Cecil Dickerson 5/10/1924 – 6/8/2022
These memories are excerpts from a CD made in 2006 with Graham Penning.
I was born in Wooden Cottage. It was two cottages in one, opposite the Three Tuns called Barkway Cottage. Then we moved by a great big pond.
Harriet Dickerson, I was the eldest, then my sister Joyce, then Frank and Ruth.
I went to Barkway Village School. My first teacher was Miss Parker. To begin with, we wrote on slates with chalk. Later I got top marks for my handwriting. We always used a fountain pen. I used to deliver the Sunday war states with my bicycle.
I left school at 14 to work with Mr Kenzie. He sold fish and vegetables in the village, but later I was apprenticed to an electrical firm at Pepper and Haywards in Royston. At 18, I got called up. I did my basic training in Prestatyn, Wales. Then on to the Royal Signals Corps in Huddersfield. We trained to get ready for D-Day and landed in France about midday onto Gold Beach. It was a bit scary at times. I was later posted to Egypt with some rookies, doing signals work and camp guard duties. We used to have a few drinks in the evenings and sing songs. I was demobbed in 1947.
I met Alice when we both attended a works holiday in Benidorm, Holland. She worked at the Red House. We got married in a double wedding the same day as my sister Joyce. We all bought our house on Royston Road, Barkway. Our children, Leni, Peter and Jeremy, all born in that house.
Nurse McKew brought all my kids into the world. They all went to Barkway School too.
I had my own business, D & P Electrical, which I set up with Ted Pardoe. I wired local farms, factories and people’s houses. After retirement Alice and I did a lot of travelling. I set up my own Radio Shack in the roof of my house.
Cecil and Alice moved to Nuthampstead in 1965 and were very happy there. Cecil had a very long and happy life. He was a kind and loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather. A very affectionate and helpful neighbour, a good friend to many. We will all miss him.