With the war came other changes and new kinds of
hardship - air raids, the blackout, rationing, gas masks and men away fighting.
Women were drafted into factory work and homes and family life adjusted as evacuees
from London were made welcome. The Village Hall was used as a school room for the
evacuated children and equipped for use as a First Aid Post and Rest Centre. The
Minute Books of the Institute tell of whist drives and dances organised as part
of the war effort, especially during ‘Wings for Victory Week’ in 1942 and 'Salute
the Soldier' Week the following year. Occasionally the Hall was used for billeting
soldiers and, as in every other town and village, uniforms became part of the pattern
of life. A gun site was established on Dorney Common close to Eton Wick and the
noise shattered many a night's sleep. Eton Wick was lucky, however; a few bombs
did fall on the village, but did very little damage, and the explosion which set
a field alight seemed quite spectacular at the time. Men on active service were
not so lucky; twelve lost their lives as the War Memorial at the church bears witness.
The story of Eton Wick during the war is not much
different from that of any English village, but the 1940s mark a watershed in the
history of Eton Wick. Change has always been taking place, albeit at times almost
imperceptibly; but at this time the changes were to be great and far-reaching. Within
a decade of the end of the war the long straggling rural village with its close-knit
community had disappeared; its place taken by a larger dormitory village, top heavy
with council houses.
The first new houses built were twelve 'prefabs'
on part of Bell's Field. They were meant to be temporary, but instead provided good
if not beautiful homes for more than twenty years. They were built towards the end
of the war, and the first post war houses completed the development of the Bell's
Field Site; the pale pink colour of the bricks is a constant reminder of the shortage
of good facing-bricks at this time. A year or so later Tilston Field (north of the
Eton Wick Road) was bought from Eton College for the first housing estate in the
village itself. Great care was taken over the design of the housing and roads; trees,
shrub borders and a small recreation ground were included to improve the amenities
of the estate. Five fine police houses were built fronting the main road, and the
Council were proud enough of the scheme to enter the completed half of the estate
for the Ministry of Health Housing Medal in 1951. In the following year Prince Philip
officially opened the estate at a small informal ceremony. Meux's Field was also
bought by the Council and here were laid out Princes Close and a shopping parade,
making altogether over two hundred houses and seven shops.
The main road from Moores Lane to Dorney Common
was considerably widened and a shrub border planted in front of the estate and,
as if to mark the change in appearance, its name was changed from Tilston Lane to
Eton Wick Road. There was a zest for rebuilding and not only in bricks and mortar.
Many of the clubs which had sunk into the doldrums during the war were revived and
new ones founded. The first of these was probably the Youth Club which was started
in 1946, followed by the Over Sixties Club in 1947 and a few years later the Parent
Teacher Association, the Unity Players and the Young Wives. The Village Hall was
still the centre of much of the social life of the Wick and great efforts were made
to put it on a sound footing after the war. In 1950 it was redecorated by voluntary
help, electricity was installed and in the following year it was enlarged by the
addition of a covered forecourt. Two issues of a magazine called ' Our Village '
were published by the Institute as it was still sometimes called, and for several
years from 1950 a Village Hall Week was held in the early part of the year. Village
football became so popular that a Minors' Club was formed. When this proved very
successful a second team of young men too old to stay in the minors' team had to
be started. Eventually the club was renamed the Eton Wick Athletic Club and there
was even more cause for 'Up the Wick' to be heard each Saturday.
This is an extract from The Story of a Village: Eton Wick 1217 to 1977 by Judith Hunter.