This summer, with the 80th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the renewed interest it has instilled, Nazeing History Workshop wanted to share the story of life in our village during the last conflict.
The opportunity to do this arrived when we were invited by the Epping Forest Museum, which was running a series of talks to accompany their Exhibition: Calm and Courageous – The Second World War Home Front in the Epping Forest District, to give a talk about the village at this time.
This period of history had originally been covered in our book, The History of Nazeing Part 2 -Seventeen Miles From Town.
Since then, we have acquired more personal testimonies from newspapers, diaries, or through online and oral projects.
As a young person growing up in a post-war village, these stories were about people and places I knew well. I felt it was my duty to make sure that this, and future generations, understood what life was like in our small village during this difficult time.
Following on from the talk in June, we published a series of eight blogs between VE and VJ day on our website.
We wanted to concentrate on the human element, on how national and international events affected those who were living, working and visiting our village of Nazeing during this time of uncertainty.
We looked at the social, strategic and physical changes brought about by the war. We also asked the readers of our blogs if they had any personal testimonies or stories relating to Nazeing and the War that we could add to our records.
We called this talk and series of blogs Two Aerodromes and a Dragon’s Tooth – Nazeing at War.
The first blog dealt with the threat of the invasion, the second was on the physical remains of the Outer London Defence Ring, which cut the village in two.
A copy of a poster produced to invite villagers to a meeting in the local school. This was one of many meetings held to keep residents informed during the war.
The third was called Two Aerodromes. Nazeing is just a small village, yet on its western boundary was an active aerodrome as well as a decoy on the common.
In his History of Nazeing booklet published in 1950, the local vicar, Rev Sutherland, recorded a list provided by the senior ARP warden of all the 244 bombs and numerous incendiaries that fell on the village, their location and date. This was the subject of the fourth blog, Attack from the Air.
Late in 1944, a V2 rocket killed 10 villagers, five of them children, many of whom had come from London and thought they would be safe in a small Essex village. This was our fifth blog.
The last three blogs covered the activities of those who stayed in the village and formed the different branches of Civil Defence; the incomers, many of whom settled in the village, and who kept food production going.
Then, in the last of these blogs, entitled Peace at Last, we looked at VE and VJ days, and at some of the lasting impacts of the Second World War on getting back to ‘normality’.
We hope you will log on to our website and read all about Nazeing during this turbulent time.
Use this QR code to go straight to the blogs on Nazeinghistory.org or go to: facebook.com/nazeinghistoryworkshop
- Jacky Cooper is a member of Nazeing History Workshop (nazeinghistory.org).
