JOHN REEVE – memories of Chesham in the 1930s and 1940s.
My happiest days that I
remember were from 1936
to 1939. I lived at 8 Market
Square, where my father
had a furniture and general
store, later a men’s
outfitters. His father John
had come to Chesham from
London around 1890 and
started a business at 44
Church Street. My
bedroom was on the top
floor. The house was very
big,
with furniture going back
8 Market Square in the 1930s. Ted in doorway, John
on bicycle
to the 1700s, including a
huge table on the ground
floor under which my sister Yolande (named after Thirties movie star Yolande
Donlan) and I slept during air raids.
The house had about eight cottages, a stable
and various workshops and one glass room
which was called The Temple, presumably
rented out for worship (?). The cottages had no
toilets or running water and were condemned
during the 1930s. The garden had an elder, the
fruit of which was used for making elderberry
wine. A walled garden was laid out with fruit
trees and bushes of all kinds and a hazel tree.
I remember we always had a feast of
gooseberries, black- and redcurrants, apples
and nuts. There were two summer houses and a
well for the cottages. The garden backed on to
fields which later became the Embassy Cinema
car park.
shop calendar with photo of John
with his mother & sister c1934
I used to run across the field to my grandparents (John and Rosa Mary
Reeve) at 44 Church Street. They lived at the rear, with two bedrooms and a
study upstairs. At the front of the house was a cupboard and I remember my
father digging down inside it to try and find a cellar. There was a myth that a
tunnel ran along from the house to the church. The house had various
workshops, one being let out to a printer. (who?) A grapevine ran the length of
the house and there was a walled garden here too. The side entrance had a
huge gate.
Next door to us was Gomms the butcher – we used to get our daily milk from
the churns. Then Derek’s the butcher, where one of my best friends lived.
Over the road was Lewis the fish shop. I still have the Japanese tea-set given
by the daughter to my mother as a wedding gift. They were close friends.
Behind the Town Hall was Atkin the barber. His daughter was our friend – she
died suddenly at five years of age after complaining of stomach pains. Next
door to number 8 was a disused pub; I remember going in there once and
seem to remember it had a balcony overlooking the bar. Just around the
corner in Church Street was a little sweet shop run by a very old lady called
Mrs White and I used to go in there and buy sweets for a farthing.
Further down Church Street lived my friend Billy Stokes. He used to live the
other side of the Park but his father, who was a bus driver, bought the shop
and turned it into a successful workman’s café. It was by the entrance to the
Embassy car park.
Mr Cox was my headmaster at school.
He was a nice man who had also taught
my father. Unfortunately my memories of
him are forever linked with losing my
father (John’s father, a Pilot Officer in
WWII, was killed in December 1940.) We
had to stand in the playground in the
morning while Mr Cox inspected our
shoes and hands. I remember the cold
Christmas morning when I was told to tell
Mr Cox that my father was missing. ‘I
Ted (Parsonage Lane?) 1940
heard’ he said, and moved on. I can
understand now that he was probably very affected by the news, but I’ve
always remembered that moment. Later on, in 1945, he was outside Gomms
trying to drum up a celebration group for the ending of the war in Europe and I
watched from the window. I couldn’t bring myself to go out.
I don’t think people understood the effect on a nine-year
old boy. I used to get ‘black dog’ moods and I suppose
for a long time after blamed my father, as did my sister
Yolande.
My last memory of my father was when he took me up to
the Baulks on his last visit home. We sat and looked
over Chesham and he told me that I was the man of the
family now. He also dropped money in the grass which I
found and I think he did that to make me remember.
The Baptist(?) Bible
given to airmen, which
Ted gave to John in
May 1940 with the
inscription ‘I guess it
will sort itself out one
day’.
During 1940 I watched London
burning in the distance, fire from
one end of the horizon to the
other. We also watched dog
fights over London, and the little
tobacconist’s shop next to my
uncle Reg (men’s outfitter’s, 15
Market Square, from
approximately 1931-1941. Before
this he briefly had his business at
3 Church Street, formerly a
pawnbrokers of John Reeve)
showed a bloodstained parachute harness. Later in the evening I watched a
German plane come down Germain Street - I suppose aiming for the
Embassy Cinema. He hit a house next to it and I believe killed everyone.
(Gooding’s Forge – the daughter, Helen was killed). I saw the wreckage the
next day and the clock on the mantelpiece was still ticking.
My granddad West used to take me on long walks from his house on The
Moor on a circular route to Latimer and back. In those days every hedge had
a bird’s nest. We used to see trout in the streams and I remember swimming
in the icy water.
I remember my birthday in 1945. My grandmother asked me what I wanted
for a present. What I wanted most was a tin of condensed milk – I hadn’t
tasted one since 1939!
John Reeve 2008
(John has lived in Australia since the 1980s)