Geoff Blackwell

1st April 1920 - 30th November 2008

Interview by Polly Clarke in The Link magazine, May 2006

You don’t get much more local to Coggeshall than Geoff Blackwell. He was born in West Street. He grew up in Tilkey Road. He helped his father on their allotment in Vicarage Fields. He has been a member of the church choir for seventy-six years. He attended school in Stoneham Street. His first job was with John King, seed merchants. The war took him away to Dover, Merseyside and India, but he came back and resumed his life here. He now lives in Walford Way. He made me welcome when I called on him, and allowed me a glimpse into his long life here in Coggeshall. I feel honoured to have met him and set down below, as best I can, what he told me.

“I was born in a cottage near the Fleece, it’s been pulled down now. Our family moved to Tilkey Road. My grandfather was Head Gardener at Holfield Grange and my father worked at Crittalls, but he loved gardening too and had an allotment. So I grew up gardening and hearing talk about gardening. I joined the Church Choir on Easter Day when I was nine; new choir boys (only boys and men in those days) had to sit behind the choir stalls until they were admitted, and this was always on Easter Day. The choirmaster was George Hearn. He was also the Headmaster of the Church School in Stoneham Street. He was a very good teacher and gave me a lifelong love of music. I learnt the violin and later on I played with the Brotherhood Orchestra here in Coggeshall; we used to play all sorts, and gave concerts in the Lecture Hall, with the encouragement of the Free Church.

"I would have liked to carry on with my education but my parents couldn’t afford it, so I left the church school at fourteen. Because I loved plants and gardening I applied for a job with Kings Seeds. I was very lucky, because Kings sent me to Cambridge, to study agriculture, plant breeding and seed production at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany or NIAB in Huntingdon Road; of course they paid me while I was studying. I also learnt shorthand at evening classes, which came in useful; later on, after my retirement, I taught shorthand at evening classes at Honywood School.

"So I became a crop inspector; I used to travel around with a colleague, all over Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey; we looked closely at the growing cereals: wheat, barley, oats and sometimes rye. Is it growing well? What weeds are prevalent in the field? What treatment, if any, does it need, in the way of fertilizer or pesticide? We could then advise the farmer on what to spray them with and give feedback on the performance of the seeds to the growers. I remember once standing in a field of standing rye, it was so tall, it towered over us. The heavens opened and the rain fell so heavily that the whole crop was flattened. It lay about us, ruined. 

"When war broke out I joined the army and started work as a telephonist. Then I became a radar operator at Dover. We became expert at detecting and shooting down the slow flying bombs, known as doodle bugs, but we had no defence against the V2s. You saw them flash onto the screen, and a few seconds later they had passed over Dover and landed, they were that quick. They were manufactured in Dortmund and launched from France. Our airmen managed to bomb the Dortmund factory, so that put a stop to them.  I had an IQ test and was selected to go for training in cipher at Harrogate. I learnt the American and German codes, and that was my work for the next two years. They offered me a commission but I didn’t want to sign on with the army, so I turned it down. Towards the end of the war I was sent to the Second Indian Airborne Division to India; we were scheduled to invade Japan, but the H bombs saw to that. The heat in India was quite dreadful, so we couldn’t travel across the desert to get to  Bombay; the result was, we missed our ship and were stuck for weeks in Deolali waiting for the next one. Eventually we embarked on a ship full of families going home and I was appointed a Military Policeman – my last appointment in the army – which meant doing my best to keep order among the excited children on board!

"So when I got home I took up my work as a crop inspector, seed analyst and advisor with Matthews Seed Growers. There were so many seed growers in those days: Hursts, Cooper Tabors, they’ve all gone now. Matthews were then taken over by Unilever, who proceeded, as big firms always do, to asset strip. One by one, the Matthews shops were closed, and I was made redundant at the age of fifty. I was sent to Chelmsford employment exchange, where I was told: “There’s no work anywhere here for a man with your skills.” But I heard that Courtaulds were looking for mature people in the registrar department of their Bocking office, which was next to, but separate from, the silk factory. They took me on and I became an internal auditor.

"However, when my mother got ill I had to leave work to care for her; two years later she died. Courtaulds must have heard about my mother’s death, because they wrote to me, inviting me to come back to work with them; and that is where I worked until I retired. My account auditing skills have come in useful for various charities since then, and I still do the accounts for some of them.

"As the years went on I became involved with all sorts of societies and clubs. I sat on the Parish Council for over twenty-five years, and was a district councillor for three years. I worked as a Youth leader, and organised ballroom dancing classes in Coggeshall. I enjoyed working with the young, possibly because I had no children of my own. I was also Treasurer of St Peter’s Club which raised money for the church.

"I used to edit the Parish Magazine; I was on the PCC and was for a while a member of Deanery Synod. I’m President of the Horticultural Society, and am now the last surviving founding member. I used to judge flowers at horticultural shows round about, including the Three Colnes. I am Chairman of the Hitcham Trust, Chairman of the Amalgamated Charity, which looks after the almshouses behind the Woolpack and Trustee of the Beaumont Almshouses. I am Chairman of the King Fund and of the Paycocke Charity. I have been secretary of the WEA. I am also Vice President and Gold Badge Holder of the Royal British Legion.

"I still write for the East Anglian Daily Times, the Essex Chronicle and the Essex County Standard, keeping them informed about local affairs.

"I love Coggeshall and would not have wanted to live anywhere else. But the town has changed a great deal over the years. I used to know everyone, and everyone knew me. Now I don’t know half the people who live here. We used to be able to get anything we needed. There were four bakers, three butchers, three banks, a bookshop, an ironmonger, a grocer and greengrocer, a shoe shop and so on. The village has got bigger, but with fewer shops and less sense of community. All the same, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”

Polly Clarke, May 2006