CROWN - TRUNCH

End of 57-year link with Trunch Crown - 1971

An association of 57 years with the Crown at Trunch ended yesterday with the retirement of the licensee,
Mr William Dixon and his wife May.
Mr Dixon who is 76 years old, held the licence for 40 years, but his wife Mrs May Edith Dixon, who is three years his junior, first moved to live at the Crown in 1913 when her mother became licensee.
Mr Dixon was courting the daughter of Mrs Ellen Cobb, the landlady of the Crown in 1914 and after the harvest was in on the farm at which he was working, William joined the 9^th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment.

Grenade Thrower
He served in Belgium and France as a grenade thrower.
"We had to get Jerry out of the trenches - or sometimes he got us out", he said.
He was at Ypres and the Somme. " I was right in the thick of it.
I just had a charmed life to keep going," Mr Dixon recalled.
In the battle of Loos, he was reported missing, but a week after receiving the news, his family got a card from him saying he was all right. "We got cut off but we held out," he explained.
There were 74 men in his over-strength platoon when they were trapped -
"When they got to us there were 24 and a sergeant left. " He added.
After two years in the front line he transferred to the railway operating division of the Royal Engineers on the strength of the time he spent on the railways at Melton Constable as a youth.
The war over, he returned to marry and move to the Crown in 1919.
While bringing up their family of two sons and four daughters, Mr Dixon worked as a gardener at the former Mundesley Sanatorium from 1924 to 1958.

Flood and Fire
In 1941 the public house, which was then thatched was damaged by fire. Though losing most of their belongings, the Dixons carried on their business in a temporary one-story pub.
Mrs Dixon said she had been in Norwich in the 1912 flood "So I have survived flood and fire," she laughed.
Having celebrated their gold wedding in November 1969, Mr & Mrs Dixon now have 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. They are retiring to The Pines at Knapton, a village where three of their children live.

Thanks to Michael Dixon for the photographs & transcription. 07/11/2006

Derek Parker, grandson of May & William Dixon advises Feb 2011:-

That his mother recalls that her Grandmother was buried on Thursday 10th April 1941, that her sister was married from the pub on Easter Monday 14th April 1941 and the fire was on the following Saturday 19th April 1941- her sister lost most of over 100 wedding presents that were stored in an upper bedroom.