Diary 11
At the foot of Stone hill formerly stood an old black and white House originally an inn, ‘The Plough’ and subsequently inhabited by a well-known parishioner, Mr T. W. Pratt.
A fine photograph of four generations of the Pratt family aroused much enthusiasm. Mr T W Pratt – a man of many parts – has been resident in Stone for 50 years. He comes of an old Warwickshire family and the photograph shows four Pratts, all with the Christian name of Thomas. The lecturer congratulated Mr T. W. Pratt, who was present, and remarked that it was of such men that Yeoman England was made
At the conclusion of the lecture the Deputy Mayor, in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr Finney, said they had listened to an amazingly interesting lecture.
The Reverend H. S. Stork, M. A. in seconding, said the lecture had been a revelation to him and they recognised most warmly the services of their schoolmaster in giving them such an interesting lecture. There were also most grateful to Mr Chambers – the organist, for all he had done.’
That ‘fine’ photograph is B 32, and was entitled as follows.
‘Four generations. – Our photo shows four generations of the Pratt family, well known residents of Stone, near Kidderminster. Councillor T. W. Pratt is the second on the left.’
A few pages on and the Shuttle of 27 Feb 1932, ‘deeply regrets to record the death of Mr Frank Finney. Mr. A. D. Chambers presided at the organ and the choir sang two hymns, ‘Through all the changing scenes of life’, and ‘Let Saints on earth’ ; In addition the 23rd Psalm.’
I flipped over the pages to July 1938 and the retirement the Rev. H. S . Stork of Stone church. A photo with the article showed the man sitting next to the Reverend was Albert Chambers, now an old man. William Pratt stood behind him.
The remaining pages included further weddings and funerals and ended with a cutting for September 1948 but there were no more articles about Albert.
A loose cutting, was slipped into the last page of the scrapbook; the subject William Pratt, but made possible by Albert .
