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Serving the communities of Bures St Mary and Bures Hamlet

Other local characters:-


Bures has always had a good crop of what one might call "characters" from the time.

One was Luggar" the village crier, who was paid one shilling for going all round the village crying events. He was a drover and a cripple, with a wooden leg and a hooked hand.
One of my friends grandfather went away to London for a week and when he came back and heard the village gossip, he hired the crier and sent him round to say he had not left his wife and had no intention of doing so.

Then there was poor old Bill Bradley who claimed to have read the bible from beginning to end. He was as clean as a new pin and used to walk miles and miles to the outlying villages
selling cakes and tarts.

Another village worthy was fiddler Brey, the blind man who by trade was a rush basket maker. He collected his own rushes by the river and kind friends would tie a rope round his waist so that he could be pulled in if he ventured too far.
He was an accomplished violinist.

There were many, many others, so many that this history would never end if we put them all in. But we hope there is enough here to show that Bures has always been an interesting and a happy village. May it continue to flourish.

Extract from the History of Bures by F Sillitoe & Sons, 1951


Ezra Anderson of St Edmunds Lane, another village character who could tell you many tales.
I recall one day outside my house in Friends Field, a hot air balloon was flying so low above us that it was nearly touching the overhead electricity cables. Any collision could have been disastrous as they were 11Kv lines
Ezra was looking up at the balloon gesticulating with his arms giving the pilot his expert advice in rather colourful language.
Fortunately with a raw of a gas burner it gradually lifted into the air, but it must have cleared the power lines by as little as 3ft

Another time he told me was worked along the Nayland Road when the village was being connected the the new sewage works near Clickett Hill.
Ezra during one day collected drums of petrol from The Colchester Road Garage for use with the heavy machinery they were using.
It was stored and locked in a small wooden hut at the end of Claypits Avenue
When they opened up the hut the following morning, all the drums of fuel had mysteriously disappeared.
Now as Ezra was the only key holder, how someone accessed the hut during the night remained a mystery
?
Ezra`s fundemental flaw, was that he locked the shed up after removing the fuel, It would have been better to have left the door open
Only a key holder could have locked it up again, but somehow Ezra got away with it.

Ezra passed away circa 2010



Sam Game and Bill Mattocks

Behind the Eight Bells Garage main workshop, stood a hut which was used to keep vehicle spare parts.
When this became redundant, Bill Mattocks decided he could make better use of it on the Allotment's along Lamarsh Hill

Sam Game was the local carrier from Cornard, who was hired to move this shed.
Sam reverses his small lorry into the yard, jacks up the shed and suspended it on the buck of the lorry.
To assist in this move, Sam enlists the help of Bill Mattocks who was an ex army man.
The dimensions of the shed far exceeded those of the lorry, so it overhung the sides as well as the rear.

Sam waited for a Sunday morning when all would be quite, with few prying eyes around
With this very precarious and insecure load they turned in Station Hill , but their main concern was to avoid the Police House along Station Hill.

They successfully maneuvered their diversionary route via Water Lane, under the railway Bridge and up Lamarsh Hill just as a Police car was coming down, meeting them head-on


Questions remains unanswered - "what happened next and was it a legal move" ?



Courtesy of John Cowlin, Mount Bures

04/03/2015
updated 30/05/2016
updated 22/09/2016