W H Cato opened a hardware store in Bolton Gardens (now Duke’s Road) in West London at the beginning of the 20th century. The earliest existing photograph is from 1902. Cato’s developed into a chain of hardware stores, later ‘Homecentres’ spread over the West London environment. The chain finally closed […]

Spanish Civil War 1936 After school at Caterham 1919-1925 I joined my father and brothers, Will and Ted, in Cato’s (the family firm). In 1927 my wife-to-be, June, came to Branch 1 at Chiswick and so began our companionship, which lasted, unbroken except for my army period 1941-1946, until her […]

Auxiliary Fire Service In July 1939 Percy and I took the ferry across to Calais and made our way through France down to Switzerland. We had a cine-camera with us and were thus able to record our tour. The film shows us, on our motorcycles, journeying through France and, in […]

Second World War The day came in 1941 for my call up into the army. Upon reporting a group of us were sent to the Isle of Wight where we were billeted in a former holiday camp. After reveille we mustered in the hall for a few words of information […]

RAF Service History of F/Sgt Percy Cato Many thanks to Geoff King (relative of Captain P/O Geoffrey King) compiler of the following information. It seems his first operational flight was as second pilot to Captain P/O Geoffrey King and his crew to Bremen 4/5 Sept 1942 in Halifax W.1247 DY-A, […]