We are deeply grateful to have recently received a legacy gift from the late Miss Joan Francies, a Life Member of the Trust, this Spring. This amazing gift will help protect and preserve the Forest now and for years to come, ensuring that future generations can continue to enjoy and cherish the Forest that she so loved. Below is Joan’s story.
Joan Francies
We have heard that Joan spent her early years growing up with her sister and parents in a house which backed onto the Forest in Sedley Rise, Loughton. Her father would often take her for long walks in the Forest and she used to say that is where her lifelong interest in nature, studying the trees and plant life, first started. For a great part of her life she lived close to the Forest. Her father, Henry Francies was an amateur artist who often painted pictures of the area. For a lot of her life Joan lived in Buckhurst Hill and was a very active member of the local horticultural society up until her death.
We also found an online article from the local Guardian Series dated 2015, featuring a lovely story about the long-standing friendship between Joan and a German Prisoner of War in Lippits Hill called Fritz, which began at a Christmas Dinner in 1946, of which you can read more here.
Photo: Joan with photos and diaries documenting her friendship with Fritz. Image souce: Guardian Series 17th March 2015.
Updated: April 2025
After featuring Joan’s story in the Trust in the Forest members’ magazine, we have heard back from Mark Gorman, local historian and author of Saving People’s Forest, who interviewed Joan about her family’s connections with the German POW and the Forest. Below is Mark’s memory:
I was interested to see the note about Joan Francies in the latest “Trust in the Forest”. I interviewed Joan about 10 years ago about her memories of her family’s connections with German prisoners of war, particularly Fritz Kuebler, with whom the Francies family established a long-term relationship which continued well after the war. She said her father, Henry Francies, worked for a Loughton building firm. He became a pacifist pre-war, and joined the Peace Pledge Union, becoming the local organiser and distributing large numbers of “Peace News”.
Fritz Kuebler had been captured on the Channel Islands, which probably suited him, as apparently he told Joan that the German occupiers had been reduced to eating grass. He was batman to the camp commandant at Lippitt’s Hill camp, which doesn’t sound like it was very secure, as they could get out overnight. Joan said that Fritz used to walk in the Forest, his favourite walk being to Connaught Water, “because local girls used to come there”.
Fritz & Karl Ottinger (an older man with family) came for dinner at Christmas 1946, and Fritz continued to visit on Sundays during that winter.
Your article mentions that Joan’s dad was an artist, and it reminded me that I was leaving Joan’s house, I remarked on the wonderful paintings of Epping Forest hanging in the hall. She said they were her father’s work, and that he’d attended art classes run by Walter Spradbery, I think at the Walthamstow Education Settlement. I hope somebody has the paintings now, as they were really exceptional.
If you know more about this lovely story of Joan, or would like to share more stories of Joan, please also get in touch by emailing us at: admin@efht.org.uk. Thank you.