Monthly Archives: February 2014

Sleepsuits in the car

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Probably my earliest memories of Landermere actually involve waking up there.

When Lillie and I were little, Dad owned a Citroen estate with a massive boot.  On Friday nights, Lillie and I used to get bundled up in our sleepsuits (blue padded all-in-one suits with hoods and feet) and packed into the boot of the car, with a duvet underneath us and a duvet on top.  We’d go to sleep as we were driven to Landermere for the weekend, carefully unpacked without waking us, and then tucked up in bed so that on Saturday morning, we woke up in the cottage.  We’d do the journey in reverse on a Sunday night, and then wake up back in London for nursery or school on a Monday morning.

There were quite a few families who did similar weekend trips to Landermere in those days (early 80s) and while we were there we used to catch up with our friends – I particularly remember the Samuels girls (Kate, Hetty and Grace) whose dad Doug had grown up in the cottage next door, and Ella Jones, whose grandparents Eduardo and Freda Paolozzi lived further along the row of cottages.

Anyone else remember those days?

Welcome to Landermere

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Landermere Quay, where the land meets the sea, is a tiny hamlet near the village of Thorpe-le-Soken in the Essex marshes.  Easier to access by sea than by road, it’s been home to my mother’s family – the Hendersons – since the 1950s when my great-grandparents bought the smugglers’ pub (The Kings Head) and the fishermen’s cottages (Gull Cottages) as a suitable home for my grandparents Nigel and Judith Henderson, who had until then been living in Chisenhale Road, Bethnal Green, with their three children Jo, Justin (my mother) and Ned.  Their fourth child Stephen was born when they were living at the Kings Head.

The family moved to Landermere when Justin was eight – at this stage Jo would have been nine and Ned a baby.  Steve was born three years later.

Justin died in 2007 so I can’t ask her for any more stories, but I have memories of her telling us that when she was a child there was a pony, possibly a Shetland; and multiple cats (the ones Mum used to talk about especially were called Bouncer and Camilla).

I do know that there were other families living at Landermere.  Judith (my grandmother) was an anthropologist who was involved in the Mass Observation project in the East End after the second world war.  Her project was called Discover Your Neighbour – and her part revolved around the family who lived next door in Chisenhale Road, Leslie and Doreen Samuels and their seven boys.  When Nigel and Judith moved to Landermere, they took the Samuels family with them and gave them one of the cottages to live in – it’s still owned by Peter Samuels (one of the seven sons) now.

Nigel was one of the foremost artists of the Independent Group, and his colleague and friend Eduardo Paolozzi also moved to Landermere with his wife Freda; between them they formed Hammer Prints, which was run largely from the Kings Head.

There are lots of other stories about Landermere from before I was born – hopefully I’ll dredge the memory banks at some stage – but if you have any memories or photographs of Landermere you’d like to share, please let me know and I’ll happily publish them.