Peter North, who I have known for years, has been receiving looks of incredulity when telling people that the Boy Fountain outside St Michael’s Church was surrounded by a circular brick wall during the Second World War.

The wall had a door on the High Street side through whose keyhole he would look at the fountain.

Yesterday Peter asked me for corroboration.

The late Roy Gentry, helping me with some wartime research several years ago, gave me a handwritten list which tantalisingly says: “Fountain protected” and I recall my late brother-in-law, Gordon Messent, being of the same opinion.

Since the object of the exercise was to protect the costly two-yearold bronze sculptures from German shrapnel, a brick wall makes sense.

I was born after the war and so have no personal memories.

However, I am confident that Peter North is right, but can anyone else remember the wall please?

By Mike Bardell of Cressing Road, Braintree