1908: The Park Pasture at Manor Farm (later the site of the Manor School and North Cambridge Academy) was the scene for this happy wedding photograph, taken by Starr and Rignall Photographers of Cambridge and Ely - Thomas Walter Ashman and Louisa Brett were the happy couple. I have marked on the names of the main family members (the bride and groom are self explanatory!) - all who feature in Mrs Wiles's recollections. One of the Manor Farmhouse ('Manor House') chimneys can be seen in the background. Lydia Prevett was then in service there. She was a bridesmaid at the wedding and married Henry 'Harry' Brett in 1910.  The third part of Mrs Muriel Wiles's memories of the Arbury and Chesterton district during her youth. Mrs Wiles (1909-1987) contributed these recollections to the Arbury Archive in 1986. 'Mum and Dad met while Mum was working in Newmarket,' said Mrs Wiles. 'Dad would often cycle all the way from Newmarket to Arbury to visit Mum at Manor F...

Mrs Wiles at home in Springfield Terrace in 1986. The curtain to the left prevented draughts from the stairs door. The stairs ran up through the middle of the house. Andy remembers very well a wall over the stairs on which you could easily bang your head if you didn't remember it was there. 'I saw stars on those stairs many times!' he says. Mrs Muriel Wiles, née Ashman, is a fondly remembered family member to Andy. By the early 1980s, her family consisted entirely of cousins - first, second, third, fourth - as she'd never had children of her own. She had married late in life, and her husband had died suddenly after only three years of marriage. It must be said, that in the Brett family and its various branches, modern sociological notions of 'nuclear' and 'extended' family were totally unknown. Family was family, people related to you by blood, adoption or marriage, and this was the case well into Andy's life time.  'Extended family was close fri...

                        Alfred Brett was a quiet, studious young man. On leaving St Andrew's School in Chesterton, he got a job as an assistant at an antiques shop in Cambridge and joined the Territorial Army. A postcard to Miss Lily Brett, Manor Farm, Arbury Road, Chesterton, Cambridge. The card came from Claude (Skinner) of the 3rd Norfolk Regiment (then in Felixstowe), a young friend of Lily:  Dear Lilly [sic] , Just a line hoping to find you and all quite safe as it leaves me at present. Tell Jimmy [?] he is a long time writing that letter. I expect Alf is alright. Give my love to all. Glad to hear that your father is better, from yours truly, Claude. Lance Corporal Alfred Brett, son of Richard and Amelia Brett of the Manor Farm, Arbury Road, 'Old Chesterton', was killed in the trenches of World War 1 not long before VE Day. The family - Richard, Amelia, and their ten remaining children - staggered under the blow, and...