Interview with Winifred Ottery (nee Green) (b.1921) about growing up and living in Bletchley.
Agricultural Show at Bletchley Park, 1937. Illustrative photograph supplied by kind permission of BCHI (Accession Ref: BLE/P/P252) Original donated by Mr Mattinson.
Railway flyover and the 'tin shops' at the end of Bletchley Road, 1962. Illustrative photograph supplied by kind permission of BCHI (Accession Ref: BLE/P/991).
Winifred Ottery talks of her early life; brought up in poverty, she was one of twelve children. The family lived in a small brickyard cottage, then a new three-bedroom house. She says of her family life, ‘I enjoyed it …we all mucked in and helped’. Describing her childhood, she recalls traditional children’s games of the time, and her teachers at the Church of England School and attending Church and Sunday school. She remembers local shopkeepers; and describes the autumn shows held by Lady Leon in the grounds of Bletchley Park.
She left school at fourteen, did housework and looked after a baby, then worked at a brush factory in Victoria Road. Her future husband was one of a group of redundant mine workers from Wales who arrived in Bletchley to find work. They married in 1939 when she was eighteen. During the war while her husband was away she lived with her family, and worked, firstly cleaning railway carriages and then cleaning at Bletchley Park, mainly in the RAF rooms ‘but you didn’t look at anything’. She had been vetted when she applied for the job, but was not let into rooms without an escort and recalls that you were not allowed to pick up waste paper. Working at Bletchley Park she did have some idea of what was going on and remembers ‘we were lucky here, no bombing’. Recalls the excitement of D-Day, her husband went on ‘D’ plus one with Montgomery’s second army. He was involved in grave-digging during the war, including the burial of Heinrich Himmler, later he revisited Germany for a magazine to try to locate the grave.
Far Bletchley was where the first new houses were built. More shops were built after the war in Bletchley Road, previously nearly all houses, called it ‘Tin Town’ there were little lock up tin shops, she lists some of the shops. They started building houses at Water Eaton, caused controversy on the official opening of the first two houses, as one family didn’t live locally. It would be another year before they were allocated a house. Her husband worked at Martell’s coal merchants for about twenty years until he was taken ill and she then worked part-time at the brush factory. Didn’t like the new bigger Bletchley, as she felt that in a small town everyone knew everyone else, but now you knew fewer people. Rarely went to Milton Keynes Centre, but shopped several times a week in Bletchley.
Creator
Ottery, Winifred
Extent
1 audio tape cassette
Contributor
Lindsay, Sheila
Reference number
BBB/001/003
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