Fred & Connie Baker

Connie Baker

also click 2000 Memories of Con Baker

2005 Memories of Con Baker

2008 Con Baker's 100th party

In 2000 Con Baker described her days at Lacey Green School. click 1922 School memories by Constance Gomme.

click Baker for others in this family

Frederick Baker born 1908 was the son of Albert John Baker & Hannah Harvey

Constance "Connie" or "Con", Lillah Gomme, born in 1908, was the daughter of Ralph & Ellen Nolan Gomme

click Lacey Green School Reunion 2000 for Connie's school memories

Fred and Connie married in 1933

1939 Register (census) In 1939 they were living at the Foundry. Fred was an iron moulder.

From Hallmark 1980. Extract from "The Foundry" by Miles Marshall. Fred Baker worked for thirteen years with his father-in-law and during these years picked up a thorough working knowledge of his adopted trade. Although the manufacture of farm machinery was already passing to big firms in the industrial centres. Ralph Gomme (Fred's father-in-law) had retained a considerable trade in repairing local farm machinery including the big steam traction engines which, in those pre-combine-harvester times, not only powered the threshing machines with those long, whipping, exposed, driving-belts, but towed them and their train of ancillary equipment from farm to farm to thresh the stacked corn. Fred still recalls the arduous work on those monsters of replacing the boiler tubes which had to be hammered home from a most uncomfortable position.

Despite the poor health which today (aged 72) prevents his taking an active part in the work of ‘The Forge', Fred Baker still looks and sounds a youthful seventy-two and when he feels well enough likes to potter about in the Forge and ‘get his hands dirty', as he puts it; but a new generation has taken over.

Fred and Connie had three children a follows:-

Graham Baker born 1935

Jennifer Baker born 1940

Geoffrey Baker born 1944 married Penny Giles in 1969 click Geoffrey & Penny Baker for their life story

In 1970 a village magazine 'Hallmark' was launched. Connie was to appear in articles in it quite frequently. To read these go to ---

2005 Memories of Con Baker

2008 Con Baker's 100th party

In 2000 Con Baker described her days at Lacey Green School. click 1922 School memories by Constance Gomme.

Obituary by Michael Hardy. Constance Baker 12 July1908 to 23 January 2014.

Early this year we lost our oldest resident, Constance, Connie or Con Baker, who lived up to her name by being a constant resident of Loosley Row for an amazing 105 years. Spending her whole life in one village, Connie grew up with many people that became life-long friends. However she was just as friendly and welcoming to people who moved here in more recent years.

Connie Gomme's early life was at a cottage by Loosley House, where her mother was a nursemaid, and her father, Ralph was chauffeur, who apparently drove the only car in the village at the time. She first attended the Loosley Row School until it closed, when she moved to St John's School. Many of Connie's early memories make fascinating reading, especially those of her school days, the games she played, and Sundays spent at the Baptist Chapel.

Her father became involved in running Gomme's Forge with his two brothers, and their mother, Sarah, who lived at Foundry Cottage. In 1933 Connie married Fred Baker. He worked in the furniture industry, but within a year had joined the family's business at the Forge. At that time much of their work was still repairing traction engines and other machinery for local farmers. They had once employed a millwright, so undoubtedly worked on the village windmill.

During the war, Connie worked in the Forge. Her father, Ralph Gomme, died in 1949 and her husband, Fred Baker, took over running the business. Connie and Fred had 3 children, Graham, Jenny and Geoffrey, who all worked in the family business. She also had 4 grandchildren and also 7 great grandchildren when she died.

Loosley Row Baptist Chapel and its Sunday School were important to the community, and formed a large part of the lives of both Connie and her husband Fred, especially when he became Superintendent, and she was teaching there. After closure in 2001, and the Chapel lying idle for some years, Connie wrote that she was pleased to see it transformed into an elegant dwelling.

