Extract from - Twelve Generations by John Coales


DOROTHY EMMA FROST was always referred to as Miss Frost. She was daughter of Mr. George Tayler's farm manager, at Little Linford. In her younger days she was governess to a family in Ireland but then returned home and had a small business as a seamstress and dressmaker. It was in the dark days of the Second World War in 1942, when men had been called up for essential duties, that Miss Frost joined the office staff of Francis Coales & Son, Town Mills, Newport Pagnell. The front office was staffed by three persons: an office boy or girl, Miss Frost and the transport manager. Miss Frost answered the telephone and was known to hundreds of customers; she dealt with the orders and book-keeping for Cecil Sharp's retail round; she maintained the sack ledger which was an all important job; she dealt with the petty cash. Miss Frost would, and could, do anything. She lived in Lakes Lane and was well-known going to and fro on her bicycle. As the business grew so did the paper work and the office had to be extended with a two-storey addition. Miss Frost - and the telephone - went upstairs into a small room; she retired in May 1969. She died in the early 1990s having been afflicted with a most distressing complaint – unable to speak – for the last few years.