Profile Colin Limming Colin Limming is a man of many parts and, as Colin would be quick to quip, ‘some of them actually working!’ Colin is the master of the bon mot, the appropriate quotation, the apt remark. Many a time during a tense Parish Council meeting Colin’s ready wit would defuse the situation. But let me tell you more; Colin was born in North London and his early years were spent in Potters Bar. He passed the 11+ and went to Minchenden Grammar School in Southgate where History and English Literature and Language were his favourite subjects. No surprises there ! He was always an avid reader and was blessed with a retentive memory. His father was in the Home Guard and his mother was a fire watcher and he has many Second World War memories of watching the Battle of Britain being played out in the skies above London. These are memories I share – still so vivid in the minds of those who witnessed it. In that summer of 1940 he joined the Wolf Cubs, wearing a scratchy green jersey, scarf and woggle. 68 years later he is still a County Fellowship Member and is on the Archives Research Team looking into the history of Hertfordshire scouting. Scouting was more than a hobby, it became a passion and he went through to become a Scout, Senior Scout, Rover, Rover Leader and later became Assistant County Commissioner in Hertfordshire for the newly formed Scout Fellowship. He is the proud owner of the Silver Acorn for distinguished service to the Scout Movement.
When Colin left school he joined a printing firm for 18 months before being called up for National Service in the RAF. He asked for a posting in the Home Counties so that he could continue his scouting activities in his leisure time and was, in the way of service logic, posted to Iraq. He spent his service stint in Habbaniya 60m west of Baghdad in the desert. He said there were no problems there in those days, and he enjoyed playing lots of sport (but not ice hockey!). He spent time in Kurdistan at the leave centre and can claim to be one of the few people to have played cricket in the middle of Baghdad. It was in the RAF that he learned to type and when he came out of national service he went back to the same printing company and they sent him up to Lancashire where he did a spell, enjoying the cricket in his spare time. He came back to Head Office in London and was there until 1966 when the company moved to Basingstoke. The paternalistic company for which he worked was McCorquodales – mainly known these days because Hugh McCorquodale was married to Barbara Cartland and Colin says that despite the bad press she has often received she was in fact a very kind and thoughtful woman and the company was a typical old family business which looked after its staff. Colin met his wife Joan on (guess what?) a Rover Scout/ Ranger Guide committee. I asked Joan if she had any photos of them together in their uniforms and she said unfortunately no, but she had lots of photographs of herself with OTHER scouts in uniform !!! They got married in 1961 and had two daughters Sarah and Anne who later both went to Melbourn Village College. The family moved to Melbourn when Colin became M.D. of the Letchworth factory but in 1981 it was closed and Colin was made redundant. However, his skills were not allowed to lie idle for long and he quickly got a job working for Labute in Cambridge as an administrator. Colin remained with Labute until he retired in 1992 but – not one to be idle for long - he immediately took on the challenge of becoming Clerk to Melbourn Parish Council, and it WAS a challenge. Without raking over old coals, the council was in some disarray and Colin was indispensable in pulling it round. He held that position for six years, passing all the necessary exams and running the Council business for a time from his spare bedroom – no designated Parish Office in those days. Throughout all this activity there is yet another strand – Colin’s involvement with the Church of England. He began serving at the age of FIVE and continued until the age of 75 (with a few breaks when he was in the services, etc) He finally decided give up serving and he now has time to sing in the choir. With so much experience Colin has learned a great deal about church procedure and etiquette and
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