The Wards and the Smiths coexisted for a while. Father And son, \u201cDaddy\u201d and \u201cDuchy\u201d, ran a horse drawn delivery service for groceries and other goods to outlining villages over a wide radius. The story goes that having been refreshed at several hostelries en route, the driver would fall asleep after his last call and leave the horse to find his own way home. Duchy, William Jr that is, married Emily Smith one of the ten children of Charles Smith the last High Wych Blacksmith. It was said to be a marriage of mutual convenience. \u201cHe wanted a house keeper, she wanted a shop\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n There was also a dairy which was based at Bakers Farm and of course a bakery headed by Baker White who some may still remember. Groceries were also sold by the Tyser sisters, who had followed Patmore in the Rising Sun, in the last quarter of the 19th<\/sup> century. Steve Prior <\/span>thinks the shop was a single story extension on the\u00a0left hand side of the building accessed by the\u00a0left hand door. The business probably stopped trading by 1929. <\/span>Fishmongers also called round.<\/span><\/p>\n . <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Daddy and Duch Ward<\/span><\/p>\n The original shop, as is shown on two of the photographs below, was situated in what is now number 7 Half Moon Cottages. The Post Office was also situated there. For most of the time it was managed by one and the same person: Emily Smith who became Emily Ward and upon Duchy\u2019s death and her subsequent marriage to Arthur Lindsell became Mrs. Lindsell. She stayed in charge until 1963 when Bill and Kath Springham took over. They ran the \u201cCottage Stores\u201d until the early seventies.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Early 1900s \u2013 on the left: \u201cbaker white\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Emily Lindsell in the 1950s<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For most of us though the Village Shop is connected with the name Camp. When In 1952 Mr. Lindsell, the sub post master died, his widow, Mrs. Lindsell, preferred to continue the business just as a sweet shop. For a period afterwards the Post Office then operated from the Village Hall on a part time basis. In 1953 William and Mary Camp <\/span>purchased a strip of land adjacent to their \u201cDovedale\u201d. Bungalow. Originally it was known as \u201cThe Willows\u201d owing to the row of willow trees along its length. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>1955: Fred Puncher and J. Stevens and their dairy van\u00a0\u00a0 – \u00a0 <\/span>1965: the Springham’s Cottage Stores<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0Shortly afterwards the Camps applied to the Post Office for a licence.<\/span> In April 1954 Mary started\u00a0 <\/span>serving customers from the front door of the bungalow. At first, the Camp\u2019s daughters believe,\u00a0 <\/span>it was only 2 days a week as it had been in the village hall.\u00a0 <\/span>While this was going on, planning permission was obtained and a small building was constructed on the strip of land that they had purchased.\u00a0 <\/span>The building was in fact no more than one quarter of the size of the present building, maybe even smaller than that.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Right from the beginning it was an enormous success.\u00a0 <\/span>The people of the village were so pleased to have a shop and post office again that they queued up to buy there.\u00a0 <\/span>Soon it was realised that the tiny building was not going to be big enough for either the stock required or the customers, so only a year later William and Mary started to think about how they could expand the shop to meet the need.\u00a0 <\/span>It was probably a couple of years before they managed to acquire the funds, but they then doubled the size of the shop.<\/span><\/p>\n High Wych Village Shop was a true family business. As soon as they were old enough daughters Heather and Rosalyn started helping out. Aged 16 and 15 they even took over for a week enabling Mum and Dad to go on holiday.\u00a0 <\/span>On Friday nights the whole family sat down to do the books. <\/span><\/p>\n Those were the days before supermarkets, when most people still did not have cars. Many villagers really did most of their shopping with the Camps. Cheese and meat was cut to order and the skill was to try and get it as near the required amount as possible as it was really hard to work out how much it should cost if it was slightly under or over. HW resident Jean Pedder (now 83) remembers buying ham at Christmas time and how the meat slicer was used.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Interesting people came to the shop. <\/span>Miss Morris would wait outside astride her horse. One had to go out to collect her shopping list and return with the items \u2013 plus a packet of polo mints for the horse. A certain gentleman had such dirty hands one was loathe to take his money.