After Connie's husband died in 1988, she started exploring the world by going on cruises with friends. More locally, she attended meetings and social events of many groups, but she was always grateful to the organisers. She even outlived some of the organisations that she belonged to, such as the Afternoon WI and the 81st Club. But she also encouraged new ventures. When Ted Janes founded the Happy Wanderers walking club, Connie was on the first walk, then aged 83. By the Clubs 20th Anniversary, they wrote that, at the age of 103, Connie was finding stiles a bit challenging.

She enjoyed her garden, and was a keen supporter of our Horticultural Society. She attended meetings and social events, insisting on a seat in the front row, for the best view and best chance of hearing the speaker. She also exhibited her flowers (particularly roses) and vegetables at the Annual Show until the age of 104.

Connie's childhood memories show a distinct mischievous character, which stayed with her all her life. Nobody would now remember her adventures during her 90 minute long lunch breaks at school. In the 1990s Connie and Mary Adams, famous for being the village chimney sweep, attending social events together. I well remember them both giggling like a couple of schoolgirls.

People say that Connie blossomed on reaching 100. She had a celebrity status, often appearing in the local media and had an eventful life over the last 5 years. For her 100th birthday, her family took her to London for a day, which included a river cruise and a ride on the London Eye. She arrived at her Birthday Party at the Village Hall in a 1938 Morris. Many relatives from Canada attended, and everybody admired the spectacular 10 piece cake with 100 candles. The same year she rode on a model train pulled by a steam engine, easily defying those who doubted that she could climb aboard.

At 101 Connie was a model taking part in a WI Fashion Show, and the following year she helped to launch the Over-50s Lunch Club. When a splended Village History Exhibition was held, Connie arrived in a 1954 Rolls Royce to cut the tape for the opening ceremony.

Around 1920 Connie had watched her father on his motorbike at the Kop Hill Climb. So 90 years later she went to the revived event. At 103, she amazed onlookers by calmly climbing the steps onto a tall Steam Carriage. As it was older than Connie it could not drive up Kop Hill, but she enjoyed a ride around the paddock. At the following year's event, Connie was determined to ride up Kop Hill itself, and was taken up in a modern electric car.

Connie was at many events for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 Olympics. She also had many outings by car and coach, with trips to gardens far and wide, including Highgrove and Kew Gardens only a month before she became 105. She particularly enjoyed attending Village Cricket Matches, at the Sports Club and was one of the team's most stalwart supporters.

Beside the organised events, Connie was often taken for more informal trips and meals, keeping a very busy diary. Connie was delighted when people went to see her, or to play Scrabble, and was doubly pleased if you were a man and greeted her with a kiss.

Her keen sense of humour never diminished, but although her hearing and sight deteriorated, Connie enjoyed good health until the last few months, claiming that her long life was due to black coffee, cigarettes, and plenty of cabbage. But remember that her grandmother, Sarah Gomme, ran the Forge for many years and lived to 102.

Connie told me that she enjoyed life since becoming 100, when everyone had made such a fuss of her. I say that she also gave us much pleasure in recent years. She was lucky to have her family's help to enable her to stay in her own home until the last few months.

On the 5th February, around 170 people were at Amersham Crematorium for Connie's funeral. She had said nobody needed to wear dark clothes at her funeral. That reflects the bright, fun loving, sociable nature of her character, which will long be remembered in Loosley and Lacey Green, and was reflected in the music played at the Crematorium.

Connie was always delighted to see children. As their oldest former pupil, on her recent birthdays, St John's schoolchildren sang to her, and wrote "A Song for Connie" for her 105th Birthday. After she died, they adapted some of the words which I read at Connie's funeral.

"Dear Connie was wonderful

Our special friend

Dear Connie, you always were such fun.

There was nobody like you.

And that's why we're glad,

You were our friend.

Graham, Jenny and Geoffrey have asked me to pass on their thanks to everyone who attended their mother's funeral, and gave donations of over £1000 for Rennie Grove Hospice Care.

They are also especially grateful to many people who helped Connie in various ways such as visiting her and taking her on outings. I think that some who deserve special mention are Joyce, Marion and Les, Bette and Norman and Rosemary.