Laneswood The Home

A Memory of Mortimer.

As quite young boys of then 7 and 6, my brother and I with our parents, over Christmas in 1945 soon after the end of WWII came across from Holland, to visit our grand-parents who lived in "Laneswood", a true manor house standing on a big property indeed. We kids had not known nor seen much more than life under the boot of German Occupiers, and were plunged into the miracles of Britain with the grand-parental home outshining everything. Until several years later when they moved to Torquay, our twice yearly visits to this heavenly haven would coincide with our school-holidays in Utrecht where in the Netherlands we lived. It thus was in Mortimer where we picked up our first words of English, and goodness gracious me, look at me now: a retired Canadian citizen, having landed in my wonderful beautiful incomparable matchless Canada in 1977, at this time of writing fast approaching 75! To visit my eldest daughter and my grandson, who have recently moved to the UK, this coming March for the first time, and last been in Britain as far back as 1971, we shall then pay a visit to Mortimer Common when I hope to be able to still trace, find and re-visit "Laneswood" and see how the old lady is doing these days, about 65 years since last I visited her.

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