Local Face: Bob Burke

Bob Burke is a very frustrated man. He has demonstrated his frustration by allowing someone to drive a mini through his front window! Yes, you guessed it; he lives at the top of the High Street.

Why on earth should anyone want to do such a thing?

Bob comes from a family that can trace its’ roots in Wendover at least as far back as the mid-nineteenth century. His great great grandfather, Fred Sears, was a member of a family which ran grocers shops all around the South East Midlands, including Kettering, Northants. By the late nineteenth century, the Co-operative movement was growing and Fred opened the first Co-op shop in Wendover. This was on the site now occupied by Agora.

The Co-op was very successful right into the twenties and the family flourished. So much so that Bob’s Great Aunt Doris Barnard, a World War I widow, was well known as a local philanthropist in the 1920’s and 1930’s. She was a staunch member of Wendover Baptist Church and this was probably the reason behind her neighbourly behaviour.

She did not exclude the family from her beneficence, however, and in the early fifties, she bought a “Georgian” property at the top of the High Street. The downstairs of the property was converted into two shops: a florist run by Marjorie Dawson and a watch- maker and jewellers run by her son-in-law, Rick Burke. The upstairs remained as a domestic dwelling. At the time, the family was very upset by the poor quality of the conversion work and have lived with the consequences for nearly 50 years!

Bob was born in Chiltern Road in 1964 and’ lived there until he was 18. He remembers’ going to Mrs Hayman’s nursery school in , Woollerton House (now Brown and Merry) in the High Street. He was one of the last set of children to attend the old school in the High Street. He most famously remembers I that it was always cold in the winter. The gymnasium seemed enormous and there was an amazing swimming pool in the grounds. He then transferred with the school to the new campus in Wharf Road – and completed his secondary education at John Colet School. Here the abiding memory is of another swimming pool! This means that he knows most of the people born and brought up around here at that I time and he is sad that house prices have forced some of them to move away. He is very happy that the education he was given in Wendover has allowed him to keep abreast of modern times. His own commercial interest is in telecommunications. He is also impressed by how many of his schoolmates have done so well and moved away for positive reasons associated with work.

Bob started living in a house which he had always thought was Georgian but further study showed that the central portion of the building was definitely early seventeenth century, circa 1630, and the cellars were even older. The ships’ timbers as joists and 3 inch wide floor boards are clear signs.

Now a married man, Bob decided that it would be good to restore this badly renovated building to its former glory, make a family home, and really enhance that part of the High Street. His near neighbours lower down the High Street were domestic dwellings. His own building used to be. Properties move in and out of domestic and commercial use depending on the business climate. Moving towards the cross roads, Wendover Bookshop had recently opened as a new retail outlet and Philip Bennett had converted an abandoned building into a modern Dental Practice. It was the turn of the last part of the block to receive a facelift.

Bob’s experiences of being a landlord have not been simple. Recessions mean that businesses run by small shopkeepers could become unviable. When the lease for the needlework shop Lazy Daisy ended, as landlord, Bob decided not to renew it. Three years ago, he applied for planning permission to restore the entire building sympathetically to domestic use but has had no joy from Aylesbury Vale District Council which insists that it must remain as a commercial premises with commercial rates.

In his frustration, he allowed someone to drive a mini through his front window. In his place, what would you do?