Hawkwell Memories from Val Smerdon
Rectory Road, Hawkwell looking towards the church with the terrace properties opposite Sweyne Avenue
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Detail from above photo - see also comment below from Nathan Bell (Jon Broughton) on 21/12/14
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by Mave Sipple
I lived in Hawkwell for the first 21 years of my life and have many happy memories of growing up there. We moved to Rectory Road from Westcliff in 1940, as my parents considered the countryside a far safer place to bring up a family whilst the country was at war. We were the Hakens and I (Valerie) lived there until my marriage to Brian Smerdon in 1961. I had four brothers: Maurice, Norman, Trevor and Ken, and one sister Pat.
In 1944, my brother Trevor was walking behind a tractor pulling a noisy piece of farm equipment outside our house, then ran across the road to home, straight into the path of an oncoming coal lorry. The lorry driver drove Mum and Trevor to the hospital in his own car, but Trevor died in her arms on the way. He is buried in Hawkwell churchyard.
During the school holidays and weekends my playground was Gusted Hall woods, (where a large bomb crater was the most exciting place to play) the cinder track, a local short cut via Sweynes Avenue to the Hawkwell recreation ground where we fished for newts and minnows in the large natural pond in the corner of the recreation ground and talked to the children living in the Dr. Barnados home. Coming from Hockley and approaching Hawkwell, there is a road on the right leading to the sports Centre. In the furthest corner of the field was the home. A large red-bricked mansion-like house, and the children used to put their fingers through the fence to touch ours. They were the first 'black' children I saw.
Our village shop, run by Florrie and Sonnie Ayres, stocked everything from pegs to paraffin, sweets to sugar and Ted Ayres ran the coal and paraffin delivery service. Opposite our house was a large field (now the Englefield Close, named after the builder) and during the war a German parachutist bailed out from his burning plane and landed in this field. My Dad (a member of the Home Guard) rescued him from his parachute and brought him indoors for a cup of tea before handing him over to the authorities. Hawkwell was home to a lot of families: the Gridleys, Abrahams, Noads, Towlers (a teacher at the secondary school), the Millingtons, Hunts, Hines, Cates, Wells, Simmonds, to mention but a few and we children all attended the Rochford Schools.
On Sundays we attended the Baptist church in Rectory Road, something I dreaded as the night before my mum would wrap my hair in rags to create perfect ringlets for Sunday school, a practice which I found painful and barbaric! Driving back through Hawkwell, a few changes have been made. The house I grew up in is now two flats a row of smart bungalows grace the village and the recreation ground is now a lovely sports centre, but if I park the car and walk along the road, the memories come flooding back. Happy days!
Photo submitted by Patricia James - see comment of 16/03/15
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