Cannon’s (Ramsgate ) Motor Spares and Accessories founder Derrick Cannon passed peacefully away at the age of 101 on 19th September at his residential home in Westgate.
A funeral service will be held for the loved dad, grandad and great-grandad at Thanet Crematorium on Monday 20 October at noon.
A w3ake will be held at The North Foreland Golf Club in Convent Road, Broadstairs.
Family ask that any donations in Derricks’ memory be made to The Gap Community Project in Broadstairs, British Heart Foundation and/or Age UK.
Derrick Benjamin Cannon was born in 1924 in Mitcham, Surrey to parents Mabel and Frederick Cannon. One of ten children, his siblings were Fred, Edna, Roy, Stanley, Dennis, Maurice, Donald, Lydia, and Marjorie.
Nine of the ten children survived childhood, but sadly his brother Donald succumbed to serious illness and died young of pneumonia.
Derricks’ father Fred opened a cycle sales and repair shop in Mitcham in 1907 which quickly incorporated car spare parts. As the demand for car parts grew, Fred moved the business and family to premises in Wandsworth Road, Clapham and Cannon’s Motor Spares and Accessories was born. The large Cannon family then moved into a bigger house.
Derrick was one of the youngest in the family and rather spoilt by his three older sisters Edna, Lydia, and Marjorie. They gave him the nickname of ‘Daisy’ which was shortened to ‘Daise’. He was a bit of a rebel when he was young and used to bunk off school which clearly never got back to his mum.
He used to go to the cinema and let his pals in via the back door for a ‘free of charge’ film viewing.
He was a lad for the girls too, and brother Maurice said girls would often call at the house saying Derrick had arranged to meet them and not turned up. He was, in fact, out with another girl.
During the war the Cannon household at Union Road was close enough to the railway sidings at Nine Elms to be vulnerable to bomb attacks and on one air raid the house next door took a direct hit from a bomb and was razed to the ground. A block of flats is now on the site.
The family were all evacuated to Malt House in Watersfield Sussex, an unoccupied and rat-invested house with a ‘privy’ at the bottom of the garden. There was no furniture, so they all slept on the floor and slowly the rats were eventually ‘dispatched‘ from the living quarters. Maurice returned to Clapham to help his father Fred with the business, and the rest of the family stayed at Malt House until the end of the war.
Derrick joined the Army in 1944 and while he was collecting a vehicle from the REME workshops in Ashford he met Joan Hollands, who was a mechanic and working under the truck he was collecting at the time.
They married in 1945 and Derrick left the army and moved to Broadstairs, into Joan’s parents’ house with her, where their first child Ann was born in 1945.
Derrick joined the railway in Ramsgate as a fireman and they then rented a small flat in Osborne Road Broadstairs, where daughter Susan was born.
Joan became pregnant again and they moved to a three bed house in Northdown Hill St Peters where Jan, followed by Steve and Andy, were born, before finally ending up in a four-bed house in Hugin Avenue St Peter’s.
Joan brought up their five children virtually on her own as Derrick worked seven days a week to feed his large family.
Derrick had three jobs. He was a fireman on the footplate, a self-employed part time chimney sweep and also ordered spare parts from the London Branch of ‘Cannon’s Motor Spares and Accessories’ for friends and acquaintances.
The demand for spare parts for vehicles increased and Derrick and Joan’s home, then at Northdown Hill in St Peters, had dynamos in the bathroom, starter motors under the bed, and evil smelling tyres in the hallway. Joan eventually got her house back when Derrick took on a small warehouse for storage in Newlands Road, Ramsgate.
‘Special Order’ spares were collected from the London Branch by his brother Dennis who took them to Victoria Station, put them on the train, and Derrick would collect them from Ramsgate station.
Derrick and his brother Dennis went into partnership to open up the Kent Branch of ‘Cannon’s (Ramsgate) Motor Spares and Accessories’ in Belmont Road Ramsgate.
His daughter Jan was poached from her current job to run the office, and soon further premises were opened in Ramsgate with an ‘Accessories’ department in an extended Belmont Road premises run by son, the late Andy, and then came a branch in Margate which was run by son Stephen, and then a branch in Folkestone was opened and run by daughter Susan, who came down from London to set up the Denmark Street Branch.
Derrick and Dennis finally got all the Ramsgate and Margate branches under one roof ending up in a large warehouse at 67-69 Hereson Road Ramsgate, a former Da Costa Toy Warehouse.
Derrick’s lack of education was significant but it never held him back as his work ethic was such that he worked seven days a week most of his life, and in partnership with his brother Dennis, built a business that was successful and big enough to employ most of his family.
Cannon’s (Ramsgate ) Motor Spares and Accessories was a very well respected and highly regarded business in Thanet, if not the whole of Kent.
Derrick and Dennis eventually sold the business, and retired when Derrick was 74.
Derrick’s retirement was spent doing the things he liked most, which was going out and about and meeting up with people. He used to walk round Broadstairs daily visiting the coffee shops and spending time with pals and acquaintances.
His wife Joan was never interested in these forays, preferring to stay at home. Joan was quite shy and reserved, the exact opposite of Derrick.
He would go out quite late at night for a ‘beer and a bag of crisps’ to the Tartare Frigate, coming home by torchlight and walking in the middle of the road as he said the pavements were ‘too uneven’. He was also a really good dancer and always first on the floor. He would get up and start dancing at any opportunity and often without a partner.
Derrick sadly lost Joan in 2010, and eventually started a friendship with a mutual friend of theirs, Marie. They went out and about together and were great companions. Sadly Marie passed away in December 2021 and Derrick became very lonely again. Eventually he went into a residential home in Margate, which he enjoyed.
He then moved to the ‘Ocean Swell’ residential home in Sea Road Westgate, where he was very happy.
Derrick leaves behind his large family of children, grandchildren and great-grandchild.
RIP,Derrick.
I remember your cigars, and your incredible memory for obscure motor parts
I have used both the Belmont Road premises as well as those in Hereson Road on many occasions. Never let down by Cannon’s, they had everything my old bangers needed to be kept on the road.
Thank you Derrick, remembered with thanks
Sincere condolences to your extensive family.