Document Request: Esther Mary Risbridger - a brief recollection
Document Description: Esther Mary Risbridger - a brief recollection by Mr M J Risbridger written in December 2013
Transcription URL: https://risbridger.surnametree.com/library/vdocs/D_279#279
Document Transcription:Esther Mary Risbridger
Mr and Mrs M J Risbridger 28 William Road Guildford Surrey GU1 4QZ
19th December 2013 Re: Miss Esther Mary Risbridger 16th September 1895 - 4th May 1995
Esther was the only daughter of Solomon and Susan Risbridger (née Smart).
Interestingly two brothers married two sisters and my own grandfather Jabez Risbridger married Sylvia Smart. (apparently there were eight sisters. Sylvia told my mother “We were once eight smart girls!” playing a pun on their surname!)
Esther is buried at Stoke New Cemetery (K249). The inscription on the gravestone reads:
ESTHER MARY RISBRIDGER Milliner
Died 4th May 1995 aged 99 years BLESSED ARE THE DEAD
WHICH DIE IN THE LORD
The Risbridger family is a local name and has been found in the Surrey Sussex border for a number of centuries.
I called her Aunty Esther but in reality she was a cousin of my father.
I understand from my mother that she was educated in the Young Ladies Academy at Sandfield and later had an apprenticeship with Miss West who had a milliners shop in North Street. interestingly on one occasion a cow or bullock being driven to the Abbatoir at the bottom of the town ended up in the shop!
Miss Ross Bridger was a trained milliner and furrier and opened her own business at 26 Church Road. Miss Bartlett (also had worked at Miss West’s shop) became her assistant. Aunty Esther repaired customers fur coats and hats, made and sold hats. One well-to-do client (Mum points out that this customer used to arrive in a horse and trap) used to have a new jacket made for her every year and Miss Risbridger would make her a matching hat with the same material. I remember seeing one of these new hats in progress, everything had to be so correct and the little stitches struck me as being so neat and precise.Then the lining had to be made and everything had to be the right size. My Aunt had a head shaped block of smooth wood on which the hat was built. The equipment was adjustable and could also be used to stretch I had a small amount to get the perfect fit.
The shop
As a child the shop had many fascinations. I liked to open the shop door. As you pushed the door open a little metal plate on the door pinged a metal lever which then sprang back and dinked the manual doorbell (not the most harmonious of noises but distinct and guaranteed to bring my Aunty to the shop expectant of a customer). The two main walls had the two largest mirrors I had ever seen. The chest of drawers had a deep large spacious drawers that would have made great hiding places. These drawers were homes to numerous hats and more hats of different colours shapes and sizes. The little wooden till in the corner had a handle on the side (that a little boy would long to turn) that my Aunt turned when she had made a sale and out popped the little drawer with the ring of a bell. Hats were displayed on dozens of wooden hat stands. Some were very short, others seemed very tall and others were at almost any height in between but these were all arranged with precision, like a band of soldiers, not one out of step. The hats were displayed on the chest of drawers, in the shop window and in a cluster by the door, free standing. These stands and hats were not to be knocked by little boys. On the mantelpiece stood my aunt’s pincushion. It was made of a horse’s hoof with a velvet cushion on the top, into which the pins are pushed. In front of the fireplace was a fire screen, which displayed pressed leaves and rustic flowers between glass - pleasing to the eye. Also the much spoken of ‘kissing’ what it is called a courting chair!
Every Saturday the hats were taken out of the window ready for the Lord's Day. On Monday the shop window was dressed again with great care and precision. The shop windows had to be kept very clean and my brothers and I would be commandeered to clean and wipe down the windows. This job could not be skimped and if my Aunty could see the slightest smear we had to get up and rub the glass until the smear was gone. (The final rub down was with tissue paper!)
Hats fade with sunlight so when the sun came up the blinds had to be put out to shade the shop window. Tissue paper was draped over the hats not sheltered by the blinds.
We are all so used to ‘modern’ conveniences but my aunt’s house had no bathroom, no hot water, no central heating, no washing machine, no refrigerator or freezer, no telephone no vacuum cleaner (Hoover), no radio, no television, no computers (unheard of in those days!). Just one outside toilet with no heat and in cold weather one had to light a little oil lamp or use a night light candle just to keep a small amount of heat there to stop the water pipes from freezing. This outdoor toilet was a real novelty to me (I had never seen the likes anywhere else until I went to Singleton Open Air Museum a few years back!) as it was of the bench top type with a hole above the pan.
The kitchen
The kitchen had a big stone sink with one cold tap (the only tap in the whole house and incidentally when the neighbours ran the tap the pressure was extremely poor, but that was the way it was). In the corner was a coal-fired copper, which in her parents’ days was used for the washing on wash day. At Christmas the Christmas pudding was steamed in hot water in this copper.
Thursday evening was bath night. The tin bath was put out on the hard stone floor of the kitchen and water board up on the gas stove. My aunt had a stand up strip bath in the tin bath as used to be the way in former generations (certainly energy and water efficient). My aunt was not for change and although relatives tried to persuade her of the advantages of an indoor bathroom and toilet she resolutely refused. Aunt Esther did not like water! “Oh, paddling in the sea that's different” In old-age, in Farnham Road hospital
bath time was a stormy/memorable experience according to the nurses. It took five of them to bath my aunt and they all got soaked!
