Wartime bride's memories make pages of history

nlnews@archant.co.uk
29 November 2006

THYRZA Meacock with copies of her new book: “It was a great relief to finish it,""she says Picture: Tony Gay

THYRZA Meacock almost never made it to her wedding. Two nights before she was due to marry teenage sweetheart Arthur in January 1945, a rocket crashed into the garden of 148 Cranley Gardens, opposite the family home.

"We could easily have been killed, if it had fallen just a few yards nearer," she said.

"It was the coldest winter for 50 years. We had not much roof left and the windows and ceilings had gone. You could see the stars from downstairs.

"We were very lucky. A lot of people died in Cranley Gardens and Etheldene Avenue."

But happily on Saturday, January 6, 1945, she walked down the aisle at St George's Church, in nearby Priory Road, Hornsey, where she had been baptised as a baby.

Now 83, and a widow - Arthur died in 1988 after more than 40 years of marriage - she has just completed a book about the history of the church.

Built in 1907 on a site at the junction with Park Avenue South, now home to Hornsey Fire Station, it was badly bombed in 1940 and demolished in 1956.

A new St George's was built in Cranley Gardens on the corner of Park Road in 1959.

In 1981 it merged with the St Mary's, Hornsey to become St Mary with St George.

A few years ago Mrs Meacock was asked to write a section for a history of the church.

"I made a start and then it sort of took over and I just kept writing," she said.

Some three years later it has been published. A launch was held earlier this month.

Satisfaction

It is a bright spot in difficult times, following the deaths of her two daughters Lyn and Kay, to whom the book is dedicated, and most recently, her sister Molly.

"It was a great relief to finish it and to actually see it in print with illustrations," said Mrs Meacock, who still lives in Cranley Gardens. "That was a source of genuine satisfaction.

"If you don't write these things down, the people and the memories, it disappears."

For a copy of A History of St George's by Thyrza Meacock, priced £5, visit Hornsey Historical Society at The Old Schoolhouse, 136 Tottenham Lane or call 020 8348 8429.