Both houses over the past 100 years would have had many tenants but York Villa had a special tenant who is still remembered to day with great affection ‘Doctor Chowdhary’. Savitri, Doctor Chawdhary’s wife had this to say about York Villa in her publication ‘I made my home in England’
“York Villa” ‘that first home of ours, was only a small one. It had no bathroom and Sheel (Doctor) used to take his morning bath, which he rarely missed, in a zinc tub in the scullery. He managed to do that without splashing any water on the floor. It took me a long time to learn this technique of taking a bath without spilling a drop of water around the tub. We had no electricity and used gas for cooking and lighting. The W.C. was in the yard just beside the back door and it astonished me to find the primitive bucket sanitation there.’
For Savitri, the conditions were worse than those back home in India.
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I believe my grandparents lived at York Villa 1930? until 1960? I remember visiting my Nan, my father’s mother, Mrs Chinnery.
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