People

B

Michael Bamber

My name is Michael Bamber and I was born in Liverpool, the elder of two children of a skin doctor and his somewhat younger wife. I was educated in Liverpool and when I was seventeen or eighteen, my father said, `What are you going to do`? I said that I had no idea. He replied, `At your age I was in the trenches in 1916`. I said that it was now 1966 to which he responded, ` Don`t be impertinent !` and returned to reading the newspaper. A fortnight later I was asked the same question. This time I answered, `Medicine`. `God help us ! ` he said. Read more....




Tom Barrett

I am Tom Barrett and I was born in South Witham in March 1929. I had 2 brothers and a sister. Arthur was my eldest brother and the next one was Charles. I was the third one and my sister's name was Rachael. My father was Waggoner to a farmer in the village and within a few months of my birth we went to live on the farm. I went to school in South Witham. I liked my school days though we didn't have the opportunities to go on to further education in those days. Read more....



Kathleen Blankley

I am Kathleen Elizabeth Blankley and I was born at Dry Doddington, Lincs. My father and his father before him were small farmers in rented property. When I was six we moved to Colsterworth to Pasture Farm down the Bourne Road, the other side of the A1, almost into the Corby Glen area. The Duke of Windsor used to come and stay weekends at nearby Corby Birkholme. We all used to know his car. I had one sister and two brothers. We all went to Colsterworth School and we walked to it every day. It was a long way and I used to sit on the stone heap for a rest. On the way to school, we used to deliver milk to three houses which stood near the entrance to Twyford Woods, to Mrs Porter, Mrs Harman and Mrs Heckton who came to live in Colsterworth later. When my elder sister and brothers left school, I used to cycle by myself and read a book at the same time. Read more....

Sheila Blankley

My maiden name was Hobbs and I was born in Stamford. My mother and father came from Sohum in Cambridgeshire and my father was a brilliant engineer. I was a child of elderly parents. I had a sister 18 yrs older than I was who married Ernest Warner RFCO LRAM, an accomplished musician. My father was friendly with a man named Fison and he wanted my father to go into partnership with him but my father decided to move to Stamford as prospects were very poor in Sohum at that time. He took a post as forman-fitter when Blackstones opened. Read more....

Albert Brown

About 5 miles south of Grantham on the East Coast Main Line lies Stoke Tunnel. Near the mouth of the tunnel is a collection of sidings, a water tower, an office and a signal box named Highdyke. From here ran a single line branch, up hill and down dale across the country to various ironstone pits that littered the countryside in this part of the world. Wagons full of stone would be brought down and stored in sidings forming trains of ironstone that would leave Highdyke each day for the iron and steel works at Scunthorpe. Read more....


Rita Burden

I was born Rita Burrows and I lived in a stone cottage down School Lane, by the side of the river just over the bridge. It is still there. I stayed there until I went into the Forces in 1944. The Appleby and Froddingham Iron-stone Works were still there then. At one time, my dad was the gamekeeper at Easton estates although he was born in Norfolk. He used to visit the Sir Isaac Newton pub at Woolsthorpe with another gamekeeper. My grandmother kept this pub and my mother used to help her. That is how my mother and father met. After they were married. they lived on estates in various parts of the country. During the time that my mother and father lived away from the village, they had two daughters and a son. Work on the large estates was fine for a while. The kids had the park to play in. Read more....