Mike Taylor writes from California. 30th June 2007.

I was doing a search on my PC at work, eating an apple, I remembered the apple orchards behind the church, that church was so wonderful, with the gravestones, some so old and venerable, telling of simple lives, long and short, the conker trees, with the big ones well out of reach, the yew trees that framed the road, and the cautionary tales from Mum about not eating the berries, ever.

The young Tom with his two pretty younger sisters at Burford Gardens

The picture was taken in the back area, the chainlink fence was to keep us out of the area that was being demolished. Note the greenhouse on the side of the wall.

     In some ways some things are very Monty Python-esque, but with the innocent perspective of the child, there's parts that I feel bad about things I did there, broken windows, pinching sixpences ....... but there was the punishment of reaching up for a branch of wonderful sweet plums that grew on the side of the riverbank, behind the house, reaching to far, tugging on a branch that broke just as I had over reached, and fell into the stinging nettles.

     When I was a kid, which means after the War, (I was born in 1955) and we came to the States in 1968, but many of my memories of England and Wales are with me.

There was a point in time where we lived at Burford Gardens. My Dad was a nurseryman, he worked at the Gardens probably planting the clematis. My Dad is an adventurer probably scarred by the War, he was born in Salford, and My Mum is from Wythenshawe, both live up in Northern California, and are in good health.

     I'd say we lived there in about 1964-65, my father worked at many nurseries, he worked at Kew gardens, and Bees in Sealand, where we lived for 6 years, then it was one move after another, Colwyn Bay, a small place outside of Congleton, Burford, Murderously, North Walsham ( where Lord Nelson went to school), a place outside of Poole, and then a few houses in the Blandford area before we finally came to California.

    I had always wondered if Burford was still in existence as a Gardens, and if the house we had lived in was still there. We lived in one the of the houses that had an enclosed wall built around it, there were brick framed beds with lilies in them. I had read part of the description of when you were walking from the estate to the school, we would walk up the gravel road to the gate, past the 2 ponds, I had fallen into one of them in my attempt to catch something larger than a minnow. and I had forgotten about that part of my stay there, that little schoolhouse, how it was divided into 2 classes, I can almost see it.

    My Dad would fish in the brook on the side of the house, and many a night we had fresh trout to eat, although there were a lot of chub darting up and down, it was truly the place where Wind in the Willows could have been. If I stood in the back of the house, with the brook on my right, the brook would drop off about 10 feet down to the waters edge, my bedroom seems to be in the centre.  The house is red brick, not the red of Manchester, but more of an orange patina, a smoother brick. To the left is a 12 foot wall which encloses the back portion of the garden. There was a espaliered pear tree which climbed all the way up to my bedroom window.

Thank you so much for putting your story about being an evacuee on line, when I talk to my Dad this weekend I will mention it to him.

Sincerely,

Mike Taylor