My Mum

Martins Gate, a quaint cottage on the old Colchester road, is where my mum was born. There was no water, electricity, no inside toilet. I spent many happy hours there with my grandparents, playing in the fields at the back of the house. I was bathed in a tin bath in front of a roaring fire, the water was from a water butt and heated up on the Aga. The toilet was a shed at the bottom of the garden.
I spent many hours running acroos the field to the priory, playing with the deer in the woods and picking the bluebells to take home for my grandmother. The lighting was oil lamps, with the beams on the ceiling it was so cosy. Every bonfire night my brother and I along with our cousins would congregrate at Martins Gate for many a memorable Guy Fawkes. My nan would make toffee apples and lots of other goodies for us children. I remember my cousin Geoff having a dog called Shep and also some chickens.
I was in my twenties when Martins Gate had the electricity and a phone put on.
My mum married her childhood sweetheart, my dad, in St Peter's and St Paul's Church on September 8th 1945. I was born in November 1947 and was christened at the same church. My brother David was born in 1950 and my brother Paul was born in 1959. My lovely parents had a happy marriage which was taken away from them in 1977 when my beautiful mum died suddenly.  Because our family home was in Kirby Cross my mum's funeral was in Walton-on-Naze, but she is now resting in St Osyth, her birth place. Sadly my dad died last year and a joint request of dad and myself was to have his funeral at the church where he and my mum began their life-long journey together and to be together for ever in their resting place.
Although I have stated my memory from 1957 my parents told me from a very young age I spent many happy times at Martins Gate.
I often drive past Martins Gate and have noticed many changes, but for me my childhood memories of that wondeful little cottage will never fade.
It has changed so much and I hope the people who live there now will have many happy years there.