Charles William Layton was born in 1899 in Whittlesey, where he began his working life as a butcher, while turning his hand to painting and decorating when the need arose. Read more of the fascination history of the family business that is still gonig strong today . . .

Charles William Layton was born in 1899 in Whittlesey, where he began his working life as a butcher, while turning his hand to painting and decorating when the need arose. He and his wife May had two sons, George, born in 1924, and Roy, in 1926. In 1930 they moved from Whittlesey to March, where Charles set up a cleaning and dyeing business in Dartford Road. His shop was situated within the premises of the Pavilion Cinema, though, unlike many tradespeople of his day, he did not live above the Shop but in a flat nearby. The family grew with two further additions, another son, Charles, born in 1928, and daughter Doreen, born in 1930.

The hand of fate fell heavily on Charles's new venture when fire destroyed the entire complex in which his shop was situated. He was not insured. Undeterred, he set up am in premises in Station Road that he shared with a photographer. One addition is a steam press that he put in the window. Clothes for dry cleaning, dispatched to London by rail, returned two days later and were finished on the steam press. This machine was a big attraction in the town; Another was the family motorcycle and sidecar. It not only served as the family mode of transport but as a delivery and coIlection vehicle too: the passenger-carrying sidecar could be removed, to be replaced by a large box container to carry the garment for dry cleaning or dyeing. This would later be replaced by a 1935 Morris 8 van.

The family moved to Wisbech in 1939 to live in a flat above the shop situated in Hill Street. It was here that George spent his childhood, often visiting the Hippodrome & Empire Cinema in the town. His interest in the cinema influenced him to train as a projectionist in the projector room, which in years to come would prove a useful asset to him. The cinema had a profound influence on him that remains with him today.

Many garments at that time would be dyed to keep up with the fashions and trends of the day. When garments were brought to the shop Charles's wife May would embroider a number on the garment in gold thread for identification purposes. The garments were then sent to a dyeing works in Peterborough, One Day Cleaners, where they were dyed before being returned to Layton's shop with the embroidered number still intact.

George had left school at the age of fourteen and worked in the shop until 1942, when at the age of eighteen he was called up to join the East Yorkshire Regiment, before transferring to the Royal West Kent Regiment. His overseas duty was served with two and a half years with the 8th Army in Italy. In the following years, George's passion for the cinema would play its part in the postwar effort, and his boyish curiosity at the workings of the projection room at the cinema would prove invaluable to our troops overseas.

In 1945, he was transferred to the Army Kinema Service Unit and posted to Austria. This unit was equipped with cinema-projection equipment powered by electric generators transported in army vehicles. Cinemas or any suitable buildings were used to set up equipment to show newsreels and motion pictures to the Allied troops. Many of the films were the latest to be released from the USA and as such were an important factor in maintaining morale among the troops.

George's brothers both served in the army, Roy in the Burma campaign, and Charles remaining in England. While the three sons were away at war, their Father and mother ran the dry cleaning business together with their sister Doreen. George would have loved to carry on his work in the cinema trade after finishing his national service. He knew, however, that his father had kept the dry cleaning business going during the war years so that George, together with his brothers and sister, could develop it further.

Wartime was famously an austere period of 'make do and mend', and with rationing in force clothes were cleaned regularly by the dry cleaners to prolong their useful life. Hand-me-downs were very much the order of the day, with the new clothes of the oldest child in the family being passed down the family line or handed over to other people's families. Dry cleaning was still mainly carried out as it had been before the war, with garments being sent away to be cleaned then returned to the shop for pressing. New man-made synthetic fibre for clothing was beginning to replace the traditional tweed, cotton and wool. With the advent of these materials, and more ready-made dresses and suits, the dyeing of clothes waned. Dyeing materials remained a cornerstone of their business until the 1960s when clothing became available in a much wider assortment of colours.

With George, Roy and Charles home from war in an era of 'now get on with life', it was time for the Layton family to look to the future. Charles, his wife May and daughter Doreen had kept the business intact, and now it could be expanded. They established their own dry cleaning works at Falcon Road, Wisbech, with state-of- the-art dry cleaning machine and pressing equipment, as well as other machines to enable them to offer a complete cleaning service to customers. Customers were needed to sustain the works, and so Layton's set about establishing its name throughout the surrounding areas. A shop was opened in King's Lynn, and agents were appointed to take in garments for dry cleaning from Long Sutton, Sutton Bridge, Terrington St Clements, Dersingham, Ingoldsthorpe, Snettisham, Hunstanton, Thornam, Swaffham, Stoke Ferry, Wereham, Downham Market, Upwell and Outwell.

One special order they had was for garments from the Royal Household at Sandringham, though sadly this was not enough to earn them a Royal Warrant. One of the vehicles the family owned at this time was an Austin van, known as the 'gown van', converted to carry long gowns. The business remained a family concern until all the brothers retired. Looking back, George recalls the good and the not-so-good times. The war years were the best for dry cleaners, with clothing in short supply forcing people to make do with what they had. They were also good for the Layton family, because both the sons came home from the war after serving their country. The worst times were during the Depression years of the 1930s, when money was short. In many ways, apart from the materials involved, the business has changed little since Charles William Layton started in 1930. The shop in Spalding, which George ran, was opened in 1955 and he continued serving his customers until he sold it in 1989. George's son Andrew did not come into the business but ventured out on his own. That was until 2000, when a career change and a word from his father that the dry cleaning business was not a bad career persuaded him to buy a dry cleaning business in Market Deeping. George, who was seventy-six by then and ready to come out of retirement, was looking for work, so they took a shop in Spalding.

Living in town, all he needed to do was walk a few hundred yards, cross the River Welland into the Crescent, and he could manage the shop. At the age of eighty-five, this is what he does for six days a week. He loves meeting customers from the surrounding Fens, as well as townsfolk of Market Deeping. Many of the customers are new to the area, but George is old enough to have seen many changes during his sixty-eight-year working career. There is something nostalgic in knowing that George has served four generations of my family, and probably many others in our Fenland community. The shop is small and short of space, but George has made room for another of his passions, the circus and fairgrounds. Hanging on the wall is one of his paintings of a fairground, and in a corner is a working model of a fairground merry-go-round. These are the creations of a man who has been busy all his working, social and service life with many varied interests.

Time is there for those that take it, which he has, just as he has treasured it along the way. It is inspiring to know someone who treats work as a privilege, not a chore. He is also fortunate that he belongs to a family concern and did not work for one of the large multiples, where creeping years are often a person's death knell.