Robert May, carpenter, joiner and undertaker outside his workshop in Ommanney Road.

My great granddad Robert (Bob) May ran a carpenter’s and undertaker’s business from his large workshop alongside Fernside in Ommanney Road. His son-in-law, my uncle Ted, also worked there. In the school holidays my cousin David and I would be encouraged to make things in the workshop, and as there were always lots of off-cuts we invented all sorts of things. Mostly though we used some very nicely shaped triangular pieces about 18”long and 6”wide to make boats and built upper decks and funnels and gun turrets etc. It was some time before we realised where the triangular pieces had come from; they were off-cuts from the coffins that granddad and Uncle Ted made!

I’ve seen Uncle Ted on many occasions finishing off a coffin by heating a saucepan of pitch on the tortoise stove in the workshop and running the molten pitch all round the coffin corners by standing it up and moving it around to ensure all the joints were sealed.  Peter Smith b 1946