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Article by Tony Palmer 2006

Memories of Oliver Tailby

Photograph of Oliver Tailby (right of groom) at the marriage of Albert Palmer and Florence Ellen Tailby 1912 Oliver and Lucy Tailby with parents
Oliver Tailby viewed right of the groom at
the marriage of Albert Palmer and Florence
Ellen Tailby 1912
Oliver and Lucy Tailby
with parents


When I was a young boy, eight years of age in 1946, this was my first recollection of Oliver. He used to visit my great aunt (Florence Palmer née Tailby) with his wife Lucy (sister to Florence). At Christmas, my parents and grandparents used to play cards with Oliver and his wife for pennies and halfpennies. The game generally played was Newmarket.

Occasionally I would visit ‘The Yews’ in Kettering Road, Burton Latimer. It was a grand house with a large garden. Oliver, or Uncle Ollie as he was known to me, lived there with Lucy and Ron Palmer and his wife Margery. Ron was the son of Albert and Florence Palmer. I was told that Oliver paid for Ron to be educated at Kimbolton School.

The large garden had heated greenhouses and a vegetable plot. Fruit trees were also very prevalent. At the top of the garden was a tennis court which was overgrown. If you walked on the garden path for its full length and turned left at the top you could then enter Station Road. The local policemen called at ‘The Yews’ and used this path quite regularly. The gardener was Harry Cole who had a market garden in Burton.

I believe Oliver was a local magistrate and also the chief accountant for Whitney & Westley’s shoe factory in Finedon Street. He was at the factory in 1954.


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