Gerald Wilfred Finch (1907-1995) and Gertrude Maud Daisy Stolliday (1906-1992).
My paternal grandparents.
Gerald Finch was born on 14 March 1907 at 45 Bynes Road, Croydon, Surrey, to parents Walter Finch and Annie Budgen. He wasn’t baptised until 2 August 1911 – the same day as his brother Geoffrey and sister Evelyn – at St Augustine’s Church in South Croydon.
He grew up in the area and was already working at the age of 14 – the 1921 census recorded him as a draper’s assistant at a shop at 199 Brighton Road, South Croydon. He then went to work in the family bakery business established by his father and based by then at 259 Brighton Road. On 21 September 1930, Gerald married Gertrude Maud Daisy Stolliday at St John the Baptist parish church in Croydon. She came from a Norfolk family but her parents had lived in south London for some years.
Born on 6 March 1906 at 14 Northampton Place, South Market Road, Great Yarmouth, and widely known as Tina, she was living at 4 North End in Croydon at the time of their wedding and had been working for the local department store, Allders.
The bakery was opposite 2 Napier Road, which is where my mum was brought up, and I remember being taken in to visit on numerous occasions, seeing dad working on confectionery and my granddad and great uncle working away in gloomy downstairs back rooms where the family must once have lived. Working in the food industry, Gerald was exempt from serving in the Second World War but he volunteered with the ARP and lived through heavy bombing as the family home at Greenhill Avenue in Caterham, Surrey, was just a mile or two from RAF Kenley and several other Battle of Britain RAF bases.
After his father’s death in 1949, Gerald jointly owned and managed the bakery with his mother Annie and brother Geoffrey. During that time, Gerald served with a number of professional bodies, taking over as Chairman of the Croydon & District Master Bakers’ Association for a year in 1954 and in 1961 as President of the National Association of Master Bakers, Confectioners & Caterers London Region. He was also Chairman of the London Master Bakers’ Benevolent Institution in 1959. The family albums are full of photos of Gerald dressed up in all his finery at official functions, invariably sporting a chain of office around his neck, his wife in tow. I also have medals presented to him to mark his time in his various offices, and two to Tina – one inscribed London Region Ladies Section, Past President 1961-62. Gerald presided at the annual dinner and dance of the London Region National Association of Master Bakers at the Connaught Rooms, London WC2 in November 1961 and I have the programme for the event signed by all the attendees.
The London Master Bakers’ Benevolent Institution ran almshouses in Leyton for “any respectable member of the baking trade fallen into poverty, eligible according to the rules, or to the widow of such”. Completed in 1866, several of the properties went on to be damaged by bombs dropped by the German Zeppelin L31 on 24 September 1916. The almshouses were compulsorily purchased in the 1960s to make way for road improvements and the last resident moved out in 1971, but the buildings were listed, saved from demolition and later became homes for local people. The sheltered accommodation was moved to a new base in Epping and the institution that ran them changed its name to the Bakers’ Benevolent Society.
Both Gerald and Tina went to a variety of annual conferences organised by the National Association of Master Bakers, Confectioners and Caterers over the years and there are pin badges in my possession of conferences in the Isle of Man in 1960, Bournemouth in 1961 and Scarborough in 1962.
The Finch family sold the bakery in the mid 1970s to another local baker, Michael Brown, as well as shops in Croydon Road, Caterham; Brighton Road, Croydon; Warlingham Green and Limpsfield Road, Hamsey Green. They remained owners of the Warlingham property.
Gerald and Tina had a son (my dad Brian), who was born in 1936, and the family lived for decades at 8 Greenhill Avenue, Caterham, where I remember them entertaining us grandchildren with cine films of their holidays at home and abroad as well as Keystone Cops movies. Grandad took great pride in his garden, which always looked immaculate despite his long working hours, and I remember him fondly as a man who always seemed to have a smile on his face, with a laid-back attitude that was in some contrast to nanna’s. She was a lady who in some senses wouldn’t have been out of place in Victorian England, with antiquated views about manners and behaviour. She disliked long hair, pop music and the fact we weren’t brought up in the strict way of the 19th century. Her house was always perfect, the bed linen crisp and the table always laid correctly. For many years her approach to life made me think she came form a moneyed background but this is far from the truth – Arthur Stolliday and his wife struggled and it sounds like her father was a bit of a gambler and drinker. Perhaps her character was a reaction to her childhood… On the other hand she had a playful side and a lively sense of humour. She also appeared in amateur dramatics and her travel notebooks show that she enjoyed playing table tennis and football.
Back in Greenhill Avenue, Geoff lived opposite them at number 21 and for a time their older brother Rupert lived at number 4 with his young family.
After retiring and selling the bakery business, Gerald and Tina moved to Bexhill on Sea in East Sussex, buying a bungalow at 11 Pebsham Lane. He spent many years looking after nanna, who increasingly suffered from dementia.
She eventually went into a care home – Langley House, Collington Avenue, Bexhill – where she died on 7 December 1992. The official cause of death was given as heart disease. She left behind a very small estate of around £370, the balance of which went to her husband.
Gerald died on 13 March 1995 at the Conquest Hospital in St Leonard’s on Sea of pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He left a significantly larger estate of around £400,000. Both were cremated at Eastbourne Cemetery.
Sources: BMD, census and 1939 Register records held at Ancestry.co.uk and Findmypast.co.uk, Surrey Records Office, family memories, BMD certificates.