Eleanor May Parker

Here is the first part of an article in the first ever Thriplow Journal. It is a profile of Eleanor May Parker, who was born in 1903, and lived in Thriplow for all her life apart from the first six months.

You can read the rest of her profile, and see a photograph of her aged 5, in volume 1.1 (1992).

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A PROFILE

ELEANOR MAY PARKER

I was born in the village of Barton on the 28th May 1903, but when only six months old my parents brought me together with my two brothers, William and Herbert, and two sisters, Ethel and Nellie, to live in Thriplow. I have lived here ever since that move, almost ninety years ago. I would not have wanted to live anywhere else.

At first we had one of the cottages in Cochrane’s Farm, Lower Street, where my father was shepherd for Mr Fordham. There was no shortage of milk in Thriplow in those days with many small dairies – one on The Green where Helen and John Augar now live, one at Barrington’s Farm (Thriplow Manor), and one in Pam Jacklin ‘s old house in Middle Street (Erica and Richard Webber’s present home). Bread was baked in the village bakery on The Green where Stan and Barbara Gillett live today and delivered daily as far as Chrishall. There were horses everywhere – working on the land, pulling milk and bread carts, and harnessed to traps and little buggies. The village was nearly self-sufficient. Brown’s of Cambridge delivered paraffin for the oil-lamps for there was no electricity and special items could be brought from outside by the two carrier’s carts operated by Freeman and Neaves two or three times each week. You had to book a ride in advance if you wanted to go to Cambridge or to the railway station at Harston.