Leigh & Yvonne Axe
From Lacey Green History
click Families for other local families.
Leigh & Yvonne Axe. Report by Joan West.
Leigh’s name cropped up a number of times in Hallmark, the village magazine, but l knew there must be more to know about this couple and l knew that Yvonne too had done things worth recording.
At the weekly coffee morning in the Village Hall on Thursday 10th July 2025, I asked Leigh when he and Yvonne would come to my house for me to interview them. As he muttered and spluttered l said “Right I could start his right here it you like, - “Where did you Meet?”
For the next three-quarters of an hour, Leigh held an audience of coffee drinkers, enthralled with their story.
Back home I made a report of all I had noted while he was talking, which in fact had not even got to the time the came to Lacey Green.
When I next met Leigh and Yvonne at the coffee morning I gave them my notes asking them please would they edit and add to them, particularly asking about where they lived after they left Queensbury and to elaborate on the time of the miner's strike. I also commented on the many moves Yvonne had had to cope with, organising new homes, especially with children, schools and so on.
On the 20th July I received an email from Leigh which read -
"A somewhat lengthened version (maybe too long) brief history of our lives attached. The rest of it would make a book.
I couldn't have done this without Yvonne's unfailing support, tolerance and I won't say patience as that is something she doesn't have.
Leigh has written himself in the third party and I have left it so. My own words I have put in italics.
He was born in a village in Lincolnshire in December 1946 and had three older sisters. Aged 3 the family moved to Doncaster in South Yorkshire; he lived in a newsagents where he could read all the comics before they were sold. At 12 years old he was serving in the shop using a till that didn’t indicate the change required. He was mischievous, naïve and immature and always in trouble. At 16 he finished his first round of GCE’s with an abysmal bottom grade Maths and English, but this was a wake up call. He stayed on for another year adding Chemistry and Physics - he now wanted to learn.
Yvonne grew up in a four story house in Islington, she too had three older sisters. Her Mum had lodgers, some famous. It was a strict regime as London was not the safest place in the country. She worked in a local bakers before getting a job with the bank.
When Leigh left school he went to work in a laboratory at ‘Tarmac’, opposite the steel works at Scunthorpe. The steelworks provided great lumps of iron ore, minus the iron of course, which was battered to break it down into small stones upon which was poured bitumen. Loaded onto lorries it was sent all over the country. Leigh’s main job was to analyse the finished article to make sure it was to British Standard and have the contents adjusted if necessary.
The laboratory was clean and healthy but outside was a fog of dust from crushing the ore and required constant showering.
Leigh had taken the job because a letter he wrote to the police went unanswered, for six months that is, and then he was suddenly invited for an interview, initially for the Police Cadet Force at Scunthorpe. He did well and was accepted. They did background checks even interviewing neighbours about his character. He says he was lucky to get away with that.
Even as a Cadet he got into trouble, having answered a 999 call he neglected to get the location of the incident but was rescued by the telephonist who had put the call through. He was banned from taking any more calls. But all these ‘mistakes’ were part of life’s learning experiences because one thing for sure – he didn’t make them again. He recounted a visit to the morgue to deliver a message and walked in on a full post mortem – he’s not sure he delivered the message as he didn’t stay long.
He was sworn in as a police constable on his 19th birthday in 1965 and sent to Harrogate for training. He had to learn criminal law and powers to arrest but he now had that urge to learn and was in the top 3 of 65 trainees. There were practical exercises too.
He was posted to Cleethorpes, a seaside town surrounded by Grimsby. One thing he didn’t have yet was confidence and putting theory into practice was a very different ball game, apart from learning to deal with people.
In the winter he was posted to Stamford which was far too law abiding and after requesting a move he went to Skegness for the summer which, for a young single man was busy in every way imaginable. He also did the advanced driving course.
They left him there for the winter and the place died, he applied for the Metropolitan police in London. Being already trained, they snapped him up and posted him to Stoke Newington where on his first day out was sent to an armed robbery – he wondered if he’d done the right thing. It turned out there was no better area in London for learning ‘the Job’ and he was in his element. It became apparent that if it didn’t happen here it couldn’t happen. This was part of Hackney where the Krays operated. They were all arrested not long after he arrived but he claims no credit for that.
Leigh met Yvonne at a dance in Dalston. Leigh was a young police constable, like the other lads on the lookout for the girls. Yvonne said that her friend had persuaded her to go.
Leigh and Yvonne married in 1971. They were allocated a police flat in Wilmington Square WC2. It was nice, until you looked out the window at numerous dustbins on one side and a public baths on the other. They started looking for their own place.
Assisted by a recommendation from Yvonne’s bank manager boss they took out a mortgage for a house in Queensbury. They just beat the new idiom known as gazumping and within two years the house had gone from £8K to £15K but earnings hadn’t changed so much.
Yvonne had their first son Richard in January 1973 and left work to look after his early years. Financially life was tough so she took on selling books and Tupperware which used house parties for sales. They moved again to Carpenders Park near Watford.
Leigh, meanwhile added numerous stories of events on his patch which must at the time have hit the national headlines.
