Letters

Jackie Herron
72 Governors Road
Crib Point
Victoria 3919
Australia

e-mail > bodicea@peninsula.hotkey.net.au

11/07/99

Hi, congratulations on your excellent cover page April/May 99.
I follow the 'Reach" home page regularly and read the magazine with great nostalgia!

I spent 10 years living in Reach as a child. We came from London in the late 40's and lived in a bus next to the old ''Roman Road' between Burwell and Reach. It was near what was then known as 'Sheep Wash Corner.' We later moved to a council house. No4 Ditchfield. My grandparents, Margaret and Jim Lockyer lived in one of the small cottages facing the village green and close to the cemetery. We did our shopping in the little corner shop that was run by the 'Sergeant' family. I have early memories of singling sugar beet in the fens for the Aves family. Rain, wind and the freezing cold, I would bike out each afternoon after school. This was my spending money for the event of the year, The Reach Fair! The Aves had the very first television in Reach. I can remember us kids crowding in their lounge room to watch in awe! Very exciting! (There were three children I think Margaret, Brenda and Rosemary Aves.)

I went to the primary school at St. Mary's in Burwell. Mr Cripps was the vicar. Our playground was the graveyard! We used to have to walk to the High School in Burwell for our dinner every day. Oh God I hated school dinners! I once got the cane for playing 'cat's cradle' in the dinner line! (Anyone remember that game?)
My friend Gloria Carter and I would sit up on the Ditch (Devil's Dyke) and watch the lights gradually come on in Reach. We would make plans to run away to more exciting places. We never did, but I did get to come to Australia 31 years ago. I'm searching for Gloria with the help of Dick at Drakken.

From the age of 15, I would catch the early morning bus to Cambridge, where I worked in the office at 'Pye' I have a photograph of my grandfather working on one of the first television sets to come from there. I also have some very old photographs of his cottage. His garden was magnificent. It was laid out in nice neat rows, cornflowers, lupines, sweet williams, rhubarb, cabbage, and beans. In the midst of this entire splendour was the dunny! I used to sit with the door open and look at all the flowers with the butterflies darting through and hovering over. I can still see my grandmother, up to her arms in soapsuds, doing the wash outside in a metal tub and scrubbing it on a wash board. She always had the inevitable 'fag' hanging  from the corner of her mouth!