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Sheila Guy interview 1.m4a
Transcript
Sheila Guy
All she wanted was a family round them and she cook and work as hard as necessary to look after them, and she wasn't interested in anything else. Read your book. No way. How they ever linked together. I don't know. Except perhaps sexually. But anyway, it worked. But he was, as I said very well made and very courteous and very dignified.
Colin Jenner
He looked magnificent. He had, I've seen a photo of him, magnificent beard with a lovely white big tash. And he looked very smart and dapper.
Sheila Guy
Nothing yet. That's right. Dapper, yeah.
Colin Jenner
But you say he was invalided.
Sheila Guy
Well, he was paralysed.
Colin Jenner
All right, yeah.
Sheila Guy
From this injury that he got when he went out on that ruddy ship.
Colin Jenner
Just a slip of the foot and that was enough.
Sheila Guy
But he managed to hobble around the rest of the holiday, you know? But he did not say anything about it.
Colin Jenner
Well, that could have made is worse, couldn't it?
Sheila Guy
And of course made it worse all the time, came back, and then it wasn't long after that they took over.
Colin Jenner
He wrote home and. And that's now a record of his time there and where he went and his experiences. Because that was in the 1890s?
Sheila Guy
Where to say? It is very unusual for anybody you think going to America in those days.
Colin Jenner
It wasn't cheap and it took a long time.
Sheila Guy
But I'm sure I can find it. I know it's there somewhere I should. Find it eventually.
Colin Jenner
Well, that'd be wonderful. To be able to read. That I'd love to.
Sheila Guy
The old silver paper and she gave it to all the all. She edited it because it was all letters that he'd sent home, and she gave them all copy of it.
Colin Jenner
Is it handwritten or typewritten?
Sheila Guy
It's typewritten now because she had it done.
Colin Jenner
Well, it it's brilliant that any of it exists cause such a lot of stuff has has gone but the but his two brothers stayed out there. You say that he went out cause his some of his family went out to America. They emigrated.
Sheila Guy
That was further back. The famous Gould family in America is the millionaires.
Colin Jenner
Oh, I see.
Sheila Guy
A bit further back in my mother said we out to have kept in touch with them!
Jay Gould
Colin Jenner
Right.
Sheila Guy
Jay Gould. Further back from Edward Stephen Goulds father who I ever knew course. And that further back, I think I've got to think it's George Gould. So that George came down. I think it was his father or his grandfather who went out to America and and made made it.
Colin Jenner
Well, I'd be able to look up those records cause there's a lot of shipping information and a lot of the passenger lists are available for travelling across to America, from Liverpool and England and. Also, that's available and you can see when people went to different.
Sheila Guy
When the four of them went, you know, it was quite different to go and get a marvellous time. And that would be when they were that would be before they had any family, probably.
Colin Jenner
Sorry to I may have misunderstood that. Then you're saying the four brothers went out together for three weeks, or just your grandfather went out on?
Sheila Guy
No just my grandfather and his sister. Gracy, who lived to be 100.
Colin Jenner
Right.
Sheila Guy
She was my great aunt. Her husband, who was called Cato. Who was mayor of Ealing. Yes, time after time after time, but in the end they couldn't get rid of him, so they made him an Alderman and then managed. That managed to move him over and being mayor because every time he stood as mayor, he got voted in and some of the younger ones wanted to get rid of him, so they set up to make him an alderman, which meant he had to give up the job of being mayor. And then they got one of the younger. Ones in his room, he said.
Colin Jenner
Well, he must have been a well known name on the High Street because. Because Cato was all over. Yeah.
Sheila Guy
He had 26 shops.
Colin Jenner
Yeah. That's extraordinary, isn't it?
Sheila Guy
OK.
Sheila Guy interview 2.m4a
Transcript
Sheila Guy
Yes, you're 26. William Cato, he was.
Colin Jenner
Well, there's a history. Someone has written a history of the Cato hardware shops, and there's quite a few photographs of the family.
Sheila Guy
Interesting to see that.
Colin Jenner
That's online. Yeah. Ohh well, I'll print it out, Sheila and bring it up well.
Sheila Guy
I went to. I used to. I went up sometimes used to go there for the day when I was staying with my grandmother. I used to go over to the Catos, who lived in Ealing for the day and Rose, one who used to be 100, her husband used to take me out in the car and we used to go around to all the shops and suddenly there was a bustle we used to go into the shop and they didn't know he was coming and be a sudden panic. You know the boss is here. The boss is here and he used to do that quite little grinning. They get back in the car. And he said took them by surprise. Didn't I? And you know, he did it regularly, but not as regularly as they would know he was coming, you know? Yeah. He had 26 shops.
Colin Jenner
That's amazing, isn't it? That's a big business.
Sheila Guy
I think it's 26 shops. And what he did, they bought out somebody's place. Rose had a great head for business too. And they were both quite young.
