The First of Two Articles about Sawley Memorial Hall In October 1944 Clem Gregory from Old Sawley and Harry Kingscott from New Sawley were talking about Sawley having no war memorial, and came up with an idea of something practical to commemorate the Sawley men who had died in both world wars. A meeting was called in the TOC-H room and Tony Marmont (who ran Carters) was elected as president of the provisional committee, with Cecil Kingscott as secretary. It was decided to build a memorial hall, as the village did not have an all-purpose community building. A public meeting was held in the National School in January in 1945 and the committee of the Sawley Memorial Hall Committee was formally appointed. The original members were: Tony Marmont, Arthur Stapleton, Cecil Kingscott, Clem and Doris Gregory, Harry and Annie Kingscott, Mr B Smith, George Smith, Mr F Reid, Mr F Gallager, Mr L Hogg, Mr W Linley, Mr J Pearson, Mr A Freeman, Rev R Gerald Harcombe, Mrs Simpson, Mrs Bosworth, Mrs Annie Merry, Mrs Lily Flint, Mrs Smedley, Mrs White and ‘Madam Rose Bates’. They paid 10/ (shillings) each to start the fundraising, then 3d (threepence) each per […]
Daily archives: December 1, 2025
I was born in July 1939, just two months before England declared war on Germany. Our home at that time was a rented wooden bungalow on Oakland Avenue. It backed on to the Erewash Canal, and had a decent garden, so it was really a nice place to live. It was my parents’ first proper home, having lived for some time in rented rooms in Long Eaton. My parents decided that perhaps a wooden bungalow was not the best place for a young family to be once the air raids began. Somewhat ironically, the bungalow in Oakland Avenue survived the war unscathed, but a solid brick house in Netherfield Avenue, less than a quarter of a mile from the property we moved to in Shaftesbury Avenue, was destroyed by a stray bomb and several people were killed. l was too young to remember much about our life then but my earliest memory of all is of waking up in the air raid shelter we shared with three neighbouring families. Although two large municipal shelters would eventually be built on the street, four families had clubbed together to build a small shelter in the garden of the family opposite to […]