1921 – 2010
Written by Nigel Ince
Barbara lived in Chenies for more than fifty years but her memories of, and love for the village went back over almost the whole of her long life. She was born in Thornton Heath in 1921, but shortly after, when she was only a babe in arms, her parents moved to Amersham.
In those days it was, she told me, the in thing to take the train to Chalfont Road, now called Chalfont & Latimer, and walk over the fields and through the woods to Chenies for a Watercress Tea. Chenies, it seems, was noted for watercress teas and she recalled sitting in her pushchair in a cottage garden where there was a rose pergola. After tea the walk continued to Chorleywood from where they returned, by train, to Amersham.
From an early age Barbara involved herself in activities of all kinds, as she continued to do throughout her life. In 1928, age six, she joined the Amersham on the Hill Brownie Pack and by the time she left, four years later, to join the Girl Guides she had won quite an armful of badges. The Golden Bar, the Golden Hand, House Orderly, Collectors, Weavers, First Aider, Gardeners, Artist and Thrift.
At that time Chenies had a swimming pool, by the river and the cottages at Chenies Bottom. When she was about nine Barbara and her brother, Leonard, who was about five years older than her, together with some friends came over for a swim. She said she only came once and that was enough, the water was greenish black, quite opaque and cold beyond belief!
Barbara went to Berkhamsted Girls but sadly when she was only sixteen her father, who was a shipping broker, died and she had to leave school. In 1938 she joined Statter Switchgear in Little Chalfont where she stayed throughout the war and after serving at various times as project Manager and Personal Assistant to Colonel Marston, The Managing Director. In the late sixties she transferred her talents to the construction industry and in 1976 was appointed Managing Director of Callan Construction Limited, finally retiring in 1981.
Barbara, with her mother, came to live at No. 41 Chenies in 1959, and quickly became an active member of the local community. She remembered the village at that time, quoted in Foster;
‘In 1959 when I moved to Chenies, Mrs Wilson no longer ran the shop (Old Village Shop). The owner of the building, I believe, was the Reverend Trevor Jones, Rector of Chenies, who was also the postmaster and it was run by a tenant. The tenant had fallen out with the Rector, and had, so it was reputed, handed back the post office which was all contained in a metal box to the Rector.
In July 1959 he was operating the post office from the rectory (Now the Old Rectory). The tenant remained at the shop until Mr and Mrs Darke bought it and moved in. For a while, after the Reverend Trevor Jones retirement, the post office was run by a Mrs Phipps who lived at Banner Rest – Mrs Phipps was the widow of the Master of the Old Berkeley Hunt and moved to Chenies after he died.
She did not live at Banner Rest for very long but when she moved away, she rented a room at number 50 from the tenant, a Mrs Matthews for the post office, which quite soon was transferred back to the village shop and Mrs Darke became the postmistress as well as running the grocery shop. Eventually Mrs Darke gave up the groceries in favour of antiques’.
She was Clerk to the Chenies Parish Council from 1963 to 1968 and again from 1991 until 2000. When she retired in 1968 James Doig, the Chairman of the Council said, “She will be almost impossible to replace, it will be very difficult to find anyone who is so knowledgeable and efficient.” She was appointed a trustee of The Countess of Warwick Charity in 1966 and it’s correspondent in 1968 and continued in this responsibility until 2002.
She was an active member of the WI and was very involved with the Church flower rota and particularly the Easter lilies. Her many other interests included the monthly sewing circle with Heather Ensor and others and, with Gerda Wittwer making superb sugar flowers for the decoration of special cakes.
She always enjoyed an outdoor life and country pursuits and in her youth she had been a keen rider and hunted with the Old Berkeley. Latterly, when the hunt met in the village, Stuart Fitch always arranged that the Huntsman would blow as the hounds passed her house. At a charity auction in the village she purchased “A Drive through the Bluebells” and somewhat precariously seated in the carriage greatly enjoyed her ride through the woods when the bluebells were in full flower.
She recorded her holidays and events in the village with her cine camera including the presentations at the first two Best kept Village competitions that we won in 1966 and 1967, The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh passing through the village en route for a visit to Latimer Camp cheered by lines of school children on each side of the road, Morris dancers performing on the green and “The Battle of Chenies” plus numerous shots of her Scotties in deep snow in Holloway lane.
Animals were an important part of her life and apart from her Scotties and dachshunds there were the Geese, chickens and bantams and Grumpy and Hatty, the tortoises, and in season the hatch of tadpoles in her little pond, and, of course the wild birds at 41 Chenies were, without doubt, the best fed in the whole of Buckinghamshire! Additionally at one time she had also kept bees in Mountwood.
She always had an interest modern technology and was for a number of years a member of the TV Audience Measurement Panel but it was for her generosity, thoughtfulness and interest that she took in everything and everybody that she will be remembered. Her memory was legendary and she was an unfailing source of information on people and events in Chenies. She never forgot a birthday and for new babies there would always be a little gift. She went to enormous lengths to find exactly the right gift for every occasion.
Barbara gave a great deal of her time to visiting old friends particularly those in retirement homes and for those that became housebound, as she was; she tried to find something special for them, for example a jigsaw designed to be done on ones knee. Even when she had had several periods in hospital herself and her movement became very restricted she still gave a great deal of thought for others.
Was it a very early experience of hers that laid the foundations of this facet of her character? When she was five years old she accompanied her mother on a visit to her brother in hospital. On arriving at his ward her mother gave her two bags of sweets and told her to go round the other wards and offer a fruit drop to ladies and an acid drop to the men. All went well until she came running back to her mother to say that one man didn’t want an acid drop, he wanted a fruit drop, would this be all right!
Barbara enjoyed being able to see from her chair the flag flying on the tower from which she could tell the direction of the wind, except in Lent when no flag flies. Some years ago she gave me a card on which was listed the type of flag and the days on which it could be flown according to the Diocese. Among the list of Saints days and sundry Royal occasions was “Flag of St George – death or funeral of a well known member of the Parish”.
Well, we are now in Lent so no flag can fly on the tower but the flag of St George is flying at the bottom of the drive and it flies to honour the memory of a very special Lady and a much loved friend.
sources:
Nigel Ince
Chorleywood, Chenies, Loudwater and Heronsgate, a Social History by Ian Foster
contributor: Nigel Ince, Rachel Bishop
date published: 21/04/26