We have been away for a few days.*

Regular readers will know this means a slew of photographs of Art Deco buildings and design features plus various War Memorials will be appearing here soon.

*I actually typed away far before spotting it. Which was maybe appropriate as we were down in England again – or maybe not if you consider we only covered 960 miles in total.

The Book Society, 1969, 208p

Aside:- It’s not often I particularly remember where I actually bought a book but Croft-Cooke had been recommended to both me and the good lady so when she alighted on this one in a great second-hand book and antique shop we stumbled on in Saffron Walden on our October trip it was a must.

On his uppers in Paris and with no previous experience of anything much at all John Scout writes, with the aid of his otherwise reticent girlfriend (who forces him to sleep with a sheet between them,) a novel called The Strip Teas for French pornographic publisher Klick. This is taken up as a ground-breaking work by a reputable English publisher who changes its title to Grand Climacteric and the author’s name to Jakki Trover. This gives Croft-Cooke the opportunity to satirise the publishing industry in all its aspects from agents through publishers to book reviewers and authors keen to raise their profiles as well as other topics including the law and prudishness.

The tone is that of the comic novel, no really serious points are made, but Wolf From The Door is very readable, though slight. Most of the story is carried via dialogue, though, and I found the consequent lack of description of surroundings irritating – as was Scout’s naivety.

The chapter titles are all listed at the beginning and refer to the process whereby a book comes into being, The Book, The Agent, The Contract, The Publisher, The Proofs etc. so it’s not a spoiler to say that Grand Climacteric becomes subject to a prosecution for obscenity. Scout, who always knew The Strip Teas/Grand Climacteric was rubbish, writes a completely conventional novel for his next effort.

Wolf From The Door was published in the 1960s. Perhaps things were better in those days as I only noticed three or four typos, a strike rate modern books in general far outdo. One particularly felicitous example was where Scout “threw his coat onto a char.” Another occurred in the “reproduction” of the advert for the English book where “Trover”’s novel is given second billing to another from the same publisher but its title is spelled Grand Climateric. I thought this was going to be used as an example of where publishers fail to do the best by their authors but none of the characters comment on it so it must be a genuine typo and not intentional by Croft-Cooke.

I am left wondering how typical of Croft-Cooke’s prodigious output Wolf From The Door is.

Coggeshall is a village on the road between Braintree and Colchester. We used to pass through it a lot on the bus to Colchester (and back) when we went of a Saturday to the big metropolis from the wilds of Braintree. At least it was on the main A 120 road then; like Braintree it too has been bypassed now.

Coggeshall had a reputation in Braintree as being inhabited by yokels – they told tales of “Coggies” in the same way others would of the Irish (or the Irish do of Kerrymen.) It’s barely three miles away!

We went on there after Silver End to see how much it had changed. Answer: not a lot. Mind you the minor road from Silver End to Coggeshall Hamlet (just south of Coggeshall proper) is the windiest thing I’ve ever driven on – like a sideways roller coaster. The road is called Cut Hedge Lane and skirts the edges of a farmer’s fields and there are no fences – nor hedges come to that – the fields start where the road’s edge is.

Coggeshall is still quaint, with Tudor style wooden framed houses of which this was the example most lopsided in appearance.

It’s not without some modern references, though. Someone had obviously been watching The Two Ronnies.

On the way out of Silver End we passed another Art Deco house so of course I had to stop to photograph it.

This is Wolverton, also on Boar’s Tye Road.

It’s nice that the plants outside the door reflect the house’s symmetry – even if the climber doesn’t.

The balcony, with its W motif, is a nice touch and the gatepost (see below) is exquisite.

The housing estate I mentioned in my last Art Deco post was built by Francis Henry Critall for the workers at his window factory in the village.

This more stylish house was for one of the factory managers to live in. I presume the other biggish Deco house in Boar’s Tye Road (see my last Art Deco post,) though not quite as elaborate as Wolverton, was also for a manager.

The day after Braintree we took in the nearby village of Silver End. This was the first time we’d been there as for all the years we lived in Essex we didn’t have a car.

We were looking for the housing estate designed by the architect Thomas S Tait who I see from the link submitted an unsuccessful plan for Kirkcaldy Town Hall. Among other accomplishments he was the architect of St Andrews House in Edinburgh which I have featured here.

We knew we were on the right track when we came upon this in Boar’s Tye Road:-

It’s needing a bit of TLC I would say.

The next junction takes you into Silver Street. Every building is one of Tait’s.

This was taken from the other end of the street after we had parked.

This is the junction of Silver Street and Broadway which also contains many Tait houses.

There must have been around two hundred flat roofed houses in the deco style over the two streets.

A few had some extra deco flourishes like the triangular columns with windows in this photo where you can also see the connecting walls between them which house the gates to the rear gardens.

Two more War Memorials from our recent trip down south. It is Remembrance Sunday after all.

The first, on the left, is in Great Dunmow, Essex, a village I used to travel through on the bus twice every workday when we lived in Braintree. The memorial is triangular in cross section which you can’t quite make out from this photo.

The second is in Saffron Walden. It is located at the top of the main street, which dips down away from it. I had to stand almost in the middle of the road to get a decent angle but unfortunately must have shaken the camera as it’s a bit blurry. Both of these are elegant, restrained and prominently situated at road junctions.

