The Bridge House

A Memory of Upminster.

My dad was a young soldier with The Kings own Scottish Borders. They were stationed (billeted) in Upminster around the old windmill area. Before they left for the Normandy invasion, they spent lots of time socializing at the Upminster Bridge Bridgehouse pub. There they came across the famously 'Gay' George Hurrell. George played the piano and sang. Evidently he played the 'camp' act to the hilt, much to the amusment to the young soldiers. I met George as a young man later on in the mid sixties. He still lived a quaint little cottage across the road from the White Hart pub in Hornchurch. A delightfull man full of 'camp' mischief. He assured me he remembered all the young men he entertained before they went off to War. Sadly, when he died, his beautiful doll house cottage was pulled down for a high street shop. How sad that important social history can be brushed aside and forgotten.