Willie & Lily Wainhouse.

Wille Wainhouse worked in a mill for four years when he was young in order to buy his first cow in 1950.  He & Lillie married in 1951 and took on an 18-acre moorland farm in Midgley, Yorkshire.  The success of this farm led them to Springbok farm in Alfold, and then to Russel Place Farm, where Mr Rushen was looking for a partner.  Mr Rushen maintained the poultry business & the Wainhouses farmed the remaining 90 acres as dairy farming.  After 30 years the had one of the top five herds in the country. Organisations and delegates worldwide came on tours for teaching & conferences, including ICI & Merrist Wood College.  They featured in Farming News as the adopted farm.  James, their youngest son, & Lily carried on dairy farming after Willie died in 1989.   Many village children used to visit James and see the cows being milked in the cowshed.  Both James & his brother Ted played cricket for Wood Street. They moved from the farm in 1992.

Maire Joy Esther Webb b 1917 & Eric William (Jim) Webb b 1915.

Jim & Jim were both born in Felixstowe where they met.  Jim’s father was killed in the first world war when he was very young.  Jim joined the Navy in 1939 and worked on Mine sweepers in the North Sea during the war. By then, Joy & her family had been evacuated to Guildford and they married in 1940.  Jim was promoted to Chief Petty Officer and carried on minesweeping in Italy,  where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.  Once demobbed they came to live  in a new house, 77, The Oval in 1947 where they stayed for about 47 years.  In 1950, Jim was called up by the Navy for the Korean War where he served training Navy seamen. After the war he returned to his profession as an electrician.  He helped the village community with electrical projects & rewired St, Alban’s house completely.

Joy had helped her mother run the ‘Boiling Kettle Café’ on the Felixstowe seafront as a teenager before the family were evacuated to Guildford.  She helped Miss Goodchild in the Haberdashery Shop, next to the post office & later worked as an insurance agent in the area.   Joy became vice president of the Horticultural Society & her & Jim had a beautiful garden full of flowers & vegetables.  Joy was an artist, selling her paintings for the church & decorating the church with flowers for Harvest Festival & special occasions.  Her daughter Susan was the Flower Queen in 1969.

Brenda Whittington nee Burwood b 1923.

Charles H Burwood was an ex-Commander in the Royal Navy.  His daughter, Brenda was born in the village, in a bungalow called Wharfedale, White Hart Lane and went to Wood Street School from 1928 to 1930.  Wharfedale had a large poultry farm from 1921 to 1942 with two large orchards but was later pulled down and a smaller house built.  The fruit & eggs went to Guildford market. Brenda’s brother, Harold,  bred old English Mastiffs there.  Her sister Ethel Kete married a Mr Sparrow, and they later became Mayor & Mayoress of Guildford.  She recalls buying sweets at the White Hart, run then by Mrs Lintatt.

Her husband was in the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment from 1939 to 1946.  His brother, also in the Queens, was killed in the war in 1942 and buried in Bengazi, Libya.  They moved from Wood Street in 1942 to a larger farm in Sussex.

William Charles & Nelly Wingham

They lived at 4, Elm Tree Cottages on the village green, which had 5 Elm trees outside. They had a daughter Edith b 1915 and a short-lived son, William b 1920.  Edith lived in the village until 1925. She recalls that her mother delivered milk around the village & ran a shop from her front room.  They gave up the shop when the new shop was opened in 1925  by Mr Wolgar, near the church. She made cakes to serve to the cricketers and footballers on the village green.

Rev. Edward Wynn Jones & Dilys Wynn Jones.

Edward was the curate at St. Albans from 1948 to 1953 and lived in the church house with his wife Dilys.  Dilys recalls the village flower show and once a year being able to swim in Orchard Cottage where Mrs & Mrs Hawkins lived.  The pool was only open to them on the first Saturday in June. It was customary to leave a donation for the RAF charity in memory of their son killed in the war.   Their son Michael Wynn Jones born September 1941was a writer, editor and publisher. He became an honorary life president of Norwich City with his wife, the former television cook Delia Smith.

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