Village through the ages on DVD

Nov 18 2009 By Polly Manser, Buckinghamshire Advertiser

A MAN who has lived all his life in the same street in Seer Green has compiled a DVD of village memories for future generations.

Brian Sims, 70, wants to ensure that his generation's memories of village life in the 1930s, 40s and 50s do not go to the grave with them.

So he and seven other pensioners, of whom six were born and still live in Seer Green and two of whom have died since, compiled the eight-hour DVD which also contains more than 100 early photographs, as well as early film footage dating back to the 1930s.

"I feel passionately that memories need to be preserved and some of them really are hilarious," Mr Sims said.

Footage includes fetes in the 1950s, coronation celebrations in 1953 and film shot in 1939 of Rawlings Farm, which still stands.

Mr Sims was born and still lives in Orchard Road. His parents were so poor that his father, a railway porter, sold his beloved accordion to pay for a pram.

The young Mr Sims attended Seer Green School, which then had just three classes and where the head-teacher was Mrs Baker, who children had to call 'governess'.

The village is much larger than it used to be. Two orchards Mr Sims used to play in on Orchard Road have since been built on and the village was massively expanded in the 1970s, but life for children has not changed so much in a village where many traditions are kept alive.

He said: "The biggest change is that children don't have the freedom, parents are not happy to let them wander into Hodge Moor wood like we used to, and quite right too, and we didn't have to worry about the traffic."

Mr Sims attended Beaconsfield Secondary School and then High Wycombe Tech, where he excelled in woodwork. At 16 he became an apprentice cabinet maker at Frank Hudson and Son in High Wycombe, which is still going today.

In his thirties, having been involved with the Scouts for decades and wanting to work with children, he changed career to become an education welfare officer 'chasing truants' for Bucks County Council. It was through this job that he met his late wife, Phyllis, whom he brought to live in Seer Green two doors from where he was born.

For a copy of Memories of Seer Green, priced £12.50, call Mr Sims on 01494 671 068. Proceeds to the Venture Hall Refurbishment Fund.