Milber: a foreign land discovered

i remember him dave,lovely bloke,and do you know why? i was len johns theman with a van grocer from the age of 9 until i was 16 and served this gentleman every saturday,he knew my dad well small world

Len Johns what a man, he had a small holding he lived on at Ogwell Cross and he fed nearly all the people in Newton Abbot. Luckily for his customers he gave them credit and if he had not have done that, half the people living on both the Buckland and Broadlands Estates would have died of starvation.

He came around in his Bedford van and not only was my mother a customer living in Oakland Road, My granny Best and auntie Win ( those two fine ladies who ran the canteen at the Old Rec) over on Broadlands were as well. Mind you Mr Johns always had a hard task getting money out of my auntie Win and sometimes when I was at her house, she would send me out with an order with instructions to tell Mr Johns she was out and would pay him next week.

I also helped him on his van from time to time and have two great stories about my times helping Len Johns, one is about a pig and the other bloody turkeys.

I’ll do the pig one first. I was helping him one day and when we got to the phone box in Oakland Road he phoned home to check on a sick pig he had. He was told the very large sow was just about to die. He knew he needed to get it to the slaughter house up at Milber before it died, as they could not by law take any animal that was already dead.

“Get in the van quick Dave I need your help to get a pig to the slaughter house” he shouted at me. Off we headed for Ogwell Cross and full speed and he got the wheels to screech on a few corners I can tell you.

By the time we got to his small holding everyone else had left and so he expected me a 12 year boy to help him get the half dead pig into a trailer. The pig would not stand up but was still breathing and we somehow dragged it to the trailer and got it loaded.

Off we sped at great hast to the slaughter house and I had to ride with the pig to make sure it was still breathing and alive. Just as we turned into the driveway of the slaughter house, the pig made one last loud squeal and died. They would not take him as expected and so we had to take him back to Ogwell Cross.

He also got me to help him with his Christmas turkeys. He dropped me off at the small holding and showed me what I had to do while he went and did the rounds in his van.

Well I not only had to catch the turkeys but kill them as well and pluck all their feathers off. He made it look so easy getting the turkey in a small sack with a hole in the end to stick their heads through. Hang them upside down and bang it on the head with a shovel handle then slit its throat.

Fine if you’re a good shot with the handle but I wasn’t, I only half hit the turkeys head and then it went loopy in the sack flapping around like some demented creature and I could not get a second shot away. I decided it was not fair to the turkeys to be killed by me and anyway as an animal lover I just found it upset me far too much. So I only did the one and told him he would have to do the rest or find someone else to do it.

Loved the man and loved the times back then.

Please use map below to find the places on it


You start a thread about Newton Abbot on the TFF and you will find it soon gets full of memories from many of the Newton boys who are TFF members. What a great thread already with fond memoires of Len Johns and even better learning about the life story of a well know man who lived in Oakland Road.

The Milber you see today is not a lot different from the one I knew as a child, the only additions really are the newer part of Belgrave Road as it once only went as far along as Swanbourgh Rd that was built when the rest of Belgrave Rd was built.

Those first houses built in Belgrave Road were built for and owned by the Army, not sure why that was the case as Newton Abbot is not an army town, so maybe someone on here may know the answer.

Where I have put an arrow was a very large man made mud hill, I expect it was earth moved there when foundations etc were being built. As kids we would spend much time there climbing up the mud hill, but it was what was on the other side that was a bit scary.

Rows of trenches the size of graves and as kids we believed that’s what they were and the bodies for what ever reasons were dug up and moved somewhere else. When they were building the rest of Belgrave Rd we often played in the houses, who remembers walking over the floor joists and trying not to fall down the gaps as there were no floorboards yet put down. Who remembers nicking those metal ties that looked like dickybow ties, just what did we do with them?

Moving up the map a bit we see Red Ants Wood, that’s not its real name and I think we just called it Pine woods. It’s not a very big wood but all the trees in it are pine trees. In there were three foot high red ant nests made of pine needles and yes we were naughty boys and would kick them down just to get the ants mad. They sure would get mad and we suffered many red ant bites playing in that wood.

Moving back down the map again and we come to tree root climb. At the bottom of Newtake Rise Milber Woods at that point had a climb up to the main path that goes through the woods. But there was a tree half way up that had its roots exposed and we would use them to climb up to the main path.

Once up there and not too far away was a place that had dips and humps and this was the Buckland boys ready made bike scramble course. One of the very best parts of Milber Woods was lost a long time ago. It was known as the common and you went through gaps in the gorse bushes to get to a large open green space. I’m afraid Aller Brake ate the common and what a shame it was allowed to happen.

Back to those graves? Did the Germans ever come to Newton Abbot? I only ask as one day my brother while playing in Milber Woods tripped and fell and cut his knee. He cut it on what just looked a very small fragment of metal sticking a very small amount above the surface.

Well he and his friend started digging around it to try and find out what it was. One hour later that had dug up two German helmets that would have been worn in the war. He brought them home and cleaned them up before taking them to school to show his teacher.

So how come they ended up being buried in Milber Woods? Were they really graves behind that man made mud hill?

Housing for people who worked at Denbury? The army were there until 1969.

is peter godfrey related to roger godfrey and the punters by any chance? i lived at number 133 the last house on the left as you go into windsor avenue.I of course know mike steve and keith webb.If you went through the slipway you ended up in woodlands avenue,had a mate tom breeding lived there,glass eye and sadly m/s took him,used to deliver to his mum with johnsy as well,happy days.No knives or group kickings in those days,you got a punch in the gob,next day all forgotten.Many a se too with bushes who turned out to be good chaps

thats right a very small version of elizabeth square wasnt it? the old memory clicks in and the characters at that time,pollards was a major employer then,lots of folk from the estate worked there,always remember the chap that lived in rosewarne who dressed like a greaser and rode a bike with those multi-coloured tassles hanging out of the handlebars,he also had a bad squint,raymond his name?