The home of a wartime club in Watford has been traced to a former hall located where the Town Hall roundabout stands today.
This summer, the Watford Observer published an appeal for information regarding the American Red Cross (ARC) Service Club during the Second World War after a gentleman named Norman Wells had contacted Watford Musuem asking for more details.
Mr Wells said: “My mother, Susan Armstrong (later Wells), came to Watford from Northern Ireland in 1943, along with her mother Elizabeth and younger sister Eileen. They were boarding in De Vere Road at war's end before moving to Malden Road.
Read more: Can you tell us more about this Watford club?
“Susan's evening voluntary work at the ARC Club included making sandwiches – at which she became very skilled. Among the benefits of her job were free catering-size tins of sliced peaches, and tubs of ice cream, which she took home for her mother – real treats when wartime Britain was rationed.”
It was suggested the club may have been situated at Beechen Grove Baptist Church, but Mr Wells has continued with his research and discovered it was located in Oddfellows’ Hall in St Albans Road.
Mr Wells said: “Susan Watson, the ARC's historian and archivist, found it via NARA's US (National Archives and Records Administration) College Park facility in Maryland. But I would also have to thank Prof Julia Irwin of the University of South Florida for her help.”
Oddfellows Hall was located opposite Weymouth Street, the line of which is now followed by Beechen Grove.
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