A Carterton Great
Mary Johnson Clarke
Mary Johnson Clarke arrived in Carterton in 1957 with her husband,
who was taking over a butchers shop. She has been here ever since,
and has served as a town councillor, Mayor, and a district councillor.
Sam Bennett visited her home to talk police escorts, rebellion and
ladies from Birmingham and London.
“Four or five years ago, I was on
my way to do some shopping and
this woman came over to me,” Mary
Johnson Clarke tells me. “She said
she’d been wanting to speak to me.”
“I said ‘Oh yes? What about?’ and it
was something to do with the Council,”
Mary continues. “I told her I didn’t have
a clue and that she’d have to go to the
Town Hall.
“She said: ‘Well you’re the bloody
Mayor!’ I hadn’t been the Mayor
since 1990!”
Mary began her spell as Mayor of
Carterton in 1987. “That’s when the
Greater Carterton concept started,”
she states. This concept was about
developing Carterton, which at the
time was said to be missing facilities in
the town centre, and the town did not
have decent access to the A40.
“There were groups who didn’t want
any development in Carterton. They
wanted it to stay as it was,” the
86-year old recalls. “On a couple of
occasions I had to have police escorts
to meetings because of the people
outside the Town Hall demonstrating.”
One of the Greater Carterton ideas
was to use some of the recreation
ground for car parking and a new
supermarket. Mary found herself
getting unpleasant phone calls in the
early hours of the morning from those
in objection. In the end a vote was
held. The Town Council lost and the
recreation ground was not used for
Greater Carterton as planned.
“It was quite a volatile time,” she
claims. “It’s what happens when you
have a belief and put your head above
the parapet to say so. People have said
they agree with you but when it comes
to actually putting their heads over the
parapet, they don’t do it.”
So almost 30 years on, has the
concept succeeded? “Greater
Carterton was altered to suit the town
20 years after it was first proposed,”
says Mary. “There are lots of people
with houses, we’ve got the connection
to the A40 which we didn’t have,
football grounds, a football clubhouse,
and the leisure centre. So yes, the
seeds that I sowed have borne fruit.”
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