Hendred's Home Front Recall

East Hendred - Home Front Recall - project in our village museum.

Our current interest in this site is to seek out memories from any one who had contact with East Hendred and the surrounding area during the war period. This means every kind of resident at that time, local or evacuee (adult or children) as well as service personnel billeted here.
Our Museum will be staging an exhibition throughout the year and during that time as well as the fixed displays we hope to collect more personal stories in the shape of oral history recordings to provide a unique collection of Berkshire life during a time of great change.
We were after all an agricultural community whose residents became very closely connected with air fields, munitions factories, evacuated school children and office and laboratory workers from London. These changes set the scene for even greater social change when Harwell was chosen for conversion from active airfield to atomic energy research establishment just 60 years ago.

The general knowledge is there, as is much memorabilia; we need a few specifics especially those half forgotten memories. After all his records as a runner does E MacDonald Bailey remember his sojourn here with the RAF? are there any Land Girls about who remember being billeted on Hendred Hill? or coolecting uniforms at Rowstock House. Perhaps service personnel who enjoyed the delights of the Plough or the dances in the Village Hall perhaps a better memory than the perils of returning to Harwell after a raid and dodging the trees on the Ridgeway. Even maybe there a Glider Pilot who landed up there in error during training.

Like most villages we feel we have a story to record for the future and to add to our past — please help with our project if you have memories . We are searching for voices too. Owners (remember our racing stables used for billets) of those voices who are prepared to put their memories on tape rather than text. We are told that digital may last longer and certainly can more easily be spread around.
Did you serve in or around the MG Car Company in Abingdon to help produce the tanks which were tested on our ancient prehistoric highway the Ridgeway so recently banned to four wheel drive motors in winter. Do the words 'Anglo' mean special things to you or even 'Pool'. At Milton Hill the previous home of Sir Mortimer Singer an international oil company set up a wartime evacuation centre for the offices and laboratories from Central London.
In Didcot and Milton were Army and Air Force Ordnance Depots and Stores served from the Midlands and the West by the Great Western Railway with the big junction at Didcot.
That railway line was the target for the passing bomber, though like the rest of the area was never subject to heavy attack. Grove airfield was another wartime addition and at one time while being used by the US air force at the time of the invasion, was said to be one of the busiest airfields in the UK.
East Hendred though seemingly remote and still producing food was in the centre of this conglomeration of wartime activity without the need to go further out to Oxford, Swindon, and Reading.

Personally
I was at sea in the Merchant Navy during much of the war which may seem strange for a boy born and bred in a small country town. Wantage in Berkshire then Oxfordshire, now where my parents helped the War effort and the Home Front as well as attempting to write to a young son overseas with such news that they thought would not encourage the wrath of the censor. — however another story.
If ever I find time away from the direct interests of Hendred my home for over 55 years I will search out wartime information from those I met as a young Merchant Navy Radio Officer on the SS Calgary (Elder Dempster Lines), SS Pundit (Asiatic Steam Navigation), and SS Empire Halberd (Furness Withey) while viewing North and South America, Africa, India, Burma and a few very odd spots in between.

John Stevenson, East Hendred Heritage Trust. Registered Charity 1094909

John Stevenson, East Hendred Heritage Trust

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