Hi all.

I've been looking for ages for a site like this, can't belive I never tried the obvious url ;-)

I'm trying to find out information on a Rag 'n' Bone Merchants set up in the St Judes district of Bristol around 1936/7 and probably run by a pair of brothers by the name of Mitchell.

Does that stir any memories of long forgotten photos with anyone?

Feel free to email me with any suggestions or just post here.

Thx,

Mark B.

The only rag and bone merchants that I know operating in the St jude's area was situated on Stapleton road between Gloucester Lane and the church on the seven ways junction, I believe it was called "Rose's Rag and Bone Merchants". There are photo's of the Church on this site and there may be photos of the yard. When they finaly pulled the buildings down I am told the rats that lived there scattered like an army and invaded many of the buildings situated in Gloucester Lane and the surrounding areas. One such building was my Fathers Pet shop called Pets Corner situated at the top of Gloucester Lane. I have no knowledge of the name of the people who ran it but in those days rag and bone merchants were quite frequent around that area but in a much smaller way than Rose's.

The yard was in Newfoundland Road although the Mitchell's lived in Picton Street. I found a chap who lived opposite them as a boy.

Thanks for the info though as I'm sure someone searching the web will find it useful.

Now that you have jogged my memory I do remember the Mitchells yard. It was facing the bottom of
Wade St/Houghton St on Newfoundland Road. But that was not St Judes it was St Pauls.

ahhh.....all I had to go on was a 60 year memory that it was "near StJudes church" so I had to take a few liberties with the location.

As it turned out the information was a blind-alley :-( I was trying to track down my paternatal grandfather through the musings of my paternal grandmother (it seems that my father's father was not my grandmother's husband if you follow me). In any event although she offered up Mr Mitchell as sacraficial lamb, as soon as I had him traced she amended the story to include the real biological father (grandfather to me).

Sadly the new candidate can only fairly be described as a 'shiv'. He had several aliases, a criminal record and seemed to move around a fair bit. The only concrete facts are that he served time in Berlinie Prison, was Scottish and was in Exeter around 1936.

Thanks again for the memories though, they have helped me although not in the usual manner