Local History Club

1. Local History Club Blue Plaque Competition

2. We visited the blue plaque for Charles Coward in Chichester Road.

3. We researched his life and did a presentation as part of our Remembrance Day assemblies.

4. Then we had to decide who we would honour with a blue plaque… … we wanted someone who had done a lot for our community… … and our school… … and our church…

5. We decided on Mrs Joyce Darling.This is her with Mrs Hanley, Mrs Johnstone and Mr Fitch at the school’s centenary celebrations in 2012.

6. We found out a lot about her from an online document about people’s wartime memories in Enfield.

7. And we interviewed her daughter-in-law, Margaret Darling.

8. Then we decided what we were going to put on a plaque to symbolise Joyce Darling’s life. We researched online and we sketched our designs.

10. Our school badge reminds us that Joyce Darling worked at St Edmund’s in the 1970s/80s. She was also a pupil at the school and her mother was one of the very first pupils when the school opened in 1912.

11. The first aid box and plasters remind us that she worked as a welfare assistant, looking after children who were sick or hurt.

12. Even after she retired, she continued to volunteer at St Edmunds for many years. She helped hundreds of children with English and maths, and visited classrooms to talk about World War 2.

13. The teacup and saucer remind us that one of her duties was to serve tea to the staff, that her favourite drink was tea and that she used to serve refreshments for church events.

14. That wasn’t her first job though. Joyce Darling was still at school when World War 2 broke out (it was a month before her 16th birthday). She wasn’t evacuated with the rest of the children but stayed at home and a neighbour told her about a job at the Co-Op. This is what Joyce Darling said when she was interviewed for Enfield’s Wartime Memories in June 2015:

15. “I walked down from Haselbury Green along Sheldon Road to the Coop in Silver Street. They took me on and because I was well educated, they put me on different counters in the shop and in the office and they sent me out on relief to other shops. That was the way I met my husband. I was sent to help in the warehouse at the back of the shop in White Hart Lane. There were great big wooden troughs of sugar – sugar was rationed in those days - and I saw a young man weighing the sugar out into bags. He worked on one side of the trough and I had to help him working on the other side.” The bag of sugar reminds us of that first meeting!

16. Joyce went on to say: “As I was walking home - I couldn’t afford the money for the bus so I had to walk all the way home along the Cambridge Road – the young man I’d been helping came up behind me on his bike and asked me out on a date. His name was Bill Darling and we were married at the end of the war in August 1945.”

17. Their first date was to have an ice-cream together!

18. When Joyce was 18 she enlisted in the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service - the women's branch of the British Army.)

19. She was stationed at Bournemouth where she used to do the payroll.

20. Bill Darling had also enlisted and joined the Royal Navy. He trained at HMS Collingwood in Hampshire.

21. He was part of the Arctic Convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America taking essential supplies to northern ports in the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Arctic Star by Prince Andrew as well as getting a medal from the Russians.

22. Every year Bill and Joyce marched with the men of the Arctic Convoys on Remembrance Day and they laid wreaths at the memorial outside the Civic Centre.

23. Mrs Darling married Bill in St Edmund’s Church. They had 3 children: Michael, Paul and Josie.

24. This is the badge for Galliard School. It reminds us that she used to work there as a dinner lady before she came to St Edmund’s.

25. She was a Brown Owl for 24 years with the 14th Edmonton brownies.

26. Sadly, Bill Darling developed Parkinsons disease. A lot of the people who work at St Edmunds remember buying the wheatgerm and lavender packs that she made and sold to raise money for the Parkinsons Society.

27. These are some of the things she liked to do: Camping and caravanning holidays.

28. Travel. She liked to go on cruises and went on two round-the-world trips to visit family in Australia.

29. She enjoyed acting in amateur dramatics.

30. She was very fashion-conscious. Once when she was planning what shoes to wear with a blue and green dress, she went out wearing one of each colour by mistake!

31. We asked Margaret Darling if Joyce ever had any pets. They weren’t really pet-people because Bill was very scared of cats but once they had a budgie. Joyce’s son remembered that when it died nobody even noticed for a few days!

32. Joyce Darling believed in guardian angels. We have made her into an angel. She was very proud of her red hair. She even used to hand out cards to other red-heads which said “Red and Proud”! Our angel is wearing a green ballroom dancing dress to remind us that she loved dancing (she made her own dresses) and her favourite colour was green.

33. We think Joyce was a person who really represents our school motto: “Love, Care, Share”.

34. Sadly, Joyce Darling died in January 2017 so we never got to meet her or show her the plaque and let her know how special she was to us at St Edmunds.