Tenants at No 50

THE TENANTS OF NO. No 50 (now Charity Cottages)

Next door to the Woodwards lived Mr.and Mrs.Tom Alder with 6 children. I wonder if the garden was bigger in those days. Six children in a two bedroomed house with a ‘pocket-handkerchief’ garden, must have created quite a problem.

At some time or other, this Mr. & Mrs. Alder lived at No. 3 The Nashes – presumably at the decision of Mr. Rees-Mogg in order to find them a slightly larger house. Their son, Tom was a hairdresser.

After the Alder's left No. 50, there seemed to be a quick succession of tenants at this house. There was a Carl Jeffs – then a Miss Whitehouse – then a Mrs. Cockbill who married someone from the Sewerage works and they lived in the cottage next door to what is now Stratford Garden Centre, - that is the cottage now called Brick-kilne Cottage.

There was also a Mr. Edgington, who was employed by the Manor as a shepherd, his wife being the post mistress. They had a daughter called Rita who married a Mr. Curnin-Waterson, a Sergeant. Mr. Curnin-Waterson liked his surname, and always made sure everyone pronounced both names. I understand he was also inclined to talk with a 'public-school' accent.

In 1967, a Mrs. Giles and her twin sister, Miss Cockbill lived in one of these cottages. Mrs. Giles' husband, Charles (probably Charlie) was one of those 57 young men from the Parish who went to War ( 1st World War) and never came back. Their only child, a boy, was still an infant, and his mother had a struggle to find money to pay the rent and keep him, for her widow's pension did not cover all the necessary costs.

She told me, that she and her sister were born and spent their early years at No. 19, the attached building No. 18 being used as a dairy, the cows being milked in the barn at the rear.