The Treasurer’s Tale Eileen Wood
I started helping at the Beeston Fete in 1948 in the tea tent, in 1967 I was volunteered by my father-in-law to be the treasurer, with the help of Bessie Ingham who I worked with the in estate office at Peckforton, she left the area in 1969, and I was joined by Blanche Wilgose.
We worked as joint treasurers for 24 years. When I took over, employees from Barclays Bank at Nantwich used to come to Beeston on the evening to collect the money and they would count it when they had time and let us know the result. We were then informed they would no longer be able to provide this service so we took the money to them in Nantwich.
This was not very satisfactory and an arrangement was made with the Midland Bank at Tarporley that our account should be run from there. We had night safes which were deposited after the Fete finished about 9pm as the Bank Holiday was at the beginning of August, not the end as now, then we went on the following Wednesday with the help of Miss P Churton to count the money ourselves. It took rather a long time from about 9.30am to 3.30pm as we had to wait for them to weigh all the money and agree a total with us.
My husband Hector used to come during the evening and take the money to the bank with whoever was available to go with him. Sometimes just the 3 of us would go. One year Hector went with another helper and that particular year there was rather a lot of night safe bags. Unfortunately the night safe jammed open. The bank Manager was located (he was in the bath), he had to get another key from the Under Manager. All this time Hector and friend stood guard over the open night safe -funny but not dangerous in those days. Also in the beginning we counted the money at the Lodge when it was getting dark by the light of a Tilly lamp, as there was no electricity as there is now.