In Braintree we parked as close to our old house as possible and strolled up to the town.

The route took us past the War Memorial.

Just over the road is this deco Masonic Centre.

And next door to that is an Art Deco house.

From the above angle you cannot see the curved balcony but looking in by the gate you do.

The old Woolies in the town centre was/is deco in style.

There used to be a Critall window factory in Braintree but that seems to have been demolished and replaced by modern housing.

When we lived there the traffic in the town was horrendous. The queues to get in on a Saturday from the north were enormous. So were the ones in the supermarket; they stretched from the tills all the way to the other ends of the aisles.

The town has long since been bypassed both north/south and east/west and so was relatively tranquil. Mind you we got there about five o’clock.

There is also now a retail park and an outlet centre off the bypass. Considering that, the town centre looked more thriving than you might expect.

I scheduled this post for a certain time today as it seemed appropriate.

This is the North entrance to the US WW2 cemetery near Madingley, Cambridgeshire.

We visited it just after Grantchester. It’s set in some nice agricultural land a few miles east of Cambridge. The grounds are beautifully kept. Several people were busy keeping the paths clear of leaves while we were there.

The memorial itself is monumental in the same way that the corresponding cemetery at Collevilles-sur-Mer in Normandy is. Though Madingley has less than a third of the burials that are in Collevilles – which we visited over ten years ago now – it is still overwhelming when you pass through the entrance from the car park and see the thousands of grave markers. Most of the interred were airmen killed in the bombing campaign over Europe.

This is from the northern end. It doesn’t show the crescent effect that other angles give but from here the crosses (and stars of David) retreat into the distance.

The flagstaff is massive and there is an avenue leading from it to the memorial chapel on whose steps the photo above right was taken.

The long wall on the left here contains the names of all those who died either in the North Atlantic or Europe but have no known grave. A starred entry denotes a Medal of Honor recipient, Lt Col Leon R Vance, who sadly perished when the aeroplane taking him back to the US after he was wounded, disappeared. The statues along the wall represent the various US services, including coastguards as well as airmen, soldiers and sailors.

The chapel itself, seen below first from the flagstaff and then from among the graves, is an impressive building.

The circular pieces in the windows are stained glass images of the seals of the various individual States that make up the Union that is the United States.

The wall on the southern side of the chapel displays a map showing the location of the many US bases in WW2 Britain. The hedge enclosing the grounds made it difficult to get far enough back.

The chapel doors have bronze plaques of the heavy equipment the servicemen may have used and inside, a whole wall is given over to the North Atlantic and European theatres of war, showing the routes of convoys and various air-raids over occupied Europe. Below that, panels show the extent of the Axis advance and the Allied ripostes for both the Africa/Europe and Pacific areas over three different time intervals.

The visitors building near the flagstaff had a well signed visitors book and staff who were welcoming and helpful.

Despite the buzz of the leaf clearer, the overall effect was one of tranquillity and harmony, of a strange sort of peace. US citizens with relatives buried there may find that a small comfort.

The experience, like that of visiting any large war cemetery, was humbling.

Why Braintree?

Well: the good lady and myself used to live there when I worked as a Research Chemist. We thought we’d see how it had changed in thirty years so made it one of the last stops on our recent trip down south.

I well remembered the cinema. The Embassy as was. The building is very deco indeed but is now a Wetherspoons pub called the Picture Palace.

Surprisingly the inside has not been mucked about with much. On either side of where the screen was situated – the screen itself appears still to be present behind the bar area – are some original panels one of which I tried to photograph (see left above) but the light level was very low so the result is grainy. Two photographs of the original interior are in a frame on the wall of the foyer (right, above.) The windows are not original but have been replaced very sympathetically. You can just about make them out here.

We astonished the waiter by saying we had actually seen films in it. (By the way, a true life incident – not to do with the film itself – from watching the first Star Trek movie there made it into my novel A Son Of The Rock in somewhat disguised form. It was too good not to use.)

We hadn’t intended visiting Ely but when we discovered it was only twelve miles from Cambridge we thought we might as well.

Its most striking feature is of course the Cathedral (see left.)

Almost the first house we encountered was in a highly traditional style. We had been forewarned by signs in the car park – and the streets up from it – to “Oliver Cromwell’s House.” This surprised me as I’d always thought Cromwell was a farmer from Huntingdon till the Civil Wars dragged him from hearth and home to military fame – not to mention notoriety – regicide and the Lord Protectorship. Anyway the tacky figures outside put us off entering.

I had expected the town would contain mostly traditional architecture. There was nothing extremely modern but I was pleasantly surprised to find not one, nor two, nor even three, but four buildings showing deco styling.

The first had “Coronation Building” and a crown inscribed on it. I suspect this would have been the 1937 Coronation (George VI) rather than that of 1953.

The second now hosts WH Smith’s – I had to stitch two photos as the street wasn’t wide enough to allow me to frame the whole thing in one shot.

The third looked as if it had once been a Woolworths.

The fourth was on another street (Lynn Road?) just off the main one.

The War Memorial was unostentatious, restrained and dignified, set into a niche in the wall that backs onto the cathedral.

There was also a street market which looked pretty thriving. Whether it’s there everyday or merely Wednesdays I don’t know.