Memories of Ottershaw

My family came to live in Ottershaw in 1952 when I was 5 years old. My father, Charles Coulson, had moved us from the North of England owing to lack of work since his de-mob from the RAF. He was employed as a chauffeur/gardener by Mr W King of 'Tudor Cottage', Coach Road. We lived in 'Oak Cottage', Coach Road, owned by Mr King. That came with the job. As a young boy having just moved from the side of the Pennines (Shaw, near Oldham) I had a broad northern accent that caused much amusement to other children in the village. The first friend I met was Christopher Moore whose Mom and Dad owned Moores Garage, now the Trident garage - at first it consisted of 2 petrol pumps and they lived in the house next door that used to be a pub, The Gardeners Arms. I started infants' school and spent a short time, it seemed, in Mrs Daborn's class, then the rest of the time in Miss Dawson's class, and when we were all told that Princess Margaret was coming to visit the Meath school I had a Union Jack pressed into my hand and was told to wave it furiously when the big black car passed - I did and that's all I saw, a big black car, not realising I was supposed to see the contents. The Fletcher family whose late father was very famous in most things horticultural and botanical lived half way up Coach Road and consisted of three sisters, all unmarried, still wearing the late 1800s' fashions. They were ardent supporters of the RSPCA. They also used to sponser a children's Christmas party at the Brook Hall every year, and we were all presented with a large orange and a shiny new shilling of the year on going through the front door. Each one of those sisters was absolutely lovely and Dorothy (the last to survive) and I exchanged Christmas cards till she died in the late 1960s. My father purchased an acre of land from the Fletchers in the late 1950s opposite to their house. This acre was once a memorial garden dedicated to Mr Fletcher, we had a bungalow built at the top end called 'Magnolia' and my dad grew roses and sold them localy. I sang in the church choir for some five years till my voice started to break, some of the other boys being Chris Daborn, William Bath, and Gerald Waters, Gerald sadly died in his early 50s. I remember a man called Mr Hoydonk who used to cine film most noted goings on in Ottershaw and when us young lads were in the Red Cross cadets he used to film a lot of the various events and I would love to know if any of his films survived? I hated leaving Ottershaw to move to the wilds of Cambridgeshire in the mid 1960s and was most unsettled for some years till I came to realise that our tiny village here was really very much like Ottershaw 20 years earlier, still rural and with its own identity.