THE PITCHERS

Elwyn Pitcher

Elwyn was born on 22nd July 1911,  the son of Leonard and Ellen Pitcher.  The photograph on the left shows Elwyn with his sister Helen.  As the only son, he took over his father's building and undertaking business.

Elwyn was educated in a private preparatory school and on 13th September 1921 he was admitted to Thornbury Grammar School.  He married to Eva Lanfear in Thornbury in September quarter 1942.  Elwyn and Eva lived in number 24 with Leonard.  Later in the early 1960's, Elwyn's sister, Helen moved back to live with them.  The house was big enough to be divided into two households and although the two ladies had to share the kitchen, Helen always had her own rooms downstairs as well as a bedroom upstairs.

We only got to know the family late in their lives.  By that time, Eva Pitcher was coming to the end of her career as hospital almoner and was spending more time at the bowls club at the new Leisure Centre.  Helen, who had been a teacher at the Council School, maintained an interest in history and showed slides of old Thornbury to schools and organisations.

The Pitchers never saw the need to change things that worked well for them.  We were told that the grey roller blinds that were at every window for the twenty years that we knew them were black-out curtains from the Second World War.  Certainly, it doesn't seem impossible as they seem to preserve everything else that could be of use.  Mrs Pitcher also said Elwyn's father's tools were still kept on the bench that he had used.  When he officially retired in 1986, there were no more generations of Pitchers to take on the business and the funeral side was taken over by Leslie Gulwell who had worked there for 35 years.  Elwyn kept his interest in the building industry and when Shipp's garage was pulled down and work began on the new flats, Elwyn could be seen most days inspecting the progress.  He was not impressed by new building methods or the size of modern rooms.

Jeff Bowen told us a story about Elwyn.  Elwyn said that he and Leonard his father went to collect a body from a cottage up near the rugby club.  It was a dark and stormy evening and they were bringing it back on a bier - a sort of hand drawn cart. When they finally trudged back to Gloucester Road they realised that the bier was empty.  At some point the coffin had slid off! They had to go out early next morning to retrieve it!  We can't be sure how true this story is.  Elwyn had a very dry sense of humour, and it wasn't always easy to tell when he was teasing. 

Another story that Jeff reminded us of is that Elwyn was in Palestine during the 1940's.  Elwyn asked us about our travels and having found that we went to Jerusalem, he said that he had been in the King David Hotel when there was a bomb blast.  He still had the scar on his face.  He was left in a tent for several days as no-one expected him to live.  He expressed very strong views about the Israelis when we brought up the subject 40 years later.  We were never sure whether this was the famous attack on the King David on July 22nd 1946.

This page was last updated: 04/06/2011