Hadleigh Postcard Memories

By Robert Nichols

Yes, they (finally) had some bananas
R Nichols

This is the book that the Hadleigh & Thundersley Community Archive helped Robert Nichols create from part of his postcard collection.  Robert’s remarkable book delivers a stunning evocation of buildings and people, past and present, using his unique viewpoint as a local lad with global experience.

He was taught at Hadleigh School, then worked during the day and studied in the evening. Engineering training at Southend Technical College, and an always evident enthusiasm for life, served him well in volunteering for the RAF in 1940. His war service took him to Burma and India to lead teams recovering and rebuilding crashed fighter planes.

The book is on sale locally at our public events, Ann’s Mini Market (Daws Heath),   Hadleigh Library  and Leigh Heritage Centre. For more distant readers, the link to Essex Hundred Publications is below.

Hadleigh Postcard Memories is a refreshingly original and accessible book that introduces the famous Olympic village of Hadleigh in Essex. This is the only publication from a unique Hadleigh author, Robert Nichols, (1921 – 2018.) Using 160 examples selected from his personal collection of postcards, Bob evoked the feeling of a bygone era in a way that shows how the spirit of Hadleigh has developed and lives on.

Take Hadleigh Postcard Memories with you to overlay the current built environment with the historic equivalent and appreciate more fully how it has developed into what you see about you. Or, settle down at home to walk through history, see the Cingalee Tea Gardens and wonder at the ladies strolling down the middle of Hadleigh High Street around a century ago. This superbly produced book glows with life and has an irresistible appeal.

Hadleigh Postcard Memories is available to purchase by ordering on the Essex Hundred Publications web-site includes two bonus greetings cards.

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  • Michael
    The photo on the front cover of our publication “Hadleigh Postcard memories” is also inside the book, photo 145 and dated 15th November 1945.

    By Graham Cook (13/03/2024)
  • Does anyone know the date this photo was taken? My Parents, Sister and myself lived almost opposite the shop in the early 1950s.

    {Ed: we believe this shows the first banana delivery and sale after WW2.}

    By Michael Souter (13/03/2024)
  • My aunt Doris Bonner is in the photo on the front of the book; she is the lady with the scarf on her head

    By Alison Ayres (23/11/2023)
  • I have just looked through my copy of this lovely book. Although these images were from well before my time, there are many reminders of the Hadleigh that I knew from the fifties onwards. It is nice to have them all in one book.

    By Susan Fogg nee Hawks (03/09/2013)

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