Daisy Hart came in 1941 with her 5 year old son George to stay with her sister in Kings Langley in order to escape the bombing in Essex. She and George then mobed to Chipperfield where, at a crowded meeting of evacuees at the home of Miss Brooks in Megg Lane, Daisy volunteered to take on the job of cook and housekeeper to Miss Maggie Smith, the overworked 60 year old District Nurse, in exchange for free accommodation.
She stayed in the old Nurses Cottage in Kings Lane for the next twelve months. They pooled their food rations. Meat was a Sunday treat.
In the summer months of that year Daisy attended musical soirees on three evenings a week at Lavender Cottage in Dunny Lane, where concert pianist Miss McNair would play requested music. George attended a similar function for children, held on the other two weekday evenings. In the following winter Daisy assembled a working party of evacuee mothers at Miss Brooks house and 300 soft toys were made for the evacuee childrens Christmas presents.
George attended St Pauls School in Chipperfield from Easter 1041 until the following Easter, when he and his mother returned hom to Essex, because there was a lull in the bombing.
However, they returned here in July 1944 for about 10 months when London and the Southeast were targeted by flying bombs.
For £15 Daisy bought a wooden hut, measuring 16 feet by 10 feet, which was situated with other pre-war holiday homes in a field at Bucks Hill. From there, George went to school in Kings Langley. One lovely September day in 1944 they watched for about 1 1/2 hours while droves of American planes flew over Chipperfield from Bovingdon Airfield on their way to Arnhem. Daisy and her son finally left Chipperfield just prior to VE Day in 1945 when it was clear that the war in Europe was drawing to a close.
Daisy died in 1997, aged 92, but she visited her sister in Kings Langley right up to her nineties and recalled her fond memories of Chipperfield with great clarity. The Millennium Project to produce a book on ‘Chipperfield within Living Memory is making good progress. However, further accounts of the village in the Second World War would be welcome. If the above account inspires you to recall your Chipperfield experiences of that period, please contact Mary Nobhs on 01923 269480.