For many years my mother and her family lived at Hill Farm, South Ockenden, Essex. My grandfather James Winch employed a lady [Blanche Polly] to be his housekeeper to his large family [6 children], and I spent many happy days as a child staying at the farm. Auntie Blanche [as she was known to me,] kept some journals of life at the farm over the years including some of life during the war.