Promoted to Sergeant, Leigh was posted to Oxford Street, Marylebone, Tongue-in-cheek perhaps, Leigh said that promotion provided for a better pension.
The IRA were active and there were numerous bomb scares usually hoaxes but requiring nerve to investigate. Leigh told of one lucky escape when they searched for a ‘bomb gone off’ in what was Etams shop in Oxford St. The staff had evacuated and left the key in the door for police. There was a white powder scattered across the floor and his search found an abandoned shopping bag with an obvious bomb in it - the detonator had gone off failing to set off the main explosives but scattering a packet of washing powder left on top to hide it.
Leigh then spoke of the bomb disposal personnel for whom he had the greatest respect; invariably ex-army, they went in when the police had isolated the area. One of them was killed by a booby-trap but shortly afterwards his colleague was diffusing another. Another lucky escape was when one of the soldiers left the bomb to get some kit and it went off blowing some heavy metal doors across the street and to both sides of the soldier.
Yvonne, who had the worry of her husband being in the thick of it, had son number two, Darren, in August 1975 – she still continued her part time work. Leigh was posted to St. }ohn’s Wood, an area where many of the famous lived including Paul McCartney and Joe Loss. He dealt with Lord George Brown when he got arrested for drink driving. He also took the exam for promotion to inspector and came high enough for automatic promotion – necessary, he said, as he was unlikely get recommended.
The kids now at school Yvonne went back part time to the Bank. They moved again to St. Albans. The M25 and M1 were within a mile.
As inspector he was posted to Golders Green which also covered Finchley – the constituency of one Margaret Thatcher. He was there at the Notting Hill riots where he was side-stepping petrol bombs and broken paving slabs. He was never one to curry favour with senior officers and when a vacancy came up at West Hendon, he was volunteered.
He became an authorised shot – this was a time when firearms were held in the police station only to be used when required. Leigh was told the worst situation was someone in a loft with a gun, guess what his first call to arms was?
Then came the miner’s strike and officers from all over the country were bussed up to Nottingham -where the miners didn’t want to strike. Police stayed on military bases and were up at 4am to be in position to assist the miners through the picket lines.
Leigh found that round the clock shift work left him with permanent jet-lag and having been invited by a senior officer that appreciated his interpersonal skills, he went to the Police Training School at Hendon. He underwent teacher training and was put in charge of a team of instructors, filling in when short of staff.
The training for recruits was a two year course crammed into 13 weeks and students fell behind. They had access in the evenings to a support unit where several police were on hand to help them. Having acquired a knowledge of computing, largely self-taught, Leigh was asked to write some lessons for these recruits to learn from. A bank of computers were made available for these recruits to repeat lessons as staff had no time to do so. It worked – exam results improved. To be sure he was doing it right, Leigh took a Masters degree in ‘Interactive Systems Analysis’ which, he says, usually leads to a change of conversation. He passed with an ‘A’ grade.
All this time Yvonne had kept things going at home, she was more strict than Dad with the kids and they were now teenagers. They were like most teenagers but had grown up with a set of rules that kept them out of any serious trouble. Yvonne could take credit for this.
Shortly before retiring Leigh volunteered for a posting to South Africa as a training advisor. Apartheid had come to an end when numerous native Africans went away to be trained as terrorists. F. W. de Klerk, the last white prime minister, saw what was to come and with international pressure and a failing economy, he gave in to black voting. There was a mixture of ex-terrorists, native tribes and former police to be retrained to British Police standards who at that time were highly respected throughout the world.
Not an easy task, for one the various groups didn’t get on and two, they went out with sub-machine guns and tear-gas as standard kit. Hence there was a British military input as well. Leigh met up with police officers from several Commonwealth countries drafted in to assist. He tells me he got tear-gassed twice during training and when it was all over he was asked to go to a much more dangerous part of the country – KwaZulu-Natal. As an international observer for the first black voting election that would ultimately elect Nelson Mandella. When he was refused a firearm, he opted to return home where Yvonne was patiently waiting in anticipation.
After receiving an Exemplary Conduct retirement certificate from the Commissioner, Leigh took the Police Retirement Course shortly before completing his 30 years in the force. He had been accepted for another job already but having listened to the more adventurous choices of fellow retirees he went home and suggested to Yvonne that they try America – she loved the idea. Before leaving they downsized to a maisonette and left the two boys, now both working, behind. Leigh’s sister lived in Florida, which was very helpful. The following 5 years were spent in the USA.
Visa choices were limited and with sister joining in, they bought 14 apartments. The idea being to go off on tour and come back to collect the rent that would pay for it all. No such luck – the tenants were a nightmare; they broke all the rules, had no respect for property, some used drugs and rent payments were a constant battle. Leigh could handle all that but was supposed to have left the police. Yvonne was working harder than ever helping clean up and usually redecorate after tenants left.
On top of that trying to live in a different culture is much easier if you’re young. They found themselves seeking out the other English that lived there and recognising why integration back in England is very difficult.
They had given it a good try (and actually saw more of their boys) but after 5 years had had enough and came home. Then the U.S. bank let them down constantly prevaricating over transferring their cash. In the end they wrote a cheque and paid it into their own account in UK and the money came through, but not before the pound dollar exchange rate had turned from their favour.
