Locating Penn’s bomb damage
We’ll look back on 2020 as a year of uncertainty, but 80 years ago it was even more scary. The Battle of Britain was reaching its climax in August and September, and although there were no pitched battles over Penn and Tylers Green, villagers saw plenty of aircraft en route to fight over Sussex and Kent.
It was in the autumn when bombs started dropping that the reality of war really hit home.
A few weeks ago Buckinghamshire Archives reproduced a fascinating online map showing where bombs fell in the county during the Second World War. The researchers admitted that the details might not be wholly accurate because they were based on reports by Air Raid Precautions (ARP) wardens and sometimes they were written hurriedly and lacking precise locations.
And sure enough, at least one of the descriptions for Penn is wrong. Fortunately we still have people around who can put the record straight.
According to the map a bomb fell overnight on 19/20 November, 1940 in Elm Road, roughly where Penn Surgery is, causing slight damage to a house and bringing down phone lines. To try and verify that we’ve been in touch with those who have links to the time.
“I’m confident that no bombs dropped in Elm Road,” writes Bill Wheeler, from Birmingham, who joined the RAF in 1943. “The nearest bombs I can recall were in Common Wood, just off Gravelly Way, behind the cottage owned by Helen Wilkinson, the Labour MP, and another one or two in fields, possibly owned by Edna Wright’s dad, off the footpath between Rushmoor Lane and Hazlemere Crossroads.
“When they exploded they sounded as if they were just outside our house, where we had been pushed under the living room table by my dad.”
Pam White who, like many children at the time found the whole business rather exciting, wrote from Wales: “I seem to think a small bomb went off in Kingswood as I can remember the fun we had running up and down the sides of the crater.”
But it was Alan Styles, who still lives in the village, who provided the definitive proof. “According to my mum and dad our house, 17 Rushmoor Avenue, was damaged on the top corner facing towards Hazlemere. The blast seemed to have lifted the roof slightly and broken the bond of several layers of bricks on that corner. The last time I looked, the damage was still evident!”
(Many thanks to Ken Allen for helping with this research).
Dame Cheryl has her nose to the ground
Thirteen year old Tom Hunt and his labrador Baggy have so impressed Penn’s MP Dame Cheryl Gillan they may bring about a change in the law of the land.
Tom tied a pollution monitor to Baggy’s collar and toured various spots in Dame Cheryl’s Chesham and Amersham constituency measuring pollution levels. His conclusion, assisted by his dad, an environmental engineer, showed that pollution is two thirds higher closer to the ground.
That gave Dame Cheryl enough ammo to pressurise Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng in the House of Commons just before recess. She wants the Government to press manufacturers to produce buggies and pushchairs that are higher, thereby keeping young children further away from concentrated air pollution.
Warm civility; cold revenge
Dame Cheryl’s neighbouring Tylers Green MP Steve Baker – a rampant Brexiteer – has shared an award with his Tory rival Ken Clarke, a die-hard Europhile. The two often clashed in the Commons, but never viciously. Now they’ve both been awarded the first Civility in Politics award by a group of Westminster-watchers and worthies worried about increasing factionalism in politics.
Former chancellor Mr Clarke has been upsetting Tory Brexiteers for years of course, including Boris Johnson. But the Prime Minister bore no grudge, nominating Mr Clarke for a peerage last month.
Not so two former Bucks MPs however. As an ex-Attorney General Dominic Grieve might have expected some sort of honour, if not a ticket to the House of Lords, when he ended his parliamentary career after 23 years as Beaconsfield MP. He’s another chap that’s painstakingly civil and as anti-Brexit as Mr Clarke. But for the Tories running the show these days he is strictly persona non grata.
Buckingham MP John Bercow was the Commons Speaker for ten years and he too, in “normal” times, would have expected to be offered a seat on the red benches of the House of Lords. But he too was ignored. He seems to have recovered from the shock though. According to the Daily Mail he enjoyed a marathon six hour lunch in a Mayfair restaurant last week with boxing promotor Frank Warren.
Leigh-Anne tackles racism
Former Sir William Ramsay School pupil, now pop superstar, Leigh-Anne Pinnock is taking on a new role as an anti-racist campaigner. The Little Mix star, 28, has been commissioned to front a BBC documentary looking at race and colour issues in the UK.
“Systemic racism is complex and through making this documentary I want to learn how I can best lend my voice to the debate so that young people who look up to me won’t have to face what me and my generation have had to,” she said in a statement.
Earlier this month she spoke on Channel 4 about how she has experienced racism in her life, recalling that she first became aware of it at her primary school in High Wycombe.
Leigh-Anne, who became engaged to Watford footballer Andre Gray in the spring, was a former head girl at St William Ramsay and returned to the school in Rose Avenue with Little Mix when they won the X Factor final in 2011. She last visited three years ago to officially open the school’s new science labs and sixth form centre.
Like father (and mother) like son…
Meanwhile former Holmer Green Senior School pupil, now comedy actor and TV host James Corden, made stars of his mum and dad this week when he invited them to review a raunchy video on his The Late, Late Show in the States.
Watching from their home in Hazlemere, Malcolm and Margaret Corden giggled and joked their way through a controversial music video by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion with Mrs C attempting to cover her husband’s eyes for one of the sexier shots. “Looks like they forgot to finish making her shirt,” she observed.
It wasn’t the first time Malcolm and Margaet have appeared on their son’s coast to coast show. In February, as James’ guests, they appeared in a piece behind the scenes at the Super Bowl, where Malcolm played his saxophone while Jennifer Lopez sang. It’s easy to see where their son – who’s 42 next week – gets his bubbly sense of fun from.
Dream on…
Not sure if romantic Henrik Bronning has quite got the idea of the coronavirus track and trace system. He wrote on a local Facebook page this week: “I gave the pretty lady behind the bar my name and number last week, but she still hasn’t phoned me up asking me out.”