From about 1936 to 1942, our family lived at No. 3 Wharton Road, next to Dr McCay at 184 London Road. Dr McCay was known to be a busy and important man, so although our house was effectively next-door to his, we had little contact, the only exception being that my brother Bryan and I would occasionally have to go cap-in-hand to retrieve a ball which had gone over the fence into his garden.

We both attended St Andrew’s Primary School. I remember listening to the then excellent BBC Schools broadcasts through a newly-installed radio. The headmaster kindly allowed me to try out plugging my headphones into the socket on the wall. I enjoyed the lessons, but the rough-and-tumble of the playground was sometimes a bit too much for me.

We were living in Headington because my father, William Joseph Grafton, had become Steward of the Bury Knowle Club. (Since those days, I have occasionally looked for the club in the place in Windmill Road where I last saw it (in 1942!), but I now know – see below – that it closed in 2014.) In my father’s time there, most of the members were senior executives at Morris Motors, and they would often treat us to a ride in their cars. The only member whose name I can remember was a Mr Shuttleworth. My father and mother ran the bar in the club and provided meals for the members, and sometimes there would be dinner-dances which resulted in our enjoying, the next day, delicious ham sandwiches that had been left over. Another 'perk' for us was that when the club was closed, we could play bar billiards. That normally required sixpence to be put into the slot, but we could bypass that by opening the drawer containing the coins. There was a pleasant aroma of Guinness in the bar area, and although we were, of course, not allowed it then, that probably had an influence on my later tastes.

I was fascinated by the ‘BKC’ monogram over the door of the club, and during the ‘blackout’, towards the end of 1941, I cut out its pattern from a cardboard box, with the idea of shining a dim light through it so that the monogram could be seen at night. I think the members humoured me and put it up on the front door, but later on, it quietly disappeared.

The BKC monogram over the club entrance (4 January 2014)

My parents were very popular with the club's members, and when they left, in 1942, my father was presented with something that might very briefly puzzle the experts in 'Antiques Roadshow'. It was a silver tankard with a lot of signatures engraved in it, together with the inscription 'Best wishes from the War Cabinet' – a reference to the many discussions they had had concerning the progress, or otherwise, of the war. It has travelled around a bit since then, but we still possess it, of course.

After my parents left the Bury Knowle Club, they went on to buy the Railway Hotel in Penzance, Cornwall, which, being directly opposite the GWR terminus, became a popular stopover for, amongst others, tourists on their way to the Scilly Islands. They retired in 1953. 

Graham Grafton, May 2026

Brief history of the Bury Knowle Club

The Bury Knowle Club was at the present Hollytree House at the north-west end of Windmill Road, numbered 2d. It was on the first floor of the shops numbered 2a, 2b, and 2c.

The club opened in 1933 and is first listed in Kelly's Directory for 1935, with the Home & Colonial Stores, MacFisheries Ltd, and F. Cape & Co. Ltd., ironmongers downstairs. The Honorary Secretary that year is named as W. E. Lamborn and the Steward as H. S. Tilley, but the directory for the following year (1936) lists G. H. Morris as the Honorary Secretary and Graham's father W. J. Grafton as the Steward.

Membership was for men only. In this article in the Oxford Mail on 23 March 1998, when the club had a hundred members, Don Macpherson, a member and past present of the club, said to the female reporter::

We're doing very well thank you, the only thing is we can't admit you. It's traditionally a men's club and ladies are welcome as guests. It probably wouldn't suit 90 per cent of women - we play darts, we play snooker and we drink pints of beer. We've got nothing at all against women, but I don't want to join the Mothers' Union.

The Bury Knowle Club premises (measuring 1,773 sq ft) were put up for sale by VSL & Partners at £300,000 freehold at the end of 2013. The club closed at the end of 2014, and planning permission 15/00062/FUL was granted to Keble Homes to convert the former club into four flats (two with one bedroom and two with two bedrooms). These flats were named Knowles House. The photograph below shows Hollytree House in May 2026

The Oxfordshire History Centre has 225 photographs of events held at the Bury Knowle Club, but they have not been digitized.

Headington was a much quieter place when Graham Grafton lived here, as shown by this postcard dated 1937 (with the north part of the Bury Knowle Club on the left over the Home & Colonial Stores):