Mrs. Fanny Eliza Budden

Dear Dave,

9th. Dec. 2000

Mrs. Budden, a native of Reach, died recently and was buried last Wednesday. She was proud of her native village, the Fen and its people. I have written the following for your magazine. Do with it what you will but I am sure someone will remember her. I also enclose a damaged photo of a former vicar of Reach.

Yours sincerely,

From M. E. Moore, Engineer & Surveyor to the former Newmarket Rural District Council from 1959 to 1970

This note is not about the drainage scheme brought to your village during my service with the district council but about the sad passing last month of a lady who was born in your village 101 years ago and whose childhood was spent in the village before moving on to broader pastures where she eventually controlled one of the largest institutions for the poor and dispossessed in this country.

The lady about whom I write is Mrs. Fanny Eliza Budden, nee' Dean, born in Reach on 8th. September 1899 to Eliza Dean, nee' Peters, and William Dean. I was told her Mother kept the sub-post office in Reach for some years. In 1925, Fanny Eliza Dean married James Herbert Budden, whom she met whilst working for the Board of Guardians in Lowestoft. From this moment onwards they were able to hold joint appointments in institutions operated by the Guardians of the Poor, culminating in being Master and Matron of a large institution in the Potteries.

Herbert and "Daisy", the name Herbert preferred, retired together from public service in or about 1956 to Longmeadow where they built their first home. Herbert was elected to the then Newmarket Rural District Council, became Chairman of the Council and other Committees. He passed away a few years later in his new home at Longmeadow where Daisy lived out her days with great courage and fortitude, troubling no one, not even the social services. She was independent almost to the end and those of us who knew her well are proud to have met her. Daisy died on the 27th. November following two years of incapacity due to a stroke at her home at 98 Longmeadow.

I first met Herbert in 1959 when I joined the Council. His interest in me, a fellow local government officer, was that of kindness and consideration for a young man taking on his first "boss" job. I came to the district with my wife, Dorothy and my twin sons, Michael and Peter. We were allotted a dwelling in Burwell before going out to live in our own home in Lode. Our friendship grew and, having no family of their own, Daisy and Herb were interested in our children and saw them grow up.

We have known Daisy for 40 years during which time we heard many stories about Fenland life before World War II when drainage and road systems left a lot to be desired. Despite what was said could not be done or maybe would never be carried out, the war time need for food did bring about a change, the most important of which was improved drainage, hard roads and accessibility.

As to Daisy, before during and after the war, she was working her way up the ladder of her dreams, serving the public by working for the Board of Guardians here and there in East Anglia. Many times since, 1970, when we left the district for promotion, we returned to stay with Daisy for a few days at a time. She did not seem to age. She looked after herself and up to the time of her stroke never, to our knowledge, did she have help in the home. She lived for her garden at Longmeadow and had to have a gardener now and again to cut her grass and trim her hedges. Her father, William Dean, died in the garden of his home in Reach and Daisy thought the same would happen to her. Daisy nursed her ageing Mother who lived on to be 90 years of age.

Fanny Eliza Budden, "Daisy" was a proud, fine upstanding lady "OUT OF REACH'. I have written these tributes following my discovery of the October / November 1998 edition of your Magazine "Out of Reach", amongst her personal belongings. Reach has reason to feel proud of one of its "daughters"

Maurice Moore