113-115 High Street - A Garage in the High Street?

How rapidly shops change! It does not seem long ago that M&Co was the Post Office. The photograph to the right is probably taken in the 1980s, judging by the cars.

However we are very lucky that Kerry, the manager of M&Co, is very historically minded. When recently she received a letter addressed to Mrs. G. Warner of 113 High Street, she immediately brought it for me to study. This was because Warners Motors started in the High Street after Cecil Warner married Gladys Osborne, daughter of Samuel J Osborne who brought the first motor-car in 1899. He graduated from being a cycle dealer at 123 High Street to being the town’s pioneer of motor transport. In 1912 he was also the first Tewkesburian to fly in an aeroplane at Hendon Aerodrome. 

Aged only in his 60s, he succumbed to debilitating strokes but it was no surprise that he used a motorised wheelchair! He died in 1928.