Re. Yardley's Music Shop:
My Grandfather (Clement Edward Hobbs) used to own/rent this shop just before and I think during WWll. I still have a postcard size flyer for it, with a pen and ink cartoon of him drawn on it. My Dad (Clement Henry Hobbs known as Harry, his eldest son) started work there behind the counter. He also learned the accordion, and reached a high level of expertise that led him to form quite a large accordion band. I remember seeing an A5 size photo of the fairly large ensemble. He also played the double bass. He suffered from PTSD after Dunkirk in 1940, and was hospitalised twice. After the war he trained as an agriculturalist.
My Grandfather then sold Yardley's in 1947/8 and moved to a White Eagle Farm near Ashburton in Devon, taking all the unsold instruments with him! He installed Dad as the farm manager.
Dad had another breakdown, which led to the farm being sold. I remember him playing a small borrowed accordion for a country dancing group in our village at Landscove in Devon. He then trained to be a Psychiatric Social Worker and reached the pinnacle of the profession at a hospital near Ivybridge, also in Devon. He died in July 1982. He and my Mother (Alice Betty Watkins) in Bulford Church on Salisbury Plain Christmas Eve, 1940. She died ten years ago.
Clement Edward was married to Doris Trobe. She died some years ago. We found that my Grandfather married again and bought a Jewellers shop in Wellington, Somerset. But he still amassed musical instruments. He bought up all the instruments of Paignton Silver Band, and kept them in the bathroom, from which apparently there would be impromptu recitals!
Good to read the memories. Can anyone add anything to this, though it is now quite a time ago!
Jim Hobbs