Author: Alan Mellins

October 1, 2020 By Alan Mellins

Boundary Walk 2020

Manager Flora Woodruff and Chairman Richard Poad are stepping out this month on the Maidenhead Boundary Walk to raise much needed funds for Maidenhead Heritage Centre and its ATA Museum.

Income during 4 months of closure almost dried up, so they would be really grateful your support for their 13-mile walk – and fingers crossed for dry weather. The mass walk can’t take place due to the pandemic, so Richard is walking on Monday 12 October, accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law. Flora will walk on Saturday 24 October, together with a group of friends divided into groups of not more than 6.

Please be generous in support for them all, click here to donate. Thank you!

May 6, 2020 By Alan Mellins

World War Two Memories

As we approach the 75^th Anniversary of VE Day on the 8^th May, we wanted to look at some personal encounters of the Second World War from the people of Maidenhead.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to one of our late Volunteers, Roy Almond, who lived in Maidenhead for 93 years. When I asked if there were any comparisons to his life during Coronavirus and the Second World War, I was taken aback when Roy said he had never experienced anything as disruptive to life as Coronavirus. Having lived through the Second World War, I assumed that would have had far more impact on him and his day-to-day living, however he said that during the war, life carried on much as normal. I asked about rationing and he said that for the most part, you could get what you needed during the war, even if it was rationed, whereas he was surprised by the empty shelves during the Coronavirus pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic, when everyone was rushing to the shops first thing to try and get loo rolls, some people were relaxed in the knowledge they could resort to wartime alternatives if needed. One of our Volunteers said that during the war her father used to put shreds of newspaper on a stick so she was prepared for the worst… Private Eye took a leaf out of her book when their front page jokingly boasted ‘48 free sheets of toilet paper free with this issue’.

Below are some snippets from the wonderful, atmospheric and nostalgic insights into our Volunteers’ war experiences. These will form part of a larger project in due course.

Roy Almond talking about his short wave radio set:

“after D Day when (soldiers) landed back in France you could pick up the war correspondents sending messages back to the BBC. So you could sometimes hear what was happening before the news.”

Jenny Spear:

“We had Bantams laying eggs that we preserved in isinglass, and a veg garden and raspberries all around the edge.”

“There were evacuees in my grandmother’s road and next door, we just accepted them as new friends if they were our age.”

“Next door was a Jewish family who had a toy factory in London that was bombed and they brought me lots of the toys down including a beautiful twin doll’s pram that I used to take the dog for rides in.”

“During the war and shortly after when I was still very young, people at the end of the garden bred rabbits and I was always given a baby one to look after until it was grown when I handed it back in exchange for another small one!!”

Jenny Evans:

“My childhood was a very protected. Even though I was born during WWII I never recall ever feeling frightened. My mother cocooned us in warm security, she even used to get up in the middle of the night to replace our hot water bottles.”

Jenny and Elizabeth with their Mother Nellie, 1944.

May 1, 2020 By Alan Mellins

Clifford Roy Almond (1926-2020)

Today, the 1st May 2020, would have been Roy’s 94th birthday but sadly he died from a fall at his home in Malvern Road on Saturday. Many who knew him will remember his incredible memory, his anecdotes, his knowledge of Maidenhead where he had been born and educated, and where he had lived for all of his life, all of which he was happy to share with an honesty, integrity and enthusiasm that were as welcome as they were infectious. He was determined to find out the truth with rigorous scholarship, and was always delighted to find the answer to a problem or a mystery that had been baffling him for many years. His discovery of the Ancestry website proved to be a revelation and a source of much pleasure as he compiled our family trees going back to the sixteenth century. He was pleased that we were ‘locals’!

Isaac Almond, Roy’s Father, third from left, at the front of a group of workers at Rogers’ Laundry in Furze Platt.

Leaving Gordon Road School at the age of 14, Roy recounted that the locals were educated in the morning, and the evacuees in the afternoon, and so he only really received half an education! Despite his colour blindness he trained as an electrician, and built his own radio and television.

His mind was as active at 93 as it had been at 73 or 53, and rarely if ever did you see Roy walk with a stick despite his age. He was the oldest and an active member of his exercise class organised by THROB (The Heart Rehabilitation Organisation of Berkshire), and he will be sadly missed by all those who participated in that group.

