Washington, Dennis

Rob Forsyth

1925 - 1994 

Len owned the Archway Garage on New Street and knew Dennis well. His son, John, recorded his father’s memories of life in Deddington and the people he knew for a private family book. He did this in the form of a dialogue, transcribed and very lightly edited below. I have inserted some images from the family scrapbook and links to some newspaper extracts in and comments in [italics]. I am most grateful to John and his family for permission to publish this dialogue

Len Plumbe remembers

"John: I was just thinking about some of the old customers, I remember people like Washington.  You could write a book on him on your own. 

Len: Oh yeah, old Dennis, he was a lad he was.  He come one day cos he owed me money you see and I wouldn't let him have no petrol.  So he goes down to Marge and he hammers the door and he says he won't let me have no petrol, so she said well you gotta pay your bill.  He said I can't I'm as poor as a bloody church mouse (laughs).  The rows that we had. But old Washy in the end, towards the end I didn't have any worry at all, you know. 

We used to just send the bill and he'd pay us 'cos Grace used to sort it out.  She was quite good, she'd got the brains you know.  She looked after the money side.  She was good at that.

Grace with one of their Macaw parrots 

[1956 advert of Grace selling Xmas Turkeys] 

He used to have an old pick-up, I don't know whether you can remember it.  It had got a big slab of concrete in the back cos the floor had rotted through and he'd got his old dog sat in the front and he was down our yard and the inspector come.  We was just doing MOT's then.  The inspector come down and he was walking back out the yard and he noticed there was no tax on it, no tax disc on the windscreen.  So he says who does this belong to, so Dennis says me sir.  He said do you realise you've got no tax disc on that?  Aah he said the dog 'et it coming down the road.  And then this bloke he just carried on and I could see he...  It was so quick, you know.  He was like that old Dennis. 

[His quick thinking got him out of another tax disc problem]

And then he went into Banbury, in one of the pubs and they used to have the old poker in the fire, you know to put in the beer.  Mulled ale.  Yeah, and he went in there and they'd got a conjurer bloke doing a bit of a show, you know.  So he waited till he'd finished.  He said ever seen this trick?  So he pulls this old red hot poker out of the fire and he raps it straight through his leg and out the other side.  Put the poker back in, brushed his trousers cos they was on fire and walked out.  I think it was The Reindeer up Parsons street or one of them anyhow.  The old landlord when he next went in said to him, hey that was a fine trick you done last week wasn't it.  You owe me he said, two bandages, two of the bloody women fainted (laughs). 

And then when he started doing coal bunkers he used to go out selling 'em you know and he'd got up north somewhere and he put up in a little crofters place.  I think he was up in Scotland and of course he goes to bed.  Next morning a woman brings him up a cup of tea and of course his leg was sticking out from under the bed (laughs).  

[1963 advert for Fuelmaster Bunkers]

John: You used to have to repair them. 

Len:  I was always mending his legs.  I remember one Sunday morning he shouted down the archway there and he said I've broken my bloody leg.  Anyhow he haggled his way down, he sat on a box in the workshop, took his trousers off, he'd got no pants nothing, he never wore pants or nothing like that.  He sat there while I riveted his leg back together (laughs).  

John: He always had a spare didn't he?  

Len: He'd got no end cos he used to thump that old leg down and it used to shear the rivets you see.  He used to drive an old 1300 and they had front wheel drive.  His Missus was in the car with him one night and they were coming by the Duns Tew turn and she said the back wheels come off.  It passed 'em you see.  Aah never mind he said and he drove all the way back to Deddington on three wheels and he dumped it outside our place.  Cos it was front wheel drive it kept going you see.  He had two or three of them cars and it was a job to keep one on the road, you know.  

He was a lad he was.  We used to cuss and swear at each other cos he was like that sort of...  He was alright next day, he never held it against you, you know.  He made a lot of money and he spent a lot of money, all them birds he used to have.  

John: It was like a wildlife park up there (Hempton). 

Len: Yeah.  We had one of his big parrots land in a tree out here.  I can remember it and I looked out and I thought Christ what the hells that thing!  They used to fly about.  He was a Herbert he was. 

 [The Coventry Evening Telegraph in June 1972 reported two were on the loose]


John: He had his original business where his house was didn't he?  

Len: Yeah then he moved over to where Renault are now [Enstone], you know the racing people.  He was in that big pit there, it was a big stone pit. He'd got a wonderful brain on him you know, quick as lightning.  He lost his leg in a threshing machine when he was about fifteen.  

John: He had all sorts of money making schemes didn't he in his day. 

Len:  God, yeah.  

John: He did crop spraying as well.  

Len:Yeah he done that in the first place in the early days yes.  That's where he started off at that and then he used to grow thousands of cabbage plants and things like that and send 'em all over the country.  I think he went bankrupt about twice but he always paid his debts off.  

John: He always seemed to have another idea didn't he. 

Len:  Yeah he was a crafty old boy there's no doubt about it.  I mean I've seen him stand in concrete with that old leg there you know, his trousers shattered and...  He went up to Rolls, he bought a Rolls.  He got Trinders [Banbury Funeral Directors] to take him up there in a Rolls and when he got out up there, I mean he went up in ragged old trousers and everything, knee out and everything and they thought it was Mr Trinder that had gone to buy the Rolls and he paid 'em all in cash.  They said we've never been paid with cash for a Rolls (laughs).  I dunno what a Rolls would have cost him then, I suppose it would be £50-60 thousand or summat like that in that day perhaps.  I don't know.  

He was a lovable rogue.  He had old Ken Dodd down at a party and that, you know.?  He had Jimmy Edwards as well. Old Jimmy was so drunk he had to stop till the next day cos he couldn't go home. 
And old Ken Dodd he come down there and we come back from one of 'em at 3 o'clock in the morning.  I'd gotta get up at seven! (laughs).  I felt like summat the cat dragged in. He was a lad he was."

Obituary

An obituary was published in the September 1994 issue of the Deddington News on p.9 of the magazine but p.19 of the pdf because of Ad pages.