FILKINS & BROUGHTON POGGS
Platinum Jubilee
Museum Window
It's the ordinary things that matter!
George Swinford began to collect 'ordinary things' precisely because he saw that most people disregarded them.
'Why do you want that old rubbish' people said to him.
The Swinford Museum, which George and Sir Stafford Cripps established in Filkins, is all about these disregarded ordinary things.
You can see a few of these 'Ordinary Things' in the gable-end window of the museum this afternoon, and described below...
What 'Ordinary Things' have you seen as you walked around our village today, that should be kept, and exhibited in The Swinford Museum to represent our times?
Candlestick & snuffer
The candles were made from mutton fat and beeswax mixed together. Imagine... This provided the only light in the house!
Butter marker:
Butter was not prepacked, but worked at the shop counter into a 'pat', and marked with (in this case a strawberry.)
Hat measurer:
The band was contracted using the 'scissor' handles, and the diameter of a hat could be read on the brass scale.
Bicycle bell:
This came from George's own bicycle, which he used when he was a telegram boy (delivering telegrams around the village) from 1899, at the age of twelve.
George Swinford was born in Filkins in 1887, and (apart from service in WW1) lived all his long life here. He died aged 100, in 1987.
You can find out more in 'The Jubilee Boy', a fascinating story about him, obtainable from Cotswold Woollen Weavers.
You will also find other books about our village there...