Sheila Guy
But they bought out this place this little ship to start off, they had them all over it like this. I suspect they exist now. Ealing and Chiswick and all around they were. After they bought it, it's all signed and sealed. They haven't investigated upstairs. Which was a bit silly of them. Everyone went up. They found that the whole of the floor above the shop that they bought was full of china. And this was a time when china was very hard to get new China all brand new China, sets and things, soup bowls tureens, dinner plates, dessert plates. So he sold it off in job lots to various people. He then built up the name. Oh, go to the Cato, they've always got things that they've always got, you know, things that you can't get anywhere else. And on the basis of this China, this floor full of China, they've got the reputation of being somewhere to go when you can't get it anywhere else.
Colin Jenner
Look like the Harrods of Ealing.
Sheila Guy
Hmm, interesting.
Colin Jenner
Well, I think.
Sheila Guy
He set it up, the business, so that one of the one of his sons was responsible for the business side, for the admin side. One of his sons responsible for the purchasing of things the - merchandise things. One of his sons was responsible for the transport side, they were all directed in the firm and they've all got these various titles, separate titles. And as Frank, William. Frank, would you? Oh, I can see him.
Colin Jenner
Frank Edwards. There was an Edward, William, William, Harold, Stephen. But he was the one I think he died in the war.
Sheila Guy
No. Percy died in the war, Percy. Frank and Percy William.
Colin Jenner
Oh, sorry, the Catos, I'm on the wrong family. Sorry, I'm in the wrong family. Sorry. Sorry.
Sheila Guy
Percy died in the war. I don't remember Percy, really.
Colin Jenner
Percy, there was Rose Eleanor Gould. So that was his wife, William Henry Cato was the elder one. Then Edward James Cato was the next one. Frank Thomas Cato was the next one. And then? Percy. Yeah, so was William, Edward and Frank were the three sons. I've not got another one. I've got Percy and.
Sheila Guy
Well, Percy died. Percy was killed.
Speaker
Percy was in the Air Force and.
Colin Jenner
In the Second World War, 1942.
Sheila Guy
Flew his plane into a mountain in Scotland.
Colin Jenner
Well, well, and crashed into the mountain
Sheila Guy
Very much like the Duke of Kent did.
Colin Jenner
OK, I don't know that story. Yeah.
Sheila Guy
See, that's what he did, threw his plane into a mountain in Scotland. Frank was the youngest one William was the oldest one, and there's the one in between.
Colin Jenner
Percy was the very youngest and then Frank was the next. I've only got William, Henry and Edward James as the other two, Edward James Cato.
Sheila Guy
Well, it must be him. But he wasn't called Edward James. No, because there wasn't another one called Edward or James. There must be him. They called him something different.
Colin Jenner
Something different. Yeah. Family name. Sort of thing. I've kind of.
Sheila Guy
That's when you. This one.
Colin Jenner
The oldest one is William.
Sheila Guy
Yeah. So I thought it's between William and Frank.
Colin Jenner
Yeah. And then was Edward. James. I've got him. Sedra. James. I could be wrong on that, but that's from or died while being carried on piggy back by William. By falling down stairs.
Speaker
Right.
Colin Jenner
I've got a note to say he died while being carried on piggy back by William. Thats from the history.
Sheila Guy
Oh, that's the one who died. Oh, he died as a child. And never knew him. No, he won't.
Colin Jenner
Right, so there must be another one that I'm missing somewhere.
Sheila Guy
Nobody ever knew him. He was a baby who died. He was supposed to be on a.
Colin Jenner
It must have been a. Small child.
Sheila Guy
Rosie's mother was carrying him and he slipped out of her hands and died.
Colin Jenner
Oh, well, I've got.
Sheila Guy
But that says what? This one's unusual.
Colin Jenner
Well, no, this is, I don't know where I got this from cause I haven't got my whole family history thing on my phone. But the note I've got for Edward James. Was that he died while being carried on piggyback by William, and he fell downstairs. But it wasn't William. It was his mother.
Sheila Guy
No, it was William. It was always said to. Be his mother.
Colin Jenner
There's another. That's fine. I'm quite possibly, yeah.
Sheila Guy
Usually though, that sounds very unusual, but.
Sheila Guy Interview 3.m4a
Transcript
Sheila Guy
My autograph book. Aunt Rose sat on a pin aunt Rose.
Speaker
Aunt rose.
Sheila Guy
It took me years to work that one out and it was quite funny because you wrote it down. She gave me such a funny, enigmatic smile and I didn't really get what it meant. And I was like, took me back years later. I felt like, oh, that's what she meant, you know?
Colin Jenner
Rose was a lovely lady. And very close to her brother. That was why you know it . Was such a good idea for the four of them to go to America for a special holiday cause he was intrigued with America. And it would have been perfect if she hadn't slipped and sort of slipped and went. He sort of. Went down the companionway to the side bit. And obviously, bruised his spine very badly. |
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