Category: Real life stories

The bridegroom had been in the Army in WW1, serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a stretcher bearer over in France. The bride was the second daughter of Rev. John Haydon and Elizabeth, his wife (nee Batchelor). My story begins at my date of birth…

Continuing my real life story, some time in 1934, my parents and I moved to Woodford Green, and my father purchased a house there at 47 Parkland Road. I think that the price paid was £700. Whether he ever re-couped this amount, I cannot say, as we only lived there for approximately five years to the outbreak of WW2, and we never lived all together in our own house again…

Continuing my real life toddler story, there used to be a man selling sweets from a barrow outside the school, and I used to look enviously at some of the children who were allowed to purchase the Sherbet Dips, Liquorice Whirls and boiled sweets (all unwrapped)…

In my pre-war story, my mother and I often used to walk to the railway station at Woodford to meet my father off the train in the early evening. I remember all the men (hardly any women) alighting on to the platform wearing their bowler or trilby hats, and carrying rolled up umbrellas and briefcases…

Yes this was my real life story 1939. A few weeks before the outbreak of hostilities during the summer holidays, my Mother and I left London, never to return, and travelled to Buckinghamshire to stay with my Haydon grandparents, and so that I could be a bridesmaid for my Aunt Edna’s Wedding to Robert Brown on 3 September 1939…

In my real life story, after the September 1939 wedding, we did not return to Woodford, supposedly because of the threat of the German Luftwaffe bombing London, and I was sent down to Rye in Sussex to live with my Aunt Rene and Uncle Arch by myself. They were childless at this time…

Continuing my real life story 1940, during the Spring of that year, because of the air battles over the Channel and the threat of invasion by the Germans, as France had fallen to the enemy quite quickly, it was thought expedient to send me back to my grandparents in Bucks…

Continuing my real life story 1941 I went in for the Scholarship exam, but failed it, so I sat for an Entrance exam to attend the High School for girls at High Wycombe, and passed, so I was able to go there, paying a fee of £5.00 per term…

During my real life story 1943 and 1944 American Forces were stationed nearby, and we often used to get several of them attend Sunday services. Occasionally, my Grandparents invited them home to Sunday lunch. They were charming men and often very homesick for their loved ones back in the States…

In my real life story 1946 I was still attending the High School when my Mother died in January 1946, and I moved out of my Grandparents’ home, and went to live with Aunt Edna and Uncle Bob…

As a group, we did Folk Dancing, and I was quite attracted to him. In my real life story 1947 one day a visit was arranged to go to Cecil Sharp House in London. Sharp was a founder of the English Folk Song Society, and as a group we used to sing Folk Songs, including “The Foggy, Foggy Dew”, which was a bit saucy and amusing…

In my real life story 1949, Stanley kept coming into the Library while I was working, and I used to be filling the shelves up with returned books, and he used to pop his head round the corner of the bookcases! Eventually, this wore me down so I agreed to go out with him…

In my real life story 1951 after Roy fetched the Chrysanths, he said to me “I am soon going home to jam sandwiches and Beethoven”. So I realised that, like me, he loved classical music, and it was definitely love at first sight! It was very difficult for us to meet on our own…

Continuing my real life story 1951 … of course we were on our own when Roy saw me home after the meal at their cottage, but in the two years we were courting, we only went out to a cinema three times, as the only bus from Terling into Chelmsford…

Real life story 1955, our first home at Terling was a new Council House, but we left after seven months, as the market garden could not support another family, as by this time I was pregnant, and Roy got the job as Manager at Harry Church’s Nursery at Witham, just a few miles away…

Continuing my real life story 1957, Roy had always wanted to be self-employed, so he applied to the L.S.A. (Land Settlement Association) for a smallholding at Lawford, near Manningtree, Essex, and we moved there in November 1957. We had a financial struggle at first, as we had to put down a deposit and then pay rent, so we had to borrow money…

To continue my real life story 1961, in February, my Father, who had been very ill with a duodenal ulcer, had survived an experimental operation to by-pass part of his duodenum, sadly died less than a year later, aged 65 years. Peter grew up on the small-holding, and became friends with Paul Austin, whose parents were also on the L.S.A…