The Trinder's of Fillins-Dennis Trinder

Following my research into the Trinder's of Filkins, I made a discovery that there was still a Trinder living in Filkins, and by looking through the phone book found that his name was Dennis, so on Saturday 19 June 2004, I telephoned him and introduced myself, I found out a little bit about him while speaking to him on the phone and I established that he was a blacksmith and that he had taken over the family business from his father, and that he lived in an old coaching inn called the "The Bull", so we arranged to meet the following Saturday.
The day arrived and I set off for the village of Filkins, the house was easy to find and after I had knocked at the door, I waited and wondered about what sort of person Dennis would turn out to be? Then a man appeared at the side of the building dressed in a Barber type jacket and beret, and I knew instantly that this was Dennis. "You must be Dennis?" I enquired "Yes, that's me" came the reply.
After shaking hands and introducing myself, Dennis invited me to look around his workshop, which is down a short lane at the back of his garden. The workshop or forge has been in the family for many years, Denis couldn't remember for sure how long it had been in the family, and said he couldn't recall his father ever working anywhere else.
His father, Robert Trinder had originally owned the building next door, which was known as "The Smithy", and it is at the rear of this building that there is a large paddock where the Blacksmith's workshop is sited. Being as the building was formally a coaching inn, would have made the paddock a perfect place to set up a blacksmiths forge, and there would have a constant stream of horses needing to be shod.
His father used to love re-shoeing horses but Dennis explained that he was totally the opposite, and had opted to do more ornamental work, this maybe was influenced by the fact that his father had lost an eye while re-shoeing a horse one day.
The workshop is adorned with all sorts of examples of his work and possibly his fathers too all hanging from rusty old nails around the walls and old beams. There are horseshoes, lamp holders, weather vanes and all sorts of other ornamental ironwork. It is a like a working museum and it was a real pleasure to be invited to take a look and talk with Dennis. He proudly revealed to me that he was now at the ripe age of 84 and amazingly enough, still does some work, all be it light stuff like curtain poles and garden ornaments and fixtures, but as he put it "I don't do as much these days!"
I sensed that he still gets a real pleasure from his work and enjoys people's reactions when they receive their finished items. He is really proud of his achievements and is keen to tell you that some of it has been sent all over the world, along with the fact that many of the countries rich and famous have also employed his services over the years, including the likes of local celebrities such as Anneka Rice and Judith Hann, and politicians such as Douglas Hurd. The list was seemly endless.
Dennis could probably talk for hours and hours of his life given the opportunity and sadly my time ran out on this day, but I did promise to return to take some pictures of Dennis and his workshop and I hope that I will be adding them to this page in due course.
Unfortunately, Dennis never had children so there will no one to carry on with the family business when Dennis dies, it will be the end of four generations of Trinder blacksmiths in Filkins. Even the name Trinder will disappear with exception of a new development of houses built in the garden of the former Lamb Inn, of which one bears the name "Trinder Cottage". Something Denis uttered his displeasure of.

The reason for my visit was to show Dennis my research into his family; I have traced his line back to John Trinder of Kempsford, which was something Dennis did not know. He was pleased to see what I had found out, and was surprised to see his family was much larger than he knew. I hope to visit Dennis again very soon to find out more of his fascinating history.