Nancy Drake, born I believe, in the year 1900 was one of nine children who lived in a cottage close to the pond at Horstead. This cottage was badly damaged during the floods of 1912. Nancy met her future husband, Reginald Fricker in London. He had served in the Navy as a Telegraphist during the 1914 - 1918 war. They married and left England in the early 1920s. First to Winnipeg and then to Vancouver Island where Reg was employed at the Marine Radio Station controlling ship movements through the "graveyard" of the Pacific, as it was known to seafarers. Eventually with their two children they stayed many years living a very quiet and self-resourceful existence, supplies being brought in by sea 2 or 3 times a year. It was said that Nancy walked across the island occasionally to fetch her post, etc, and always carried a gun, having apparently become a good shot, as there were many bears and other predators about in those times.

Here they remained until 1939 when the family returned to Britain, Reg to serve once more in the Navy, this time under the command of Lord Louis Mountbatten. Nancy remained in London with the children and was injured when bombed out, being hospitalised for several months. After her recovery, she and the children lived on the Isle of Bute. They returned to Canada around 1952, Reg working in various Radio Research Stations and eventually retiring to Ottawa. I came across this tale of events as I have a brother who has lived in Ottawa for most of his life. Whenever he and his wife went on vacation, they always employed a dog minder who stayed in their house. On one occasion about twenty years ago, Nancy who had then become

a widow fulfilled this task as she lived nearby and loved dogs.

On the occasion of one of these holidays, when my brother was coming to England to visit the family, she asked him where in England his family lived. When told Essex and Norfolk, she enquired whereabouts in Norfolk. When told in Horstead, she astonished everyone by exclaiming that this was the village from whence she originally came. On being told the whereabouts of our own house, her reply was quite incredible as she used to pass these cottages every day, the ones she remembered overlooked the churchyard and which had Gothic windows, on her way through the churchyard and over the fields to fetch milk from Largate Farm.

Nancy died in Ottawa at the age of 93. Two of her brothers, Horace Drake and George Drake, were killed in action in the 1st World War and their names are inscribed on the Horstead Memorial.

P S Duckworth