Woldingham - “And Here’s How It All Started”

These last two days have been more of a pilgrimage, more of a trip down memory lane going as far back as 1952 when I was 6 years old, (I don't remember anything of 1946 when I was born) than researching family roots.  It’s hard to believe that it all started here in this little village of Woldingham during the darkest days of World War II. 

In 1941 a young Canadian soldier and his chums went to the local dance on a Saturday at the Women's Institute Hall.  They had a bet as to who would walk the prettiest young girl home at the end of the dance.  Twenty-two year-old  William Moore ended up walking an even younger fifteen-year old Hilda Bicknell home that night.  They spent many a weekend walking up and down the back roads of Woldingham. 

Woldingham is a very small and exclusive village perched on the top of a small plateau surrounded on all four sides by steep chalk cliffs.  The nearest villages are Oxted, four miles to the south, and Warlingham, two miles to the north.  It was to this village in 1924 that Albert and Bertha Bicknell moved from Oxted into the newly constructed “council housing” at 1 Welcome Cottage with their four-year old daughter, Gwendoline.  A year later, a second daughter, Hilda Irene Brenda was born. 

Albert was a gardener to the rich of Woldingham.  Tragedy struck the family in 1937 when 16-year old Gwendoline died in December.  It was an event that would forever be seared in the memory of the whole family. 

In October of 1943, William and his signals unit were ordered to take part in the invasion of Italy.  On a 3-day pass, William and Hilda were married in St Paul’s Church of England in Woldingham and William was then shipped overseas.  It would not be until May of 1945 that they would see each other again as William and his unit went up through Italy, over to the south of France, into Holland, Belgium and then into Germany in the final months of World War II. 

As success for the Allies seemed imminent, William was ordered back home to Canada at the beginning of May 1945.  On an 11-day pass, he and Hilda had their long-awaited honeymoon in Bognor Regis almost due south of Woldingham.  Nine months later, a son, Robert Anthony, was born.  It wouldn’t be until August 1946 that William would see his son and new bride back in Canada. 

In the last days of World War II, Germany launched the first generation of its rockets - the V1 “buzz bomb” - against Britain from the close shores of France.  One of these buzz bombs fell into the back garden of 1 Welcome Cottage when the family was sleeping.  It failed to explode.  Otherwise, history would have been quite different and those of us whose father or mother was a Moore wouldn’t be reading this blog today, eh!?

That’s just a little bit of history on the Moore-Bicknell family.  You can see why these last two days have been more of a pilgrimage and a trip down memory lane rather than researching family roots. 

I was up and out by 9am and on my way to the iron monger’s to see if they had something I could use to get rid of the weeds around the gravestones of Rowe and Mary Ann Bicknell.  As he was all out of stuff, I then walked up Station Road to the Oxted train station.  Somewhere along this street once lived Rowe and Mary Ann back in 1901. 

I purchased a one-way train ticket from Woldingham back to Oxted and then walked out to get a taxi up to Woldingham.  Woldingham is perched on a high plateau atop steep chalk cliffs. All roads leading to Woldingham are very steep and long!  (That zig-zag in the map below is how the taxi managed to get up and over the chalk cliff.)

Bn comparison, walking the hills of Oxted is akin to walking over speed bumps in a road.  The climb up to Woldingham would have done me in before I was halfway up the road.  The £10 taxi fare was well worth the ride. 

As we neared the North Downs Golf Club, I recognized that we were approaching tiny St Agatha’s Church.  It is here that my grandparents, Albert and Berth Bicknell, along with their daughter Gwendoline are buried. 

You can see from the photos above how things have hardly changed.  The photo on the left was taken today.  The photo on the right is from a postcard printed before 1914.  I quickly located their gravestones.

The first time I had seen this grave was back in 1952 when I was all of 6-years old.  I clearly recall that the graveyard was under a canopy of tall trees with their large boughs held together with steel rods and cement.  Except for the remains of one that you can see in the photos way above, these trees have long gone. 

Next, it was a short hike down the road to the place where it all started, the Women's Institute, today the Woldingham Village Club.  It was all locked up for the day so it was next down the road to 1-Welcome Cottage.

But first I came upon The Green.  I remember this part quite well as my brother Ed and I used to buy a penny’s-worth of broken biscuits.  These were biscuits at the bottom of the large biscuit box that were scooped into a cone made from newspaper and sold for a penny.  It was here that Hilda and Bill would wait for the bus to see the movies in Caterham and Croydon during the war

 I next went down Slines Oak Road to the “Welcome Cottages”  - a set of 11 semi-detached houses built in 1924 under the first of England’s social housing programs which ended in 1976 with the election of the queen of the neo-cons, Margaret Thatcher, and her Conservatives.

While the picket fence and gate have been removed, the hedge, planted by my grandfather( as seen in one of the photos on top) still remains and a driveway has been added.  Very little has changed as evidenced in the photos below.  The young woman in the photo on the right is Hilda Moore. 

My parents were married on October 17th, 1943 in St Paul’s Church of England right in the heart of Woldingham.  Unlike most churches in England, St Paul’s wasn’t built until the late 1920s.  Up until that time, church services were held in the tiny St Agatha’s church.  As there is no graveyard at St Paul’s, residents are buried in St Agatha’s.  You can see the baptismal font on the right where I was christened. 

Except for the addition of a small church hall that was being used today for a mom-and-tots get-together, the church has not changed at all.  Even the bench outside the entrance, the gate that my mother walked through on her way to getting married are still the same. (That's me in the "swaddling clothes" in the photo on the right.)

My mother first returned to England to see her parents in 1952 - six years after her arrival (with me) in Canada - along with two more children, my brother Ed and my sister Jennifer.  My brother Ed and I used to travel a path that zig-zagged between houses and stinging nettles to the playgrounds of the cricket field.

In back of the cricket field was the scout and guide hut where my mother was a young Brownie and Guide, along with her sister, Gwendoline. 

Just next door to the scout and guide hut were the shops on The Crescent where my mother used to work just before she got married.  I’ll have to check and see which one of these stores she worked in. 

I had finished my pilgrimage to Woldingham so I started to walk down the long steep hill to the train station.  Each step of the way my thigh muscles, my knee caps, my leg muscles, and my shin splints were screaming as I took each step.  However, I managed to make it to the bottom of the hill in time to catch the 12:55 train back to Oxted.  Fifteen minutes later I was inside Wetherspoon’s pub having some haddock fish cakes and cider for lunch and updating this blog.