Astley Green: Grundy, Lester and Reade

Information obtained in 2001 from George E. Reade (now deceased) who lived in Devon

My great grandfather was George Lester, father of Tom who married Ann Grundy.

Great grandfather George Lester's daughter Annie married Joseph Reade and one of their sons was Granville, my father. I do remember Ann Grundy however, knowing her as Grannie Lester, when she lived next door to the butcher's shop that her husband Tom had started many years previously and then managed by her son George Lester, father of Roger.

My cousin, Mervyn Adams’s mother, Annie Adams nee Reade, was very knowledgeable about the family history that occurred in her lifetime and was always telling anyone who would listen about it. A lot of what I know about my father (her brother Granville) came from her (he died when I was only 13) and of course a lot more information was passed on too.

She in fact wrote some of what she knew down in a little book and even recorded a tape of her memories.

I am fairly sure that Grannie Lester was in fact Ann Grundy. She seemed very old when I knew her which was in the 1940's so the date you gave makes her around 80 at that time. She lived in the house next to son George's butcher's shop and when I knew her suffered badly from Parkinson's Disease. I can remember asking her for the stuffed fish that her father-in-law George Lester had caught early in the century, and also a book that had been his, on Freshwater Fishing. This probably occurred after my Dad had died in 1947 but I can't be sure. Eventually after her death, I got both the fish and the book.

Next door to Grannie Lester (in the next block of 2 houses) lived Harry Lester, his wife Nellie and their daughter Margaret. They kept the newsagent's shop.

Margaret is still around and is about 5 years older than me.

Next but one to the newsagent's was the Grocery and Drapery shop by grandfather Joseph Reade, originally the shop of George Lester Senior.

Mr and Mrs George Lester (pictured in the first of the Astley books together with Nellie Lester and Shep the dog) were indeed the parents of Thomas Lester and my grandmother Annie. In the second Astley book the same shop is shown with Annie and Nellie with son Harry. Above is the picture you refer to [of Harry loading the van] and all the shops can be seen on the right, Butcher's, Newsagent's and Grocer's.

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Notes:

Joseph Reade married Annie Lester March 1889

Thomas Lester married Ann Grundy 25th July 1892