Wormley, High Road c1955

Turnford - a peaceful place

I was born and grew up in a happy, peaceful village where everyone knew everyone else. My memories are of long walks in a beautiful countryside which could have been a million miles from London instead of an hour on a greenline bus. Of thick fogs in November when traffic crawled at walking pace; indeed, one night my grandfather was leading the crocodile of vehicles and they all followed him up his drive and there was great difficulty in turning everyone around and getting them back onto the road. I remember my father saying he was going mushrooming one morning as there were some beauties at the end of the field which would be just ready at daybreak. The mushrooms grew just below the railway and when my father arrived at 6am a train had stopped, and the driver was picking the mushrooms! I remember many happy Saturday and Sunday afternoons watching cricket and the excitement of being allowed to score for the Rochford's 2nd XII (such lovely boys) and going to the away games in the back of an old lorry. Memories of Prince and Jolly, the two huge carthorses who worked for Rochford's and tramped backwards and forwards pulling cart loads of tomato waste. Fishing in the stream for sticklebacks. Climbing the banks of the New River and walking for miles along the footpaths. Watching the barge horses pulling barges along the River Lea; crossing over the river on the lock gates - I go cold thinking about that one. Racing up and down the hills on the islands created in the gravel works. The village shop and being relieved when Mrs Newbury retired as we were scared stiff of her; Ken was much easier to manipulate! A time of growing your own vegetables and eating your own fruit. The AA man who parked in front of the New River Arms and saluted members of AA as they drove past. Of climbing onto our gate and onto the public telephone box roof when someone was in it. The time a pony got loose and was leading a convoy of traffic along the arterial road. I lived there until I got married and felt happy, safe and part of a large village family. On a trip back to England a couple of years ago I was driven through Turnford, Cheshunt and Waltham Cross and was hard put to recognise anything. But I still have wonderful memories and thank the people I grew up among for helping to make the first 20 years of my life so happy.

Mill Lane Cottages, Mill Lane, Turnford, Herts

Hi, I am trying to research my family tree, family name is Sipthorp. I have obtained various birth certificates for my father and uncle. They were born in these pretty little cottages, the family consisted of mum, dad and 5 children, my, what a squash! My grandfather worked at the powder mills which I can only assume to be The Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock. If anyone out there could perhaps help me with this unusual surname, which by the way is a very old Cheshunt name, I would be very grateful for any further information.

Childhood in Waltham Cross

I was born in Waltham Cross in 1941, right in the middle of an air raid.  My dad was yelling up at the planes saying "Not tonight Adolf, not tonight!"
Waltham Cross back then was a wonderful village to grow up in. Sunday mornings only the sweet shop would be open at the top of Trinity Lane, named Foyles. You could walk up the High St and come across sheep being herded in the middle of the road, and all the traffic, well what there was of it, would come to a halt and await the shepherd and his flock.
The High Street was full of hustle and bustle on a Saturday morning and I would have to go into the Co-op furniture shop and pay on my mum's weekly HP for the furniture she had bought. I would then go across the road to Collins grocers and butchers and give them a shopping list my mum had given me and wait for the merchandise to be packaged. Friday nights my mum and I would wait outside the Embassy pictures for my dad to come off the 310 bus from his job in Hoddesdon and we would all go to the pictures. I would always get a choc ice and on my birthday I could have 2. I always knew I was special with my dad. On the way home he would give me a piggy back ride down Trinity Lane to Northfield Road where we lived as I was always tired.
I went to Holy Trinity School in Trinity Lane where the block of flats now are and as it was a church school Holy Trinity Church was our place of worship.  I was eventually married at the church and had funeral services for both parents there in later years. I am very sad at the blight of Waltham Cross these days.  Now a motorway runs through the town and the old shops and wonderful ways are gone. But I feel I had the best of times back then and wouldn't change a thing of that time.

Madeline (Clay) Rees