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The Squizzlers roll call

Ghost Walks

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 Spackman

Dennis Ingram, Roddy Butler

Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all

Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all

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