Happy wartime years on the farm

David Richardson emailed to say Elms Farm in Leek Wootton is where he and his brother lived for five years during the Second World War.

He said: “Ernest Pate Cattell, the farmer, was married to our aunt Adela, our father’s sister.

“We were from London and having been evacuated to several places at the start of the war, our parents decided we should go to Warwick School.

“The mixed farm consisted of approximately 250 acres with further acres rented from Sir Wathen Waller who then owned the estate which was later taken over as Warwickshire Police headquarters.

“On Mr Cattell’s death the farm was taken over by the Edgar family and we were billeted with Mr and Mrs Dee who ran the post office and bakery.

“The years spent in Leek Wootton were formative and for the most part happy years for my brother and I.”

Avril Newey, who lives in Earlsdon, contacted the us after seeing a picture of the Bowling Green Inn, or, as she has always known it, the Abbey Hotel.

She said: “Firstly, my mother and father always spoke of their first meeting at one of the Abbey’s weekly ballroom dances in the late 1920s.

“Secondly, my personal memory is from the age of five when I was taken by the older girls in Spring Lane and found myself standing at the foot of the entrance steps into the hotel and gazing with awe at the two figures of Laurel and Hardy, standing in the foyer, writing their autographs in my diary.”

If any of the pictures published in the Weekly News bring back memories for you, email [email protected]