The only heat in the kitchen was from the gas cooker and a paraffin heater. In winter months Aunty Esther would bend down and fill the heater up every day with paraffin from a metal tin before lighting the wick with a naked flame. The paraffin was purchased at the garage just round the corner. (The garage at one point run by Mr Bristow is long gone. It was demolished to make way for the extension of York Road which now runs right down to the Woodbridge Road. Formerly drivers travelling down York Road had to swing round and down or right and left into Church Road before exiting into Woodbridge Road.) Despite fierce opposition Aunty Esther has prevailed upon to have a high-level electric plug wired to the kitchen and from that time forward she appreciated an electric fire to warm her kitchen and her advancing years.
The Cellar
The cellar was the most interesting room for a young boy. Here the coal came tumbling down the shoot when the coal man came with his big lorry and black sacks of coal. These were empty down the coal-hole just outside of the front door. The main heat in the house was the coal fire in the living room. As boys we seemed forever shovelling coal into buckets and carrying it up the cellar stairs to the living room. The cellar also had a small larder area where milk and butter and meet etc kept cool. In the winter months two great old gnarled Fuchsia plants lived in buckets here to protect them from the frost. Every spring after all frosts were over these same plants were carried up into and planted out in the garden. Nobody had heard of slug pellets but my aunt regularly ate half grapefruit for breakfast and so the empty skins were placed upside down in the garden. The slug used to hide in them and could then be simply dispatched. While on pest control - Moth balls were used widely by my aunt to keep clothes clothes and carpet moths at bay in shop and house.
The other use of the cellar was the careful storage of garden grown Bramley apples. These were picked and handled as carefully as any of the prize hats in the shop and lined out on shelves and pieces of wood and in a good harvest year almost lasted round to the next harvest. Aunt believed in an apple a day and had a baked apple almost every day of her life for dinner!
My aunt was a determined lady and was described as not playing second fiddle to anyone. (Mother suggested that this was Aunt Esther’s quote that The Risbridgers are all the same they don't play second fiddle to anyone!)
Sunday it was a special day for the worship of Almighty God and a time of refreshment and recuperation from the toils of the past week. Saturday was a day for preparation for the Lord's day so that Sunday could be kept free from unnecessary work. Meat and potatoes were cooked on Saturday and a cold salad with meat and potatoes was the normal Sunday lunch with cold cold stewed fruit or pie. On Saturday evening my aunt came to our house to help with the shoe cleaning. This was about 8 o'clock in the evening and we cleaned all the shoes, at least one pair for every member of the family. The little chapel in the Bars: Bethel chapel was an important part of her life. At 18 or 19 she became a member of the Church. Confessing her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour and her alone hope for heaven. She was baptised by total immersion on the 19th of May 1914.
Holidays didn't seem very important but occasionally my Aunt would go away and stay with a friend but her feather mattress had to go with her if she ever stayed away. Sleep was important and this feather mattress was snug and warm and loved. With little heating in the house it offered great protection from the cold and was reliable and dependable
Andrew Sparbos May 1882. Miss Risbridger’s establishment
you're just sank into it and with a ‘stone’ (glazed clay) hot water bottle what more should one want from a bed but solid warmth.
Retirement didn't seem very important and my mum remembers her selling the last hat at aged 90 - it was a large brimmed hat with a chiffon scarf that you could tie under the chin for a customer who needed to keep sheltered from the sun. It sold for a discounted price of £5 (mint condition £20) as it had somewhat faded due to too much exposure to the sun in the shop window.
My aunt was addicted to Jelly Babies and peppermints these mints were a little smaller than a 5 new pence coin and she already always had a ready supply. Good behaviour and help were often rewarded with this currency along with 6d sterling (a tanner, 6p old money).
Who needed a weather forecast? My Aunt had a large banjo barometer in the hallway and a little tap would indicate to change or otherwise of the Mercury air pressure and indicate the weather to expect
Opening hours
Wednesday was always early closing and all the little stores in the town observed this.
I understand that my aunt and her parents often used this midweek break for a little recreation a walk around the park with time for a little quiet to reflect and prepare for the midweek meeting at the chapel. It seems that our forebears enjoyed a slower pace of life without all the modern so-called time saving devices and all the rush and business and clamour of computers and radios and TVs and traffic in abundance.
(Mother interjects here to say that these walks were after Aunty Esther's mother had died and were with Esther and her father. Mother also states that these walks were more like marches - brisk, purposeful and determined. Esther’s father was very fit for his age, stepping it out. He was well known, wore a bowler hat on his head and was of upright posture. He was of sturdy constitution and in the little chapel turned down the heaters as soon as the temperature reaches 60°F!).
My aunt was of that generation that wasted nothing. When the hats arrived in boxes carefully packed in tissue paper: the string was not cut all the knots were untidy and the string Cathy stored for future use the tissue paper it was all reused and all boxes stored away for further use. Occasionally my aunt would take us on the bus to One Tree Hill (Wednesday afternoon school holidays?) and at Merrow Downs we would run and chase around and Aunt Esther had made a ball for us using her string wrapped round around to make a ball covered with a square of material tied around it.
Memorable quote: she said “it is the little things in life that count.” (Mum said that, she was that was a saying Aunty Esther's mother used to use) Obviously had to down from generation to generation, like mother like daughter.
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