Hales Family

A Memory of Leighton Bromswold.

My dad was born in the village in 1927 in a cottage in Sheep Street. The Hales family have lived in the village for a number of generations until the 1960s. The churchyard is a testament to this as there are a number of gravestones with the family name on. I remember visiting the village as a child and walking from the main road where the bus dropped us up the hill to the village sometimes using a footpath across fields. My dad's family had moved to a cottage on The Avenue behind the war memorial, and as a child I can't remember venturing far from this. The other side of the cottage was used by a men's temperance group that didn't frequent the pub! We make regular visits to the village and each time my dad shares another memory of his childhood, maybe about his schooldays at the village school or visits to the pub with his grandad. He was brought up by his grandparents as his mum left the village to go into service, probably not her choice but she had given birth to an illegitimate child (my dad). Bit of a mystery as the father was a single man living in the village which usually involves a 'shotgun wedding'! The cottage on the opposite side of The Avenue belonged to the Chapman family, uncle, aunt and cousin of dad's, these were I understand wheelwrights and undertakers, dad can recall new coffins lined up on the grass verge.

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