We have been through much, lost many friends and there is a dreary sameness to the days. But let’s open the door of a public house and remember the past. The pub is the Wheatsheaf, Dores Road, Upper Stratton, Swindon. The time is the early 1950’s. We are starting our ghost walk pilgrimage and this will be our first port of call. The Wheatsheaf is in its first incarnation. Three generations of the Ingram family have been landlords since 1879. Three generations of the Butler family will call it their local. On this particular evening, in The Wheatsheaf, sometime in the 1950s, a new idea is formed. We have heard the horticultural boasts; of potatoes harvested in May, of marrows that took two men to lift. We have heard horticultural woes of too much rain, of plants that have got “the fly”. Clarence Butler commands the floor. “Listen, lads. Let’s have an outing. We can form a club, pay in by the week, hire a Blue and Ivory from up the road and go to the seaside for the day.” And so “The Squizzlers” is formed.
The Squizzlers’ Outing from The Wheatsheaf
Clarence Butler, Clarence Butler
Hire a Blue and Ivory
All along, down along, out along lee
For we are going on a trip to the sea
With Clar Butler, Arthur Lindsey
Jack Spackman, Joe Larner
Bill Fuller, Ernie Hedger
Jack Sheppard, Arthur SpackmanDennis Ingram, Roddy Butler
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all