No longer at war

But there is still plenty for Trentham NWR’s local history researchers to get their teeth into, writes Sarah Akhtar.

You may remember reading, back in 2019, that in 2014 some members of Trentham NWR formed the Trentham at War Project, after researching the names on our local war memorial for an NWR meeting and getting hooked on local history.

Of course, life has been very different since 2019 but we’ve not stopped researching—fortunately online research can still be done under lockdown!

Our last Heritage Open Day here in Trentham was September 2019 when we concentrated on a new film called Banking in the Ballroom. It tells the story of how the Central Clearing House for all the national banks moved out of London in 1939 and brought their operations into Trentham ballroom for the next seven years. We interviewed local residents who remembered bank employees being lodgers and also some whose parents or grandparents met while clearing cheques, and then married and settled in Trentham.

The inability to hold Heritage Open Days since then prompted us to set up our own YouTube channel, producing 12 new videos for a virtual Heritage Open Day in 2020. Films and videos now total 56. They are always competing for the most views and I think the most popular are currently the story of Trentham swimming pool and a walk along the old Trentham Park branch line.

The centenary of the unveiling of our war memorial fell in October 2021, and we planned a service to mark this. Prior to that we wanted to do more research and find descendants of some of the men named on the memorial, and that’s where the NWR network came in. One first world war soldier is named William Challinor and on his death certificate we found an address in Horsham. I asked a member of Horsham NWR if she could call at this address to enquire about any members of the Challinor family. The result was better than we expected as the person who answered the door was William Challinor’s grandson. Hooray for NWR!

Other ways of researching include looking on Facebook and asking local residents. Facebook helped us find the granddaughter of a former pottery owner and when I finally managed to chat to her we discovered we’d been at the same school! Local contacts proved invaluable when we set about trying to uncover the story of a local woman named Rita Baines, who was an Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) pilot in the second world war, aged just 22. Imagine our delight when not only did we find Rita’s daughter living locally but also that she had her mother’s

Above: Trentham’s intrepid history explorers. Below: Some of the subjects of their research, including Rita Baines notes, letters, logbook, uniform, photos and much more! This led to another film, and we’re hoping to get Rita included in the Spitfire Gallery in our local Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.

Somewhere along the way we decided we were no longer Trentham at War, so we changed our name to the Trentham Heritage Project and now have a new website where visitors can access our research and other resources, plus transcripts of censuses and the 1939 Register for Trentham.

One family here in 1939 lived about a hundred yards from where I am now. Ken Hewitt had a company that made bricks and his son is still alive, in his 90s, with many clear memories. Two of us interviewed him and learnt about not only his Saturday job helping the postman but also his National Service and his passion for steam trains.

The information gathering is ongoing and is assisted by our Facebook group, Trentham 100 Years Ago, set up in 2014. We now have over 2,000 members who ask questions, share photos and memories, and discover old friends.

So, what next for us?

Heritage Open Day 2022 will be all about Trentham’s contribution to the second world war, not only Rita Baines and the ATA, but also local hero and designer of the Spitfire, Reginald Mitchell. Not only those who worked in the Central Clearing House but also the thousands of men who were billeted to the various camps in Trentham Park. Not only a display about wartime rationing but also cakes made from wartime recipes, plus an Anderson shelter for good measure.

Our work is not done—eight years after that NWR meeting to look at the names on the war memorial there is much Trentham history still to discover. www.trenthamheritage.org.uk