This section features well-known people with Great Shelford connections. It includes;
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Scotsdales founder David Rayner
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Writer Cindy Forde
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Writer Sarah Vaughan
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Nazi spy Jan Willem Ter Braak
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Cambridge Satchel founder Julie Deane OBE
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Great Shelford's noteable village people
Shelford writer Sarah Vaughan's next novel will be published in March 2026.
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Her sixth novel is called Based on a True Story. "I wanted to write about a strong matriarch and her daughters while exploring power in a dysfunctional family and the extent to which we rewrite our lives," said Sarah. "It's a closed room mystery, set on the cliffs of north Cornwall, with inspirations including Succession and King Lear. A bit of a departure from political thrillers, but it's similar in that it's twisty with plenty of strong female leads."
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Sarah will be appearing at an evening of suspense in Cambridge with Araminta Hall on March 26 at 6.30pm Tickets are £6.
Sarah's novel, Anatomy of a Scandal, was made into a series for Netflix.
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Anatomy of a Scandal was published in paperback in October 2018. The book appeared in the Sunday Times top 10.
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Her most recent novel, Little Disasters, was published in paperback in March 2021.
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Sarah's next novel Reputation, is being published in March 2022.
She saw her first book The Art of Baking Blind published in 2014. The book was published in paperback in August 2015.
Sarah started writing the book in earnest the week her son Jack started school in September 2012 in the same month she turned 40.
She had been mulling ideas over for five months before then. Writing's not in her genes but she did once win a writing comp - Devon Young Writer of the Year - aged ten.
Brenda Bishop helped with this book by lending Sarah old cookbooks from the 1950s and 60s.
One of the character, Kathleen Eaden, is a play on Eden. Sarah took the name with its obvious play from Eaden Lilley in Great Shelford.
Sarah and her family lived in Little Shelford between 2010 and 2021 before moving to Great Shelford in 2021.
She worked at the Guardian from 1997. Her big break was on the weekend Diana died, no one was around and she had to write 2,000 words very quickly. She left the Guardian in November 2008.
She met various celebrities while working in the media. Prime Minister David Cameron signed her mortgage form; she travelled with Tony Blair and interviewed Leonardo di Caprio; Sarah also covered Soham and Sarah Payne and Mirror libel case involving Naomi Campbell and the first Stephen Lawrence hearing.
Sarah's publisher, Hodder is interested in her writing a blog/articles about old family recipes - so if anyone from this era felt like offering her favoured recipes she'd be happy to try them out and perhaps incorporate them. She may even publish some recipes in the back of the book.
* Her fourth novel, Little Disasters, was published in February 2020.
Read how Prime Minister Boris Johnson inspired Sarah
Read Sarah's blog about seeing her first novel on supermarket shelves
Read an exclusive blog by Sarah Vaughan here.
Sarah's personal insight into her thinking behind the book
Christopher Jenkin from Great Shelford is the chairman of It Takes a City (ITAC), a homelessness charity in Cambridge, which he set up in 2018 as a group of voluntary organisations, businesses, faith groups and individuals committed to sharing the city’s prosperity with a focus on ending local homelessness.
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Christopher was one of a handful of people from the Shelford to attend the King's Coronation. This is his account of the special day.
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I received the initial invitation by email, to my great surprise, weeks ago. I almost missed it, being away at the time. And I could not work out “why me!” But I immediately booked hotel and train. It was not until Buckingham Palace announced that 450 recipients of the British Empire Medal had been invited, especially those that had received the award to recognise their work during COVID-19, that it became clear why: I was one of them. My focus had been helping 100s of Cambridge homeless people off the streets, arranging good accommodation and excellent food and support, bringing together a wide network of volunteers and organisations. All part of It Takes a City, the community response to homelessness I founded in 2018.
The beautifully inscribed and handwritten invitation arrived in the post a couple of weeks before the Coronation – envelopes stamped Buckingham Palace do not arrive very often!
The day dawned cool but clear, with the threat of rain. All of us, small and great alike, queued from just after 7am and were shepherded through a long line of “street-liners” – wonderful cheerful volunteers who had all been up since 2.30 – and into the security check-in area. Possibly the friendliest screening and bag check ever.
The Abbey hits you on first entry – the colours, the coronation theatre, the scale, the array of people from the suited and day-dressed to the ermined and robed all mixed together, all trying to find their seats. I got lost but was eventually guided.
In my seat – “no wandering around please and no photos! – by about 8am, it was time to study the large and beautifully printed order of service. Looking around I did not recognise anyone – some with BEMs like me, some with extensive rows of medals, some with none. Quite a few “pals of the royal households” were with me: but no invites to tea came along.
Most in the Abbey had to see most of the proceedings on a TV screen, not always nearby – we were a small group with a big screen so were really engaged. It was a profound experience, spiritually, lending my voice to the King and Queen and saying “amen” to the Archbishop’s proclamations, and musically, an extraordinary quality of composition and playing. I downloaded the recording – it still moves me.
The time flew by as we concentrated on the words and the actions – over five hours of sitting was relieved by a lot of standing during the service – but once the main procession had left, we could “wander around”.
