he said.
Mr Day added there was no truth in rumours that Messrs Sudbury’s were standing off staff. “We have hundreds of work and could take on another 20 girls tomorrow’ he added.
Gazette article dated 7 March 1958

Easter Time is Wedding Time!

The Minister of Food announces that we can now make YOUR WEDDING CAKE on authority of a permit obtained by you from the Local Food Office

We shall be pleased to accept your order at
C M MITCHELL LIMITED
12 Market Place and 45 Mill Street, Bideford
Ring 36, ALL KINDS OF CATERING UNDERTAKEN
Gazette article dated 25 February 1947

Application For Sunday Trading At Westward Ho!

Chamber of Commerce invites support for request

Application is to be made by Northam and Westward Ho! Chamber of Commerce to Devon County Council for Sunday trading to be allowed in the Westward Ho! ward only during the summer months.
Reporting on inquiries he had made of the Ilfracombe Chamber on the question of Sunday trading, the Secretary, Mr G W G Hutchings, read a letter which stated that Chamber had made application for exemption from the Shops Act, which could be given by Devon County Council, in each of the last three years and, although the applications had had the support of the local authority, they had been refused.
The secretary suggested the Westward Ho! Chamber ought to stir up other traders’ organisations in seaside resorts but Mr F C Twose thought the Chamber had not a hope of securing exemption. In view of the fact that extension of closing hours was granted to the Westward Ho! ward only under the Shops Act, 1950, he felt it should be possible to get Sunday trading allowed for the one ward, suggested the President, Mr C E M Clarke.
It seemed rather stupid that Ilfracombe should have been refused facilities for Sunday trading on three occasions and no reason given for the refusal, said Mr W Powell.
In reply to the Chamber’s request that a post box should be placed at Westbourne Terrace, Westward Ho! the Head Postmaster, Bideford, wrote that the application could not be entertained as it was not the practice to set up post boxes at spots less than half a mile from one already in existence. Mrs A Beecroft suggested it should be pointed out that twenty or more coachloads of people stopped at Westbourne Terrace nearly every day during the season and the first thing they did was to buy postcards and then ask where they could post them.
After Mr J H Yatman had told the Chamber that it had taken him five years of constant application to get a post box in Merley Road, the Chamber decided to renew their application and to point out that, on occasions during last summer, the post box at the Westward Ho! Post Office had been full to overflowing.
The full Gazette article is dated 19 November 1954