These accounts illuminating everyday life in the early days of the village and Shrine come from many varied sources and give fascinating detail, some of it very amusing. They speak straight from the past and we have glimpses of life there of the sort that one does not find in the formal publications of the time. We see a more domestic side of Fr Patten and of some of the other well-known residents. We are always pleased to add more reminiscences to these.

From those still living, or relatives of those who have died, we have permission to publish them: some retain their anonymity. A few are in the public domain already. Except where otherwise indicated the photographs are all from the Shrine archives or the public domain. Captions should appear when the mouse hovers over each picture.

Winifred Bennett remembers the village from before Fr Patten's coming in 1921: her father owned The Firs, the house that was later bought for the hospice (now Stella Maris House), and she continued to live on elsewhere in the village.

from a former boat boy who was present at Fr Patten's induction

from Mrs J A Alderson who was one of the first babies baptised by Fr Patten

from someone who visited Walsingham soon after the statue was erected in the parish church, and later attended the Translation and then the blessing of the extension of the Shrine church

from George Back, a choirboy at the time, who remembers the first pilgrimage

from Bridget Monahan, whose family started visiting the Shrine in 1926

Fr Colin Stephenson, Fr Patten's successor as Administrator, remembered the first foot pilgrimage in 1935

the diary of Frank Wain, a young deacon who stayed in Walsingham for a week in 1938

from Dick Crowe, one of the original party of orphans sent in 1939 by Fr Walke in St Hilary in Cornwall to form the Walsingham Children's Home, the forerunner of "St Hilary's"; he reminisces before he returns to Walsingham in May 2008 for the first time, and then afterwards describes his visit and the impact it had on him

a lettercard from a resident sent from Walsingham during the war

a long memoir from Michael Farrer, about his time as a pupil at the Sanctuary School

Enid Chadwick revealed after the war what might have happened had the Germans invaded ...

from Paul Lewis, a later pupil at the Sanctuary School

from the ten-year-old grandson of a Guardian who was present on the night that Fr Patten died

In the British Library sound archives collection its Millennium Memory Bank includes an interview in 1999 with a Walsingham resident, Rose Howell, who was born in 1909. Go to the Sound Archives page of this site to see how to access this; we are told by locals that her memories are not entirely accurate, but nevertheless an interesting transcript.