Apart from the war years when my father was in the RAF I lived in Badlingham from 1937 to 1954.I attended the village school where the Head Mistress was Miss Bridgeman and infant teacher Mrs Smith. Both teachers lived in Soham and used to come to the school each morning in a Austin 7 saloon. When I was 11 years I went to Soham Grammar School. In the early years I used to cycle to Fordham to catch a bus to the Grammar School. My mother, after a considerable effort, was able persuade the authorities to arrange for the bus to come from Newmarket via Snailwell to Chippenham to pick up both Soham Grammar School boys and Ely High School girls at the village pump.

In the early 1950's the village bakery was still run by George and Harold Smalley, the publican at the Tharp Arms was Mr Beal, and the Post Office run by Les Drake. The shop was owned by Mr Claxton and the village policeman was Doug Taylor. We were obviously catered for much better in those days than you are now.

My father, Head Gamekeeper, was employed by John Hely-Hutchinson who lived in Chippenham Lodge. He was 'something in the City' and was the brother of Victor Hely-Hutchinson the musical composer. Mr Hely-Hutchinson had a Rolls Royce which had to be cleaned by his chauffeur after each run no matter what time of day or night it was. The shooting rights in the village were divided into two. Effectively, north of the B1085 Fordham, Chippenham, Kennett road was rented by John Hely-Hutchinson. The shooting on the rest of the Estate owned by Mrs Tharp was rented out to Captain MacDonald Buchanan who had connections with Buchanan's who produced Black and White Whiskey. Many of the 'guns' on both shoots were connected with the horse racing fraternity. Jack Jarvis, Capt. Boyd Rochford, Jack Warr, Chubb Leach etc.

I was Treasurer of the Youth Club which was held at the Village Hall. During the summer months we played tennis on a court owned by Arthur ( Sonny) Kent the farmer in Badlingham. As Treasurer I had to go to Chippenham Hall to get my cheques countersigned by Mr Bacon who ran the estate in succession to Mrs Tharp. The Cricket Club was active and we were transported to away fixtures by Mr Beal the publican who had a huge car, probably a Lagonda. The Village Hall was used for all village functions, dances, whist drives, and for cinema shows.

I worked on the farm at Badlingham during the summer months helping to get the harvest in. Horses were still used and my main job was to lead the farm horses from shock to shock when the corn sheaves were being put on the cart. Horses were used in the field and a tractor would be used to take the cart to the stack yard. A barrel of beer was always bought during harvest and the highlight of the day was when beer was sent to field in a gallon earthenware jar. Later the first combine harvester would appear. Work of the farm was hard particularly in the winter, the tractor drivers had no protection from the elements. At Badlingham carrots were grown for Chivers at Histon to be used in jam making. The coldest job on the farm was working on the sluice were the carrots were washed.

There were several 'characters' in the village. Stan Tweed had lost his leg during the second world war. Sam Moss a single man worked for Arthur Kent at Badlingham . He would have been in his mid-fifties at the beginning of the Second World War but had served in France during the Great War. His contemporaries said that they remember him in tears when he had to go back to the Front after leave. A woman called Phil Lucas from Freckenham worked on the farm at Badlingham, reputedly as strong as most men. Our next door neighbour Vic Neal had lost his wife and was cared for by Mabel Watkinson . At the time Mabel's brother Arthur who lived with them spent many happy hours in the Tharp Arms. His liking for Greene Kings brew had given him an expanded midriff and he was nicknamed 'Scandalous' by the local villagers . This was after his liking for the word describing any event not to his liking as being scandalous.

I have enclosed copies of a couple of photographs of the local Home Guard at Badlingham taken I would think in 1940. My father is standing (at the extreme left looking at the photograph) with Arthur Neal kneeling, again to the left.

It was about this time that we were bombed. The Germans were looking for Mildenhall and spotted the large farm buildings. They dropped incendiary bombs first and then high explosives. One bomb landed in the moat at Badlingham Manor and covered the front of the house with mud and chalk Another landed close to the house in the meadow where George Neal lived, luckily the blast went away from the house. The only problem was that many of the bombs did not explode, they are probably still there, and we were evacuated to the village for 24 hours.

Many my activities as a boy and a teenager are not now 'PC' but I look back at my life in Chippenham with much satisfaction. I left the village in 1954 to undertake National Service and when I was demobbed in 1956 my father had moved. John Hely-Hutchinson had given up the shoot so I never returned to the village. In addition to 18 months in Germany while in the army I lived and worked in Central Africa (Zambia) for nine years and still travel extensively throughout the world, for pleasure I might add. All my ancestors since 1750 worked on the land, in agriculture or as gamekeepers. In some way I broke the mould.

My regards to you and to any of your older villagers who remembers my family, George and Olive Sale, Janet and Margaret.

Contributed by David Sale