h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Does anyone remember the ex-servicemen's settlement which Group Captain Cheshire set up after the war. I believe the settlement was in Gumley Hall near Market Harborough and it was then moved to Le Court.

My family was part of it but I was a small child and can remember little about it. I know that it failed and we were left homeless and we had to squat in a keeper's cottage until we were offered a home in Dover (my parents home town).

I would appreciate hearing from anyone with memories/information.

I had no idea! This didn't crop up in my researches. Have you asked the Cheshire Homes people? They seem quite helpful.

No, I havent asked anyone yet - I am about to begin my research.
I do not want to start anything official yet as my parents always felt bitter toward Captain Cheshire but I feel that the good he did subsequently wipes out any harm done to my family. He started the settlement in good faith, thinking that the camaraderie that existed between the servicemen during the war could be carried over in peacetime. Unfortunately this did not happen. The idea was to pool resources for the good of the whole. However, as far as I can remember from my parents' conversations, the families with the better paid jobs etc resented sharing with those doing less well.

The settlement failed when (or just before) Captain Cheshire went to Canada to get a divorce.

I will carry on with my unofficial research. I intend to put a request in the Saga magazine as anyone older than I am (61) would have better memories.

Thanks for your reply.

Actually there was some kind of passing reference to a commune of some sort on the web - I think Cheshire was an incurable optimist; the Cheshire homes were funded on a wing and a prayer for a very long time. I think failing to allow for human greed (if that's what happened) is not a bad fault, but then what would I know?

I can't remember what the communities were called, but I do remember reading about them in a couple of Leonard Cheshire's biographies. I haven't them to hand but any decent public library should have access to them.

They were intentional communities set up for ex-serice personnel who didn't really know what to do with their lives. Like most communal experiments they failed due to people's innate selfishness overcoming communal spirit; at least that's the way I read it.

Not all Cheshire's projects came off, but those that did came off spectacularly.

You probably have your answer by now but, if not, you may wish to read the biography of Group Captain Cheshire written, at his request, by his friend Andrew Boyle, entitled "No Passing Glory" and published in 1955.

Group Captain Cheshire read and approved this biography and it fully describes the start of his homes.

As a relative (somewhere down the line) of Cheshire I am beginning to realise what a shame it is that I have done absolutely nothing to find out anything about the man other than listen to stories told to me by my Father and Grandfather. I understand that he was my Grandfathers cousin ( once removed ) I also met a gentleman here in Canada who used to fly transports during the war who met him on a couple of occassions. My daughter has just been given a project from school to research a famous "Flyer" and their airplane and write about them. As well as other reasearch that we intend to do I hope she can use parts of this quick biography with your permission of course. We live in Canada and are lucky to be less than 20 miles from the only flying Lancaster in the world outside of the UK ( which is in itself a little "spooky" as my last house in England was about the same distance from the one there !! ) We see it regularly overhead during the summer flying both solo and with the Battle of Britain flight which now has only two Hurricanes in it. The spitfire that used to fly was unfortunately destroyed in a fire at the hanger in which it was kept in I think 1990. I digress. So far the research we have done has been facinating. The way the man went from "The butcher of Dresden" to a great humanitarian will in itself I hope be a great story. Thanks to people like you for making this information so readily available to people like me
M Cheshire
Canada

Apologies for the slow reply - I have not quite left the building but have been chatting on the front step for a year or so

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