William Mattison
William Mattinson came to this area in about 1920, after army service in France from 1915 to 1918. He was a farmer and moved to Cow Common farm, Water Eaton with his Sister, Mary. He met and married in 1921. Mary moved to Bletchley Road with her Sister Dora and set up the hairdresser’s Business known as ‘Dormary’. The House has now been converted to a butcher’s shop (next door to Martins, the newsagents which was previously Turner & Langley), opposite Brooklands Road.
"My Parents moved to Manor Farm, Old Bletchley in 1928. Farmers had a difficult time in the 1930s depression which caused my parents to guide me into a profession involved with cattle markets, farm evaluations, management and sales. I went to the Brown side of Brown & Merry, where I became a Partner, taking charge of their Bletchley Office in 1965, on the amalgamation with Foll & Parker. Between 1949 and 1963 I worked elsewhere, partly with the Merry side of B & M before the amalgamation of W. Brown & Co. with Stafford, Rogers & Merry and about 9 years with the Bedfordshire Building Society, opening the first Building Society Office in Bletchley in 1955.
Before the 1939/45 War, my father opened a butcher’s shop and slaughterhouse in the farm buildings at Manor Farm. The farm was let to Philip Pearce. Before I joined the R.A.F. in 1943, I used to shoot, or try to shoot, rabbits on a Sunday morning. By strange coincidence, I was in the field - now in the Derwent Drive sports ground - when a Junkers 88 flew over at about 1500 feet, heading in the direction of Bletchley Park, which was about one mile away. Three weeks later, at about the same time, in the same field, a Heinkel 111 flew over at about the same height going in the same direction.
Bletchley Urban District Council decided to acquire the farm for residential development in 1952 and told my Parents they would acquire it by Agreement or Compulsorily – whichever my Parents chose!
The house was let to Ken Fuller, the Accountant, and then became the ‘Shoulder of Mutton’ Public House when the pub of that name on the other side of the road was demolished. The house is still there, substantially altered, now called the ‘Three Trees’ and I was invited to plant one of the three trees, now on the Shenley Road, near the entrance to the car park.
