Leek Wootton Site

The Webmaster was delighted to receive an email recently from a former resident of the village who now lives in Melbourne, Australia. Tony Foster and his brother Stuart were evacuated from their family home in Ilford, Essex, in September 1939 and after some time in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, were placed with the Hobbins family and then the Clarke family in Leek Wootton.

Readers of the village history book may be familiar with these two families. John Hobbins Snr was the Wagonner at Woodcote and Sexton and Verger at All Saints' Church for fifty years. The Clarkes were a mature, childless couple who lived at the cottage across Woodcote Lane from The Anchor Inn (now named Ivy Cottage) and Joe was a gardener at Woodcote and the village molecatcher.

Tony and Stuart Foster with their mother, Dorothea,
on leaving Aldeburgh, Suffolk

"Arriving after an air raid on Coventry I remember seeing the injured being carried through the village on stretchers across the seats of Midland Red buses.

"Our first stay was with Mr and Mrs Hobbins and their son John who lived in the houses opposite the school, I think the next door neighbours were the Court family.

Mrs Hobbins with her son, John, and the father of the boys, Len Foster
with Stuart and Tony and their baby sister, Carole

"After a short stay we moved to Mr and Mrs Clarke, who lived in the thatched cottage on the corner of the lane opposite the Anchor Inn. The cottage consisted of one room and larder downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs, the front one being ours; memories of a feather mattress and an eiderdown quilt. Across the yard was the washouse with its copper and fire underneath.

"The Clarke's where very good to us, so much so that I cannot say we missed our parents. I still recall a bath on Saturday night in a tin bath in front of the fire, warming the bed with hot coals in a warming pan, and hot bricks wrapped in a towel, better than any hot waterbottle; also Clematis growing on the front of the cottage, and the shutters closed every night."

The Leek Wootton History Group has been delighted to receive Tony's unsolicited reminiscences. "After all of the hard work through 2000/01 to get the book printed and launched the reactions of many residents, past and present, has been overwhelming.

"It is intended to keep these stories in a village archive to serve as a resource to the community, and already it is hoped that the school will appreciate this first hand account of the experiences of an evacuee as Year 4 studies the 'War Years' this term.

"The website has proved a valuable instrument in the quest for such stories as it is doubtful that many of the people who have emailed would ever have heard about the History Group or the book. So anyone who is reading this now and has anything to share, no matter how small it may seem to them, please contact us."

Leek Wootton & Guy's Cliffe Website Rings Some Bells