They bought a house in Aylesbury mid-way between their kids who now had their own houses and family. Work however was not shouting out for 55 year olds and they ended up moving to Kent where Leigh got a teaching job (15 to 18 year olds) at Mid-Kent College. An enjoyable 5 years later, he retired again.
In 2007 they bought a house in Lacey Green intending that to be the last move ever as they had now moved house 10 times. Leigh went to work as a civilian investigator with the police but after 6 months battling the M25, he retired again. Next job was with the local police clearing out their over-laden prisoners’ property stores –drugs, stolen property and other exhibits. It needed a little expertise to decide what could safely be disposed of - too complicated to explain here.
2008. Following an inquiry at the Thursday Coffee Morning in 2005, Leigh confirmed that he had helped start and then run, the village website, www.laceygreen.com, ever since. This is listed on Social Snapshots 2001-2022 inc
2008 The Local History Group was set up in 2008. Norman Tyler recommended Leigh to be just the man needed to set up a website for them. He did this by making it a section of the Lacey Green website. He still deals with anything that come to it even though the Local History Group no longer meets. This is listed on Social Snapshots 2001-2022 inc
In 2012 Leigh reported on Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee party in Meadow Rise, where they lived first in Lacey Green. "Size didn't matter except when it came to the barbeque. At 2 o'clock our little group sat down in the street for tea and cake and spent an hour trying to solve '76 T in the BP' and several other puzzles like it. After everyone woke up from their afternoon nap it was decided to barbeque in a back garden where we had a lovely view down the valley and were entertained by a Red Kite taking off and landing from a very nearby tree. Amazingly it took off just as I tried to photograph it and didn't return.
Food and company proved to be excellent and I think we should do it every year in nicer weather."
Throughout these years Leigh remembered village life in his early years, he had relations there still and knew that villages thrived when the people were ‘involved’. He and Yvonne went to a meeting at the Village Hall of The Horticultural Society. Leigh was invited to fill a Secretary Vacancy. Yvonne joined The Womens Institute and they both became joint Treasurer for the Village Hall. Leigh was part of the group that set-up the village website www.laceygreen.com and continues to update it. They started the Short Mat Bowls Club, and volunteered to run the over 60’s Pub-Lunch Club with The Black Horse. He runs the website for The Local History Group as part of the Lacey Green website..
Somewhere in all this Yvonne had contracted Parkinsons and as her condition worsened they started dropping most of their activities. Yvonne now still organises the Pub-Lunch and Leigh still runs the Bowls club but Leigh is now a full-time carer for Yvonne. We still see them at coffee morning – which is where this story started.
Comment from Joan West. Thank you very much indeed Leigh, but I'm not letting you get away with just that, I remember that you were awarded our Local Community Champion in 2023. It was reported in Hallmark. See below -
Excerpt from Hallmark. Leigh and Yvonne moved to Meadow Rise Lacey Green around 2007
Excerpt from Hallmark. Leigh later wrote an obituary for Bett Tyler (Norman & Bette Tyler) in which he wrote "we were still unpacking, when we were invited to an event at the Home of Rest for Horses by Bette and Normans Tyler making us feel welcome.
Hallmark August 2023. Local Community Champion. (Leigh was unaware that he had been nominated, so he was taken by surprise)
This award is sponsored by the North West Chilterns Board. Leigh won the Highly Commended prize
There were several categories and it was suggested that Leigh be nominated as our “Local Community Champion”.
Many of you will know Leigh as the Innovative, Reliable and Dependable person around the village.
He was recruited by Joan Smith to help run, with others, the LLS Youth Club that meets in the Village Hall he stayed on longer than the others to keep it going.
Leigh and Yvonne are joint treasurers of the of the Millennium Village Hall and he takes on a lot of the day to day running and liaising with contractors and utility companies, especially of late, the new tarmac surfacing of the village hall car park
Along with belonging to, he is also secretary to The Horticultural Society.
Leigh works tirelessly for the older and younger members of our village. Yvonne organises the 'Over 60's Pub-Lunch' each month. When the village pub – The Black Horse, changed hands Leigh convinced the new owners that they should re-instate and continue with the ‘Once a Month Lunch Club’.
Leigh realised that there were some villagers missing out on activities within the village and set about ensuring that everyone who wanted to attend anything could do so.
He ensures that any resident wishing to attend any of the meetings in the village has transport there and back, he even organises taxis in special circumstances.
Leigh is deserving of recognition because he has no idea of how important he is to the village. Leigh is one member of our village that our village could not do without.
Our village has been impacted by a very selfless man, the village has prospered in friendliness and companionship for all.
The picture above is of the Conservative MP Greg Smith presenting Leigh with his award at a recent ‘Party in the Park’ sponsored by the North West Chilterns Board in Wades Park in Princes Risborough.
2025. The LLS Youth Club is now run by Natasha Kann. Yvonne and Leigh have now resigned from the Village Hall and The Horticultural Society's committees. Leigh still runs the Short Mat Bowls Club.