After leaving the Abbey it was not possible to walk round to see the procession to Buckingham Palace – those places were filled hours before and everywhere was locked down! So it was back to the hotel, a cup of coffee with a fellow attendee, lunch and a wander home, digesting the sights and sounds into a life-long memory of a great day, a great privilege and a great blessing."
Read a profile of Chris Jenkin
Posted May 24 2023
Cindy Forde is a Great Shelford based author, acclaimed environmentalist, and founder of Planetari.
In October 2022, Cindy released the new book Bright New World, a non-fiction climate change book with a difference. The book is a lavishly illustrated glimpse into a future, not too far from our own time - a world in which today's children have grown up and tackled the world's most pressing social and environmental problems.
In a series of lush, detailed scenes, illustrated by Bethany Lord, readers enter a world of solar-powered vehicles, regenerated rainforests, skyscraper farms, insect-based snacks, recovering coral reefs, wave-powered electricity, and much more. The book profiles the biggest names in eco-innovation today, as well as some of the brightest young inventors, entrepreneurs, and activists, all of whom are making the world better, one step at a time.
Cindy Forde lives in Great Shelford and is the founder of Planetari, the organisation dedicated to worldwide environmental education. She has worked with leaders across sectors including the UN, government, NGOs, finance, business, technology and education. She was CEO of the Cambridge Science Centre and Managing Director of the Blue Marine Foundation, where she headed a global team dedicated to protecting and regenerating the world's oceans.
Posted Oct 5 2022
David Rayner founded the Scotsdales Garden Centre. He died in January 2023
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This is a tribute from Charlie Nightingale, former District Councillor and former Parish Council Chairmanr
"I’ve known David for about 40 years and his been a good friend
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"David was the kindest person you could meet he had time for everybody and I mean everybody nobody pasted him without him have a chat.
In the past few years we spent a lot of time with him building the David Rayner building the home of Cambridge Cancer Centre this building named after him is a testament to his kindness made a donation of £100,00p and use of land at Scotsdales For this to be built it is used by many other groups as well now.
"David kindness touched so many people especially in Shelford there isn’t many groups that he hasn’t help in some way.
"David sponsored the roundabout at Shelford bottom which is about to bloom again in the next few weeks
"Scotsdales gave large contributions to many Shelford charities Children’s playgrounds, Arthur Rank hospital, Shelford Feast to name but few all though the kindness of a truly kind and generous man who many will miss him."
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Read an obituary in the Cambridge Independent.
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Jan Willem Ter Braak was a Dutch Nazi spy who was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery in Great Shelford during the second world war.
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A book about Ter Braak, called "Hitler's spy against Churchill" was published in spring 2022. ( https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Hitlers-Spy-Against-Churchill-Hardback/p/21338.)
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Ter Braak was a Dutch espionage agent working for the Germans who operated for five months England. He is believed to have been the German agent who was at large for the longest time in Britain during the Second World War.
When he ran out of money, ter Braak committed suicide in an air raid shelter in Cambridge.
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Ter Braak arrived by parachute on the night of 2 November 1940, landing in Buckinghamshire.
He then made his way to Cambridge and lived with a couple named Sennitt in St. Barnabas Road, who accepted his story of having come from the Netherlands during the Dunkirk evacuation. He claimed to be working with Free Dutch forces in London.
Ter Braak was able to rent an office above Haslop & Co in Green Street where he installed his suitcase transmitter. He later rented a room at St Barnabas Road too.
The police report verifed that he only visited his office a couple of times. However his radio batteries were flat, suggesting extensive usage. It is believed that he used his transmitter in his bedroom in St Barnabas Road, lowering the aerial out of the window which he kept open.
He was contacted by the Food Office about his ration card in January 1941. Ter Braak suspected that he would be detected, and told his landlady that he had to leave for London. He actually moved across Cambridge and obtained new lodgings on Montague Road.
By March, he no longer had the money to pay his landlady.
On March 29, he deposited his large case in the left luggage office at the Cambridge railway station, and went to one of the public air raid shelters at Christ's Pieces where he committed suicide.
Ter Braak was buried in an unmarked grave in the village cemetery at Great Shelford.
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There was a campaign to allow a memorial stone to be placed on his grave four years ago. In May 2017, Great Shelford Parish Council agreed to allow the family to erect a memorial stone on the grave using his real name Engelbertus Fukken
The gravestone was being organised by Ter Braak’s family in Holland. They had proposed the following wording:
Engelbertus Fukken (Ter Braak’s real name)
28 VIII 1914 The Hague, 30/31 III 1941 Cambridge.
The Parish Council gave their go ahead for the gravestone. However the family in Holland decided in March 2019 that the costs of the gravestone were too high and they decided not to go ahead after all. .
There is a MI5-file on Ter Braak in the National Archives (KV2/114) which can be downloaded.
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A book about Ter Braak, called "Hitler's spy against Churchill" by Leven en dood van Jan Willem ter Braak will be be published in spring 2002 by
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The story featured in the Mail Online, Cambridge News, the Mirror and the Sun. It also featured on Anglia TV.