The Heritage Centre was something very special to Roy, not only for the ways in which he personally could contribute to the recording of Maidenhead’s history of which he was a part, but also for the helpful and supportive folk who are involved with the Centre, valuing most especially their friendship and their love.

One of the highlights in recent years for Roy was the Christmas lunch, organised by the town, and which the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, attended in her role as the town’s Member of Parliament. To be introduced to her and shake her hand gave him enormous pleasure and pride.

Roy will be remembered as a kind, straight-forward, modest man whose care, enthusiasm and determination are an example to us all. We shall treasure our memories of a dear friend who will be greatly missed.

Roy Almond (left), the Bishop of Reading (middle) and David Boulton (right) at the dedication of the extension to Cookham Dean Church where Roy’s great grandmother is buried.

Written by David Boulton, Roy’s Cousin

April 14, 2020 By Alan Mellins

Sir Stirling Moss OBE 1929-2020

Sir Stirling Moss, who passed away 12th April 2020 at the age of 90, was widely regarded as the best-ever British racing driver and one of the greatest worldwide. Although never World Champion, his record of racing success in Grand Prix (today’s F1) and Sports Car racing over a ten-year period 1951-1962 remains unsurpassed.

Moss competed at a time when driver and crowd safety had nothing like the supreme importance they have today and each year’s racing was punctuated by a death toll amongst drivers and spectators, (infamously the tragic death of over 80 people at the 1955 Le Mans 24-hour race) .

His skill and professionalism enabled him to survive those dangerous times, although his career was ended in a near-fatal crash at Goodwood in 1962.

Moss lived to race and raced to win, but unlike some of his hell-raising contemporaries, his approach was entirely serious and professional. He was a teetotaller who believed in rest and preparation rather than partying before a race.

Whilst he regarded racing as a serious business, he was a true sportsman. The outstanding example of this latter quality was his support of fellow driver Mike Hawthorn in the latter’s near-disqualification from winning the Portuguese Grand Prix of 1958. Despite having a rather brittle relationship with Hawthorn, Stirling’s willing support handed his rival not only the Portuguese victory, but as a result, the 1958 World Championship. (Hawthorn won by one point over Moss). Ever since, Moss has been frequently described as “the greatest driver never to have been World Champion”.

Sir Stirling had a long connection with the Maidenhead area, beginning with his family’s move to Bray when he was aged two. His parents were patrons of the irascible and eccentric Donald Marendaz, who built his Marendaz Special cars at the Cordwallis Works in Maidenhead. Both parents successfully competed in Marendaz cars in the 1920s and 1930s.

The family lived for many years at the now long-gone House of the Long White Cloud in Monkey Island Lane, Bray. Stirling and his sister Pat (later a successful rally driver in her own right) played on the Thames riverbank and generally “messed around in boats”.

In 1956, as an already world-class driver, Moss renewed his relationship with Maidenhead by joining Tony Vandervell’s Vanwall racing team as lead driver. Vandervell Products’ Cox Green factory was a world leader in the manufacture of Thinwall bearings as well as the development centre for the Vanwall racing car engines.

Stirling went on to win the 1957 British Grand Prix at Aintree in a Vanwall – the first GP victory by a British driver in a British car since 1923. He went on to win the Italian GP in 1957, thus achieving Tony Vandervell’s long-held dream of “beating those bloody red cars”.

1958 saw Vanwall win the World Manufacturers’ Championship thanks to the unbeatable performances of Stirling and his Vanwall team colleagues.

By the time of the Maidenhead Heritage’s 2015 Exhibition on Maidenhead’s Motor Industry (including Vanwall and Marendaz cars), Sir Stirling, although invited, was by then no longer fulfilling public engagements, although he sent kind wishes for its success.

Sir Stirling Moss made a hugely important contribution to Motor Sport and to Maidenhead’s history and will be sorely missed by us all. “We shall not see his like again”.

Robert M Cooper
April 14, 2020

October 10, 2019 By Alan Mellins

Flora completes the 2019 Boundary Walk

On Sunday 6th October, Flora Woodruff completed the Maidenhead Boundary Walk with a group of friends, raising nearly £800 for Maidenhead Heritage Centre. She would like to thank everyone who kindly sponsored her and was proud to be listed in the Maidenhead Advertiser as raising the most funds out of everyone who took place on the walk.