Ingatestone Junior School-VE Day 70 Years 8 May 2015

VE DAY: 70 YEARS 8 MAY 1945 - 8 MAY 2015

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Jean Cox: Ingatestone school reports for my mother from 1939 and 1940.

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All photographs and documents owned by Robert W Fletcher Jun. unless stated

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Ingatestone Army Cadets on exercise in 1942: this is now Steen Close, but was then the rear of the Boys’ School in Fryerning Lane. The cadets’ base was The Drill Hall, now a nursery school. My father, R W Fletcher Sen., is on the far left gazing over towards the Pemberton Avenue Front!

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Courtesy Mr Thomas A Fletcher

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William Fletcher: my grandfather’s younger brother writing to him on a POW card from Oflag 9A/Z in Rotenburg an der Fulda in Germany where he was a prisoner.

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My grandfather’s Ingatestone Home Guard standing down certificate. The Home Guard was stood down as it was thought that invasion was now unlikely. He apparently often fire-watched on top of Fryerning Church tower, a very good look-out point to spot aircraft coming in from the east.

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Mr T A Fletcher Mr T A Fletcher

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Details of P Barr’s experiences at Belsen in April/May 1945. From the IBOC Christmas Greetings 1939-1945 exhibition at Essex Libraries Ingatestone in December 2013.

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These original documents and those from the 2006 War Memorial exhibition now held at Essex Record Office: http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/result_details.aspx?ThisRecordsOffSet=7&id=1016284

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IBOC PT at The Old Rectory (now Fairfield Estate) in 1947. My father R W Fletcher Sen. Is the second from the right holding the pole.

Ingatestone Girls’ Own Club (yes, there was one for a few years post-1945) excursion to Dovercourt on their coach. My mother, Jean Cox, is standing on the right at the back.

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Ingatestone Girls Own Club in the garden of Marycot, Stock Lane in 1948. My mother is standing in the back row on the far left.

IBOC Re-Union in 1949 (the club was founded on 2 February 1919), the first post-1945, which must have been a pretty frugal affair! This is in the old Club Room, now the Parish Rooms in Stock Lane.

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The exhibition poster for the IBOC Christmas Greetings 1939-1945.

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Post-War In 1943 my father dropped bombs on the continent I remember my mother talking about bananas In 1944 when it rained, creeping alone to the windowsill, I stared up the hill, watching, watching, watching without a blink for the Mighty Bananas to stride through the blitz they came in paper bags in neighbours’ hands when they came and took their time over the coming and still I don’t know where my father flying home took a wrong turning

Libby Houston (b.1941)6

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Fuller, Simon (Ed.), The Poetry of War 1914-1989, (London: BBC Books/Longman, 1990), p55

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CWGC: http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1800547/HOUSTON,%20ALEXANDER%20MILLAR

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Produced for the VE Day 1945-2015 event at Ingatestone & Fryerning Church of England Voluntary Aided Junior School, The Furlongs, Ingatestone, Essex on Friday 8 May 2015. I recommend watching Humphrey Jennings’ great documentary Diary for Timothy (1945)8 which looks at the last few months of the war in Europe from Autumn 1944 to May 1945 linked to the birth of a baby boy in September 1944 who is presented as a symbol as the hope for a peaceful country and Europe after the years of war.

Robert W Fletcher (10 Cherry Trees, The Meads, INGATESTONE, Essex, CM4 0AP-01277 354431/07910 679379) rfletcher189@gmail.com

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Jennings Humphrey (Dir.), Diary for Timothy, (London, The Crown Film Unit, 1945). Readily available on DVD with other films by Jennings and documentary films by others looking at Britain before, during and after the war.

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