A Claim To Fame!

A Memory of Balsham.

My paternal grandparents, by the name of Goodliffe, lived in a house called The Robins, on Old House Road, Balsham. (Both of which are still there, although the house has been extended somewhat and modernised. Mind you, it certainly needed modernising. Even as late as the early 1960s, when my widowed grandmother eventually died, it still had an earth closet for a toilet - outside in an unlit little shed! With its permanent nauseous stench, and supply of cut-up newspaper for you-know-what: as a child I used to dread using it, even in daylight hours, and would insist on my mum or dad standing outside, whilst I did what I had to do inside!
They also owned a collection of (by my times there) ramshackle farm buildings opposite the house, and some surrounding land.
With no other means of income, my grandmother gradually had to sell off plots of the land to the Council, but was forced to sell it at low value agricultural rate.
Some years later, with the pressure on for more housing within easy commuting distance of Cambridge, the council no doubt made a handsome profit by selling it to developers, and it's now all covered with houses. However, our family name will forever be linked with the area, as the Parish Council kindly decided to name one of the newly built roads as Goodliffe Avenue, in remembrance of my family's link to the area.
Brian Goodliffe
briangoodliffe@hotmail.com

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