This is a Birdseye picture of Strood Villa bought by my family around 1945. it was on the edge of the marshes and was used as fortifications to guard the Strood causeway leading to Mersea Island during WW2. We had to de-fortify it which meant moving many hundreds of sandbags and several gun emplacements. It became a brilliant family home,a real life Swallows and Amazons to us children................drawn from memory by Colin Grimes.
Musical Conflagration
2 days ago
Fascinating! Didn't know (or, if told, had forgotten) about the fortifications.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were first taken there as school children straight from boarding school there was a thick fog which lasted several days,we could hear and smell the marshes but couldnt see more than a few yards but were allowed to walk the seawalls. No electricity or water other than a muddy well, fires in the bedrooms,candles and tilley lamps.very very exciting after our London life.
ReplyDeleteGeraldgee's younger brother Colin considers the first Christmas there, only a couple of weeks from our arrival as being the most memorable. How our mother managed to provide such a great Christmas dinner with no water,gas or electricity, on a paraffin fuelled stove I'll never know. Thanks mum.
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