Doctor's Pond, Great Dunmow

My father and mother and I plus young sister and young brother moved to Great Dunmow in 1945/46. We lived at 66 High Street opposite Spearmans. In 1947 my parents bought #8 Star Lane, about 100 feet from the doctor's pond. I went to school up the downs and while there I passed the 11-plus exams and attended Braintree County High School 1948-1954. In 1958 I married a local girl, Shirley Chapman, who lived at Saint Edmund's Fields, Church End. We were married at Saint Mary's church in July 1958. We immediately moved to Chelmsford and began a married life together. I was an apprentice at Marconi's in Chelmsford and Shirley was apprenticed at Leon’s Hairdressing Salon also in Chelmsford.
We immigrated to Ottawa, Canada in October 1962 after obtaining a Masters-degree in engineering at Imperial College London University. We now have four children (Grant, Brad, Ann and Scott), all over 50, and eight grandchildren. We also have one 8-year-old great grandson.
When we got married and moved to Chelmsford Dunmow had a population of about 6,000. It is now four times that at least.
We have lots of fond memories of Dunmow.
You can read more about the family involvement in Gt. Dunmow, if interested, at a website that we have put together commemorating our father, Captain L J Lawrence. http://captainljlawrence.houseoflawrence.com/
Our father was an extremely active man and was instrumental in the creation and development of the Dunmow Youth Club, the management of the 1st Dunmow Boy Scouts, participated in managing the local boxing club that was upstairs in the large wooden building behind The Star Pub and also, he was very involved in running the Dunmow Carnival and the Cancer campaign

Wow, what a surprise to have your comment sent to my email. I wrote that piece in 2013. A photo I saw of Great Dunnmow raised a fond memory of a few short years I lived there and skating on the pond in winter time. Only 10 years old at the time. I actually also went to school in Braintree and Chelmsford before family returned to Yorkshire.

Oddly, I didn’t d receive some communication from someone about ten yea s ago who now lives in the algarve whom also came from Chelmsford and we both went to the same school there at about it the same time. I also still live in Portugal on the silver coast (not the algarve). Such coincidences. Thankyou for commenting. I do hope you are enjoying life in Canada. I have met many Canadians here. Often Portuguese who also emigrated there and their children holiday here to reconnect to their routes Janet.