People

Gwendoline (known as Gwen) was born in Tylers Green in 1914, and married from the village in 1937. In the last 20 years of her life she wrote down her memories to the end of WW2. Click here to read two fascinating chapters from the resulting memoires which cover her time in the village.

Gwen’s son, Timothy, who is researching his family’s history, forwarded the memoires to us and adds that Gwen's eldest sister Con, married a joiner who worked in the furniture industry in High Wycombe, and they moved up to Nottingham with the job. When her father, Frederick Coombes, died (in Tylers Green) her sister Dorothy moved up to Nottingham as well.

Gwen moved from Hertfordshire to Lancashire to be with her family in the '70s and died aged 90.  Con lived to the grand age of 103 dying in April 2011.

Gwen always maintained her Grandmother's family (Perkins) had a farm called Primrose Farm at Terriers. However, Timothy can find no evidence of this farm – just Primrose Hill farm at Hazlemere which shows no sign in the records of it ever having any Perkins in residence. If you can help shed any light on this please email info@pennandtylersgreen.org.uk and we will pass the details on.

Father Christmas is not the only one to work all night at Christmastime.  As Christmas Day approaches they are burning the midnight oil in our local butcher's too.

Village butcher Joe Gleeson is used to working 12 hour days for much of the year. With hundreds of festive orders to prepare he has to double his workload and call in his entire family and former "Saturday boys" to help.  There have been Christmases in the past when it has involved 24 hour working on the the day before Christmas Eve.

However, it's worth it if it keeps the customers happy. And  happy customers are a feature at Joe's shop on the corner of  West  Avenue and Hazlemere Road.

In fact,  the Christmas queue to collect pre-ordered meat  and other goodies is one of the jolliest places to be in the village in the days leading up to the holiday. Joe  puts up a marquee to protect customers from the elements and hands out mince pies and hot drinks. It's even been known for the waiting throng to burst into carol singing!

This will be Joe's 27th Christmas at the shop he has run since the age of 24.  When he arrived here in 1984 there were three butchers  in the village following the recent closure of King's.  Now he's  the only one.  But with communities like ours continuing to lose their local shops, Joe never rests on his laurels.

When Dr Hilary McDermott first arrived at Penn Surgery nearly 30 years ago she was the first female GP in the practice.

For some patients that was a step too far. Before she arrived a handful wrote in the nicest possible way saying that a lady doctor was not for them and could they transfer to a man.  To which the surgery replied, also in the nicest possible way, that the choice was, of course, up to them but could they "respectfully request that you meet her before making that decision."

It was a credit to the good doctor - as well as the handful of reluctant patients - that those who agreed to the request didn't go on to transfer their allegiance.  In fact, it's a fair bet they will be among the many hundreds who will sorely miss her passion, her care and her understanding when she retires next year.

Helping people is what makes Hilary tick.  Sitting in her roomy office in the swish Penn Surgery, built on the site of the Horse and Groom pub in Elm Road, she doesn't regret her career choice one bit.  "I never know how is going to walk through that door or what they are coming for,"  she says.  "Being a GP is exciting; you are on the medical front line."

Peter Brown talks to Peter Sachs about local charity ‘Village Care’ and his extraordinary life so far.

Village Care is a practical yet modest charity that brings enormous credit to Penn and Tylers Green. For the past 25 years hundreds of people have given time and energy to assist those in the community in need of a helping hand. They have done this, without any fuss or proclamation, as volunteer drivers or duty telephonists to ensure that people unable to get about can keep hospital appointments, collect prescriptions or simply do a bit of shopping.

And for the past decade this quiet, unassuming charity has been chaired by a quiet unassuming man. Peter Sachs takes no credit for the continuing success of Village Care, handing that to the volunteers. “As an organisation it virtually runs itself. Any problems are solved by the volunteers themselves; they hardly ever come to me,” he says with satisfaction.