Charlie Acton, 1910–1971
Eccentric
Charlie was an eccentric figure fondly remembered by many in Leominster. With his battered top hat, festooned with badges, his ‘factory chimney‘ pipe, his outsize buttonholes, his stick, his leggings, his heavy boots and his broad grin, it was said he could always raise a smile from both adult and child.
Charlie, a cheerful exhibitionist, was born about 1910, at Ford Bridge and went to school in Leominster, and died in September 1971, an eccentric figure who, by his quaint dress and his unexpected behaviour, used to amuse many who happened to see him.
Mrs. Vera Price, reporter for the ‘Leominster News‘, described Charlie as one of Leominster’s best known characters of all time. “A familiar sight in his battered top hat, festooned with badges, his ‘factory chimney‘ pipe, his outsize buttonholes, his stick, his leggings, his heavy boots and his broad grin, he was as much a part of the scene as High Street itself… His home was where he could make it, and his friends were anyone who could pause long enough to exchange the time of day.”
When he was found dead on some waste ground behind the Prince of Wales garage in Lower Bridge Street, the historian Alec Haines said this about him:
“The life he chose was the life that made him part of Leominster, and Leominster part of him. All the people of the town were his friends, and every single one of us was greeted with his usual welcome of “Old pal.” He in turn gave us the chance to have a good laugh at his performances. All the town was his stage, and if he could raise a smile from either adult or child, then those eyebrows of his lifted up and down, the smoke rose in clouds from his pipe, his stick was waved in all directions, his outsize in button-holes would droop more towards his boots, his battered top hat would go up and down with the movement of his forehead, and then Charlie, Kicking about in “yorkes” or leggings, would start up to be his normal self again.
Never will anyone who was there at the time forget his role as the unofficial foreman and traffic controller when premises at the top of Broad Street were demolished. In the few months before his death he was to be seen in the fields near the town tip blowing a tin whistle, with the sheep and lambs following him as he went round and round. …. I intend to do all I can to make a memorial stone possible, so that the name of Charlie Acton of Leominster will be remembered. For there will never be another such character. Sleep on, old pal, sleep on!“
