From Oral Recording with Margaret Swanenburg, May 2021:
I am starting with how I came to England from a small village near the town of Dordrecht, Holland. I could write English fluently, easily but I couldn’t speak it and I couldn’t understand it so I decided at the age of 30 to go to England for half a year and to quickly learn to speak English. They said it would be easier for me to learn it if I could find a job so I found a job through a Swedish girl, in an hotel in Leicester, as a cleaner.
I tell you I couldn’t really clean a bedroom but had to do the floors as well as the loos!
It was there that I met Enid and through her I got to know her whole family, her two brothers, her sister and her mother. They were the loveliest family.
Then I moved onto doing book-keeping but it was only a part of it as I did all the rest such as the Reception as well as doing weddings, though I couldn’t cook an egg! I stayed with the family working in the hotel for a long time.
How did you come to live in Benhall?
Enid and I wanted a piece of land as both our parents had land and we wanted to keep sheep so we both finished at the hotel. We bought a Suffolk newspaper and we picked up a piece of land about 2 acres with a farm called Elm Farm in Sweffling. We owned it together and I took an administration job in Saxmundham for the money and Enid ran the farm. When we decided to retire we moved to Benhall Green.
Margaret & Enid moved first to 7 Benhall Green until their house called The Rowans was built near Benhall Green.
Left: Margaret outside Rowans Apr 1990
Enid outside Rowans, same date
Margaret continues:
Here in England, I am known as Margaret which is my lawful name. However, I was the first child of my parents and I happened to be a girl and my father had three sisters and my mother had two sisters and there was also my grandmother who was well into her 90s. So, all these women my father said, started quarreling who I would be named after and of course as you know a man hates quarrels. My father knew that he had to go to the Town Hall to register me and write me in and when he came back he said, “I have called her after all of you!”
My grandmother was a Margaretha, one of her children was a Margaretha and my mother was a Margaret and one of her sisters and so on and really I could have done with only one name, Margaret, that would satisfied nine of them! But my father made sure, he had called me by all of them, so I have five names: Margaretha Gesina Hermina Jacoba Jassia Swanenburg!
I was aged 4 or 5 when war broke out. I have very few memories but I must admit I have always admired my father for his foresight as we had a balcony at our house and he put us all into our woolen coats over our nightdresses and said, “I want you to see this,” then he then faced us toward the Town which had a beautiful church with an enormous Tower, very, very high, and the Germans without any warning to us, had planes flying as low as the Tower, around it at the same time as the troops were of course taking the Town.
So, we saw it all happening as my father insisted. That was history!
Summer 2015 helping at the Flower Show with Pauline Graham
Margaret was at one-time a member of the parish council with responsibilities for transport. She was a well-known figure at the Autumn bazaar ensuring Benhall was up to date with Christmas decorations. She joined in with the village litter picking and was a founder member and treasurer of The Benhall & Sternfield History group.
Margaret loved card games and was quite the person to take on with her fellow card sharpers on Monday evenings. She was a great animal lover and always enjoyed meeting and greeting dogs on their walks and particularly her next-door neighbour’s Daisy and Bertie. She had always been surrounded by dogs, sheep and chickens but in Benhall her last companion was her beloved cat Maisy.
