Daily archives: May 1, 2025

Charles ‘Tim’ Tyler (1906-2005) was born in Draycott and visited as a child, but lived in London and then Sussex.  In 2000 (aged 95) he wrote to the Sawley Historical Society with his memories of Draycott around the time of the First World War. Charles Tyler’s Letter At the turn of the 20″ century, Draycott was a small village in east Derbyshire, on the old Roman road (now A6005), between Derby and Nottingham. I was born in the village on August 2″, 1906, but my memories only relate to the period 1914-1919, so this needs explanation. Father and mother started their life together in Brussels, where Father was accountant to a small new company called The Gramophone Company — trademark “His Master’s Voice”. After a miscarriage, Mother, pregnant again, had to decide whether to go with Father who has just been appointed as manager of a new branch of HMV in Alexandria, Egypt. Determined to have her children born in England, she chose to go to her brother John’s house in Draycott. He was manager of a cotton mill in the hamlet of Church Wilne, about a couple of miles away on the banks of the river Derwent, which provided […]