Little Henham memories
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Memories of Essex
Visits to my Grandfathers @fullers End
Every year in our school holidays we would stay at my aunt's house at Sawbridgeworth and all my family would meet at my grandfather's house at Fullers End, Elsenham for a day. Me and my brother, Thomas, would be given the job to get the drinking water in a pail. He had no water or a well - we would have to go down to the railway crossing, go across, in the bank the other side of the crossing was a land drain sticking out and clear fresh water running out and we would fill the pail and take it back. We also played cricket on the field just down the road and used the electric light post as stumps. My grandfather didn't like you using the wrong words - I said to him "where is my dad" he said "he is not your dad he is your father".
Bank of England Printing Works at Debden
I was priviledged to be given a guided tour of the Bank of England Printing Works at Debden. I had just started work at the Bank in the City in 1963 and my tour formed part of the induction process for all new staff. Our group of a dozen new staff were given directions to take a Central Line tube train from the Bank station in the City out to Essex where the Bank's Printing works had been built just ten or so years earlier. We walked by fields from Debden station to the works where we were very closely shepherded around the first floor gallery of the main printing hall and were able to watch through one-way darkened glass and see the printing staff minding the machinery as new bank notes were produced. The security was immense as you can imagine and this left a lifelong impression of the seriousness of the Bank's responsibility to produce our country's money. There were other functions carried out, as much of... Read more
Picturing My Mother
I have no doubt that my lovely young, 23 year old mother, Elma , a WAAF stationed at Debden fighter aerodrome, during WW2, cycled this lovely lane at some point.
It was around here, in the summer of 1942, that my life began when my mother and still unknown father 'sparked' me into life. He apparently named John, according to one source, guarded a radio transmitter from a small hut out in the Essex countryside, safely away from the aerodrome. A perfect place for my beginning, I imagine !
The unfortunate part for Elma was that she had to leave the WAAF and travel home to Kirkbymoorside in Yorkshire to have her first child. She died in 1947, when I was only 4 years old.
I have researched her past, as best as I can, and tried to get the 'feel' of her life as a plotter in the operations room at Debden at such a critical time in our country's history. I managed to get in... Read more
Wartime Watering Hole
More than likely The Fox was a popular watering hole for the pilots, mechanics and WAAFs at Debden Aerodrome during the war.
The Summer of '42
Another view of The Fox, one of 5 local 'hostelries' which was frequented by the Debden Royal Airforce crowd, including, most likely, my dear mother, Elma Rivis,a WAAF.
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