Matching In The Ealy 1950s

A Memory of Matching Green.

My aunt lived in Church Cottages for many years in the 1950s and for a couple years my family also lived at Church Cottages. When we left I still used to return and stay with my aunt during school holidays. This house had been 3 cottages that were knocked into one. It had (and still does I believe) white snowcemmed walls and a thatched roof. At one time it had two large commercial greenhouses and a field of blackcurrent bushes. Houses were built on the field in the 1960s. The strange assortment of people, made of cement over wire and painted by the maker in the front garden of the cottage were called Horace's Horrors. Horace (I think his surname was Saville) had originally been the village smithy - I can remember watching him make horseshoes etc. He was a very shy gentle man who used to partly hide his face when he chatted to you. It is said he made his own false teeth. The Smithy was located on the corner of the green and the road to the church. My grandfather is buried in Matching Church, but there is no headstone. I remember the Hockleys (Rosemary went to Herts and Essex High School for Grls with my sister), the Perrys, Mr Silcocks, Mrs Watson, the Rainbirds, the Owers. Many were from families that had lived in Matching for many years. There used to be a hunt. The village shop was typical of the times. A bus used to run once a week! There was a wartime airstip near but this has long gone. I loved being at Matching Green, it has many happy childhood memories. I used to go around with a boy called Roger Cox who lived in the big house the other side of Mr Silcock's cottage. Roger's mother was an antiques dealer. I remember going to the Chequers pub to buy a bottle of Guinness for my aunt and a bottle of ginger beer for me. The front door just lead into an entrance with a hatch so you didn't have to go into the bar.