Aunt: Maggie Wray (born 1908)
Maggie (not Margaret, simply Maggie) was the last of Alfred and Emily Wray’s fourteen children. She
was born on 26 October 1908 in Preston, Herts.
When she was aged about three she fell over at Back Lane, Preston and badly hurt her leg. There
was a threat of amputation but the leg was saved, albeit with a nasty scar.
Astonishingly (in an age when we simply drive to the local supermarket for our bread) Maggie recalled
gleaning corn which was left around the borders of fields at harvest time. ‘The stalks would scratch
our legs’. It was just another way of putting bread on the table.
Although she started to attend school on 16 May 1912, I get the impression that Maggie was not a
scholar. But she certainly enjoyed life, especially going to the local dances or ‘hops’. She was
photographed as part of the Preston Country Dance Team that ‘carried off several prizes’.
When she left school, she worked for the village baker, Tom Ashton, delivering bread from a basket
fixed to the front of her bicycle.
As her older sisters had left home, the responsibility for household chores such as cleaning the grate
fell to her - and if it hadn’t been completed when her father got up and came down stairs, ‘She’d ‘ave
it!’. My impression is that her brother, Sam, protected Maggie from her father. He said, ‘Dad’ll knock
your block off one of these days’. She retorted (of her one legged father), “’E’ll have to ketch me first”.
Maggie remembered that when she was 20-years-old, she contracted a debilitating illness, possibly
from a germ contracted during her cleaning tasks. She said that a gypsy saw her brother, Dick,
carrying her and recommended that she should be treated with a porous brick, soaked in a pint of
vinegar, heated red hot, covered with a cloth and applied to the infected area.
Maggie spent a lot of time with her brother, Sam. They would play darts as a team. They also tended
the tennis court at Preston recreation ground. The village tennis club was formed in the early 1920s
and was so popular that a second court was prepared. Preston played teams from Breachwood
Green, Wymondley, Shillington, Hitchin and St Albans. The standard of play was reported as ‘high’.
Maggie was remembered for an epic tennis match in the 1930s when, watched by a large crowd, she
played Rose Ashton (the baker’s daughter) for the club championship. ‘A few sixpences were won
and lost on the result’.
For so many villagers, work was scarce in Preston and had to be sought in local towns. Maggie was
employed in the Letchworth factory of Kryn and Lahy. This was a heavy metal foundry established in
1915 by Belgian refugees to help the war effort. It made castings for tanks, bombs and aircraft
sections. Maggie would cycle seven miles to work - there was no other way of getting there. She said
the ride back up Preston Hill was ‘easy’.
The 1939 Register revealed a markedly reduced Wray household. Father Alfred had died,
all of Maggie’s siblings had married, apart from her brother, Sam, and Maggie was working as a
capstain lathe operator producing aircraft parts (see photo below).
Ron and Maggie’s brother, Sam, got on well together. Ron
was Sam’s best man.
They would conspire together to poach rabbits. Ron
checked whether the local gamekeeper was in the Red Lion
public house. When the coast was clear, the rabbits were
snared and then sold in the Bull at Gosmore.
The pair also shared a love of cricket, playing together for
the Preston team. Ronald was a right-handed batsman and
a left arm bowler. He “turned in some very useful all round
performances” and was appointed Captain in the late 1950s
and later became a Cricket Club Vice President.
Ron (left) and Sam captured together
for a Preston team photograph
Maggie and Ron set up home at Garden Row, Hitchin (shown below left in 1977) where they raised
two sons, Michael an and a daughter. Maggie kept close to her Preston roots by helping with the
cricket club teas (see photo below). She was also made an honorary Life Vice President of the
Cricket Club - a position of which she was very proud.
As the youngest daughter and the one who stayed relatively near Preston, when Emily was ill or
needed help, it was Maggie who was called. She must have stayed with Emily in the 1940s for some
time as, according to the register, her daughter attended Preston School.
Front, middle, Gillian and Raymond together at Preston School
In about 1980, Maggie and Ron moved to Times Close, Hitchin (shown below) which is off the
Bedford Road. This was a comfortable semi-detached home which Maggie kept immaculately clean.
She refused to keep anything that she considered superfluous.
The 1939 Register entry for Ron Whitby. Note that he was a milling machinist in the aircraft industry.
A few weeks later, he and Maggie had married. No prizes for guessing how they met!
(Left) Yours truly and Michael Whitby (Top right: left to right) Raymond and Michael
with cousins Madeline and Pat Newbury. (Bottom right) Gillian
I think Maggie enjoyed her life and had high standards. She loved gardening and her garden, like her
house, was neat and tidy. She suffered with arthritis of the hip and heart problems in her nineties, but
said her longevity (she lived far longer than her thirteen siblings) was due to the healthy exercise that
she enjoyed when she was young. Maggie died on 30 May 2006 after breaking her hip in a fall.