Freddie Holmes Garage

A Memory of Great Totham.

I attended the primary school, just down the Maldon Road from the garage in the photo, which was run by Mr Holmes.  The sweet-shop behind the pumps was popular with us kids!  Headmaster of the primary school was Mr Herbert Lewis, a Welshman known to us as "Pop".  He maintained discipline - and our attention! - with a bundle of rulers held together with elastic-bands; when applied to the backside they made you sit up in both ways!  But he was a good teacher, joined in with our games and was liked and respected.  His wife, Hilda, a formidable lady from Yorkshire, was his deputy.
Then, Arthur Green ran the village post-office from the front room of his house on Staplers Heath, and he delivered on an old, smoky motor-bike.  Great Totham Hall farm was owned by Tom Martin, a shrewd man if ever there was one.  We actually lived in Great Totham north, in Mountains Cottage, Mountains Road, next to Lt Mountains farm which is still in the ownership of the Mann family.  The "big house" (Mountains) was sold by the Du Cane family in the early 60s (they had owned lands in Gt Braxted and Gt Totham for over 300 years) and was bought by Major Andrew Burnaby-Atkins, M.C. and family.  They sold up in the 70s and an ex-director of Shell bought it.  Our cottage "fell down" (after we had all left it!) and the site was then built on; I hope the builder took account of the underground stream that runs directly beneath the site and which is apt to surface in the garden at will during prolonged periods of heavy rain!
The village has been built over, not always to the highest standards, but the view from Beacon Hill south over the Blackwater remains the same and unspoilt.  I retain happy memories of my years living and schooling in Gt Totham, and of the people that we knew there and in the Braxteds and in Wickham Bishops.