MY FIRST job when I worked in the advertising department of the News & Mail in 1978 was looking after the situations vacant advertisements, the focus for this week’s Peeps into the Past.

One of the many local businesses that advertised regularly for staff was H Henshall & Sons (Addlestone) Ltd, who were based in Oyster Lane, Byfleet.

I was reminded of them recently by reader Lee Burnham, who worked there and told me the firm made kitchen galley equipment for the aircraft industry.

It appears the business was founded on 24 June 1940 and traded locally until about 1989. Today the business is called Aim Aviation (Henshalls) Limited and is based on a business park at Bournemouth International Airport. It is listed as making “air and spacecraft and related machinery”.

The News & Mail situations vacant advertisement for Henshall seen here dates to November 1973, when a wide range of staff were “URGENTLY required”.

They included two design/draughtsmen, a planning and estimating engineer, a progress engineer, four sheet metal workers and fitters, a skilled toolmaker, a skilled milling machinist, two inspectors, a packer/clerk, two ladies (cleaners), and a labourer.

Light engineering in its many forms was, during the 20th century, common in this part of Surrey.

Some older trade press advertisements of Henshall have been uploaded to a website, www.aviationancestry.co.uk, which catalogues historic British aviation industry advertisements from 1909-1990.

They give a further insight into the firm’s products, who they were supplied to and specific aircraft. These include the de Havilland Comet and the Trident aircraft, Vickers, Armstrong Whitworth and BEA (British European Airways).

The trade advertisement seen here was published in Flight magazine in 1965 and shows galley equipment installed inside an aircraft.

Pullinger memories keep on coming!

FURTHER memories and details of Pullinger’s bakery, as featured in Peeps last month and last week, have been sent in by readers.

Research by Trevor Howard into shops and businesses in Woking town centre has nailed the various locations at which the business was located.

He writes: “Frederick Pullinger’s first shop was at 25 Chobham Road, from 1888 to 1918, presumably baking on the premises.

“He opened the Chertsey Road shop in either 1899 or 1900. It had a bakery to the rear, now known as the ‘Old Bakery’, accessed from 44b Commercial Way and now or recently home to A&S Market, a Romanian delicatessen.

“He had a shop at 22 High Street, listed 1935-37, and probably until the outbreak of the Second World War. During the war this was the Ministry of Labour and National Service office.”

Brian Jutsun writes: “I was employed in the confectionery bakehouse behind the shop as my first job in July 1959, aged 15. This was to train as a baker, as I was keen to follow in my uncle’s footsteps as he was a baker on the P&O shipping line.

“However, I couldn’t wait three to four years to complete an apprenticeship and left after eight months and joined the Merchant Navy as a cabin/stewards boy.

“There was the bakery at the back of the shop, and tea rooms upstairs above the shop. Mr Pullinger and the manager had an office at the very top of the building.

“I had to go up there every Friday morning and collect a tray with our wage packets on it, take them back down to the bakery and the foreman would hand them out to us. The set-up was very Dickensian!

“There is (or was) a very interesting cellar under the shop with an arched ceiling, it always reminded me of a jazz club-type setting.”

IF you have some memories or old pictures relating to Woking and its people, call David Rose, on 01483 838960, or drop a line to the News & Mail.

DAVID ROSE is a local historian and writer who specialises in what he calls ‘the history within living memory’ of people, places and events in the west Surrey area covering towns such as Woking and Guildford. He collects old photos and memorabilia relating to the area and the subject, and regularly gives illustrated local history talks to groups and societies. For enquiries and bookings, please phone or email him at [email protected].