Thanks for that suggestion, jennyann. Chessetts Wood Road appears now to be full of many desirable properties. Looking at roughly the spot where my father’s home stood I suspect that the modest structure now lies under a treble garage or a swimming pool.
I remember his saying that the house backed on to the GWR main line – a source of great envy to me - and he told me a story about that.
As a fifteen or sixteen-year-old in around 1916, he made a practice of taking a shotgun out into the adjoining fields to pot a rabbit or two for the family table. Inevitably, from time to time the juiciest targets were on the other side of the line, a minor inconvenience which did not discourage him in the slightest from violating GWR airspace with his pellets. But one day the Railway Police hammered on the front door, voiced their disapproval at this practice which had come to their notice, warned that a recurrence would result in prosecution and went on their way.
My grandfather issued the required reprimand and in the course of the ensuing discussion invited my father to show him precisely where this misdemeanour normally occurred. Out of the back door, down the garden, into the field and up to the railway line. At this point, my grandfather - who had picked up the shotgun on the way out - spotted a target in a field on the other side of the line, found the temptation too hard to resist, banged off at it and was promptly nabbed by the Railway Police who were still lurking in some nearby undergrowth.
Setting the right example was clearly no easier for a parent 90 years ago than it is today.
Chris