From the Papers 1939 - 1945
ORGANIST AGED 12 Joyce Ellen Peacock, aged 12, has been appointed organist of Stapleford Tawney Church. She began her duties Sunday, giving every satisfaction.
The glass in the east and west windows of Stapleford Church has been restored after many months of the windows being boarded up following enemy action.
Essex Newsman 22 May 1943
NO BUS FOR SCHOOL SO THEY STAY HOME
By Murray Edwards
Young children in the isolated village Stapleford Tawney, must find their own way to school, seven miles sway, or their parents will be summoned. That is an order from the Essex County Council, which says it can no longer provide a school bus to collect the children and bring them home again.
And as parents refuse to let their children walk a mile to the end of the lane and then wait for the public bus by themselves, the children play on the village green instead of going to school. Some of them have been doing it since last Autumn.
Parents say that arrangements should be made either to re-open the village schoolroom for children up to 10, or provide a special bus.
FARMS HIT
Local Farmers are worried too. They cannot keep their workers.
Farmer Arthur Lamb told me yesterday that his men leave when they cannot find a local school for their children.
“They refuse to let their children walk miles to school, and I don’t blame them,” he said.
Mr George Richardson, who has four children of school age, said that under threat of prosecution some parents took time off from work to see their children get on the bus safely a mile away.
Mrs Messenger, a member of the Church Council and the Parish Council, explained the position.
“When the war began,” she told me, “the authorities closed the schoolroom in the village and made it a branch of the County library.”
TWO TRANSFERS
“The junior children were transferred to a school at Theydon Mount, six miles away. Two cars used to collect 20 of them and bring them back. Then that school was closed down and they were told to go to Coopersale, seven miles away, but for some reason the Council said they must find their own way and took off the cars.”
Mrs Messenger said the matter came to a head when she refused to send her own daughter Sheila to school.
“The education officers called- in a car – to see me,” she said, “and threatened to apply for a summons.”
“I told him to do his worst, and I wrote to the Education Committee in Chelmsford telling them the whole story.”
Daily Herald 18 September 1943.
Petrol for H.G. Duty: £5.
Peter E. Partridge. Stanford Rivers Hall, Stanford Rivers, summoned-before the Ongar Bench for unlawfully using petrol, was fined £5. He was stated to have used petrol, allowed for farm work, while on Home Guard duty.
Essex Newsman – 15th May 1943
STANFORD RIVERS CANTEEN DESTROYED.
On Monday evening Ongar Fire Brigade were called to an outbreak at Messrs. Piggott Bros, factory at Stanford Rivers. They found a large wooden building, used as canteen and store, blazing furiously. Difficulty was experienced in obtaining water from the River Roding, and the building and contents were destroyed. The Ongar Brigade was under Chief Officer Luck and Capt. Eley. Other fire fighting came from Brentwood, Abridge, Fyfield. Epping, Harlow, and Theydon Bois, and the fire was prevented from spreading to other buildings.
Chelmsford Chronicle 2nd January 1942