\u00a0 <\/span>Miss Valentine Fane in her old Humber car full of cardboard boxes would call to post strange smelling parcels possibly containing pheasants that had been well hung! \u00a0<\/span>An elderly lady more than once came for her pension in her nighty. Heather or Rosalyn were then asked to take her safely home to High Wych Lane. <\/span>Italian immigrants working at Actons and not having a good command of English came by with letters and forms which William had to read out. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1965: Trevor Helmer in\u00a0 front of the shop<\/span><\/p>\n The store provided many hous<\/span>e hold items, provisions, frozen foods, vegetables and, in late October, early November even fireworks. <\/span>The sale of sanitary towels posed particular problems in the early days. Firstly, ladies would always wait for a female to serve them. Then, the items were\u00a0 <\/span>kept out of view, so Heather or Rosalyn had to go \u2018out the back\u2019 to ask their dad where they were, then wait for him to wrap them in a brown paper bag for the girls to take discreetly back to the customer.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1963 a Sainsbury supermarket was opened in Harlow. That shop and others like it took away a lot of custom. Still the shop continued to thrive and \u00a0<\/span>in 1975 it was even <\/span>extended again with the frontage being doubled. Two years later, in 1977 William Camp closed the shop and Bert Thorpe became the tenant. In the nineties Mike Ellis took over. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Camp daughters continue their tale: <\/span><\/p>\n For many years prices were very stable and you could ask Dad the price of anything in the shop and he would know it.\u00a0 <\/span>Later when inflation began to be a problem, prices changed so quickly that he could no longer do that.\u00a0 <\/span>I can also remember the first time someone stole something from the shop.\u00a0 <\/span>It had never happened before, and then one day a box of pens went missing.\u00a0 <\/span>At first Dad couldn\u2019t work out what had happened as it was unheard of for people to steal.\u00a0 <\/span>Unfortunately, after that it happened quite often and we had to be on our guard so people didn\u2019t have the opportunity to steal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I remember 3 burglaries always the thieves were after cigarettes, always they happened at night. The first time they successfully broke in through the front door, no bars in those days. The next time they made the mistake of taking some Cadbury\u2019s cream eggs on their way out, then calling at Dixon\u2019s garage on the way passed and dropping some out of the car onto the forecourt this was seen by Roy Dixon on his way home from a late night party and guessing where they had got them he called the police and they were caught. The last I remember was after the grills were fitted and they unsuccessfully attempted to break in via the roof.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n By the time <\/span>Bert Thorpe and Mike Ellis had taken over, thefts, burglaries and even hold ups had occurred a number of times.\u00a0 <\/span>One such occasion happened in 2003 and my own neighbor, the late Ede Lomax was involved.\u00a0 <\/span>The robber demanded money and it is thought he waved a gun about. Mike, who had been held up once before, told the man he would give him the money. Ede,76 at the time and made of sterner stuff told Mike he should refuse upon which she herself got threatened. Her reaction: \u201cAll right then, shoot me if you must\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>The robber got away with the money and Ede, Mike and a child who was also there, with just a fright.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When In 2010 Mike Ellis sold the business on to Diogo Fernandes, all seemed normal. Diogo, sometimes assisted by part timers worked in the shop whilst Rob Ambrose, his employee, worked behind the counter at the post office. Business wasn\u2019t roaring but it ticked along. Until one day in February 2012 when the postal authorities came around for an audit and discovered a shortfall of close to \u00a3 40.000. Rob held up his hands and confessed to having defrauded the GPO of that amount. The Post Office subsequently closed the branch and took away the license from Diogo in whose name it was registered. <\/span><\/p>\n Months of confusion followed. The Post Office maintained officially that they wanted to keep their High Wych branch open but somehow seemed to hold the licensee responsible. Diogo, now being left with a business without the beneficial effect of a sub post office on the premise decided to close and found himself \u201ca regular job\u201d. A petition to the postal authorities remained without success. For a few weeks it seemed as if High Wych would have neither a post office nor a shop. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![\"hw](\"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/hw-00-Daddy-and-Duchy-Ward-small.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>1993: Bert Thorpe, his wife and daughter plus Mary Jackson and June David in front of the shop.<\/p>\n<\/a>2003: Mike Ellis and Ede Lomax are held up.<\/p>\n