More local stuff from the Rochford District Community Archive. This is a brief extract:
…..At the end of Mr Thompson’s garden was the remains of a sandbagged emplacement, which I was told was a checkpoint and that anyone proceeding past had to show their identity card to the soldiers who manned it before going on to Rayleigh.
Today the pavement is very wide here where Down Hall Road joins the London Road, but at one time there was an area of grass in the middle with a couple of small trees in metal cages and I was told that when the Government appealed for aluminium saucepans to help the War Effort, this was the place where they had to be left for later collection.
Another memory I have, probably from 1946 or 1947, is sitting on my grandparents’ garden wall in Down Hall Road and saying “Hello” to the German POWs who were allowed out from Rawreth Camp (now Rawreth Industrial Estate). They wore dark brown uniforms with battledress type jackets which I think had either pink or light green diamonds or circles sewn on the back, and dark brown German style ski caps. Obviously they must have been considered harmless by that time or I wouldn’t have been allowed to sit out there on my own!….