Julie Deane OBE, from Great Shelford, co-founded the Cambridge Satchel Company wiith her mother Freda Thomas in 2008, with just £600. The company’s turnover is now in excess of £13m. The leather satchels are handmade in the UK and sold in 86 countries. In April 2013 the company won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise.
In June 2021, Julie was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her services to Entrepreneurship and British Manufacturing and awarded a CBE.
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Dreaming up business ideas to raise money to send her daughter Emily to private school as she was being bullied, Julie realised she couldn’t find good quality, reasonably priced satchels like the ones worn by Harry Potter and his friends, a book the family were reading at the time. With just £600 to invest, the idea for The Cambridge Satchel Company was born.
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“It was awful when my daughter Emily was being bullied at school and I thought how can I fix this?’ the Great Shelford entrepreneur told the Financial Times. “I saw a great school for her and needed school fees.”
“It gave me passion and energy and a purpose, and that’s what you need to be driven, rather than just thinking that you’d like to be an entrepreneur.”
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In four years Julie Deane has gone from stay-at-home mum to international trendsetter, while her company has gone from a kitchen table to sales of (Picture - courtesy of the Daily Mail) more than £1 million a month. And it all started with a list…
At first she struggled to find anyone who bought into her vision, or who could make traditional satchels, but she kept going – eventually finding a company in Hull that still had all the original 1970s equipment to make them. Not convinced they would be a big hit, the firm still made six samples for her.
She made the company’s website herself from a £19.99 template, while her children’s classmates modelled the bags for photos for the website. The six samples took weeks to sell. But all the while Deane was busy publicising her business, telling her story.
Although the initial samples were brown and black, one customer requested a red satchel and Julie decided to make the bags in an array of colours – a decision that proved to be a success.
Currently some 900 bags a day are being produced at its factory, there are sales figures of £1.3 million a month, 84 direct employees and she’s working with five UK manufacturers.
The satchels have appeared in the window display of Bloomingdale's in New York, are sold in places like Harrods and Selfridges.
Press coverage
Wolf Reik is the former Director of the Babraham Institute who is a leading authority on epigenetics.
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In 2021, Reik, who live sin Great Shelford, resigned as the director of the Babraham Institute to lead a new UK institute being built by Altos Labs.
Altos Labs is exploring what happens when human skin cells are reporgrammed.
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With $3bn financial backing , Altos has signed up a dream team of scientists to work at two labs in the US and one in the UK. Their aim is to rejuvenate human cells, not with an eye on immortality – as some reports have claimed – but to stave off the diseases of old age that inexorably drive us to the grave.
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Read The Guardian article about their vision.
Christopher Jenkin from Great Shelford was awarded the British Empire Medal in October 2020 for services to the homeless in Cambridge during Covid-19.
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He is now chairman of It Takes a City (ITAC), a homelessness charity in Cambridge, which he set up in 2018 as a group of voluntary organisations, businesses, faith groups and individuals committed to sharing the city’s prosperity with a focus on ending local homelessness.
Christopher says the charity was not started to provide services to anyone, but to coordinate the set-up of new services which others would then provide.
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During the Covid pandemic, the charity provided food, support, essential items and companionship to people housed in emergency accommodation.
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He was also a driving force in establishing the Cambridge Street Pastors, a volunteer group who patrol the streets on Friday and Saturday nights to help rough sleepers.
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ITAC has worked with many other organisations to help homeless people, including Cambridge City Council, restaurant chain Cambscuisine, Wintercomfort, St Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, the Salvation Army, Cambridgeshire County Council and volunteers from many other charities.
Photo courtesy of the Cambridge Independent.
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A £2.7m lifeboat at Shoreham Harbour lifeboat station is named after former Great Shelford resident Enid Collett.
This lifeboat was launched in 2010. It was funded by the generous bequests of Miss Collett who lived at High Street, Little Shelford, together with other gifts and legacies
Online tour of the Edith Collett
Pete Bassett has worked with some of the biggest artists in the world including:
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· Guns’n’Roses
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· Rod Stewart
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· Bill Wyman
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· The Bee Gees
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· Candi Staton.
Pete, who lives in Great Shelford, now runs the Quite Great! agency. He is also a Great Shelford Parish Councillor.
He was the Head of PR for MCA records encompassing the Geffen label , then Head of Press at Polydor, looking after Motown , Mother and , Fiction.
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Pete launched Guns 'n' Roses legendary Use your Illusion 1 and 2 with a very special delivery of albums in a tank at midnight to a key shop on Regent Street grabbing headlines and bringing central London to a standstill.
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Pete set up Quite Great! In 1996 using a name given to him by his then 5 year-old son Louie who used the phrase to express his excitement whilst watching England’s football team in their game against Holland in the Euro ’96 .
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Read more about Pete and his work at https://www.quitegreat.co.uk/
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Links to other pages on Great Shelford Online
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​Great Shelford news
https://www.greatshelford.online/newsletter2024
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Great Shelford events
www.greatshelford.online/events
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Great Shelford businesses
www.greatshelford.online/businesses
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Great Shelford community groups
www.greatshelford.online/community-groups
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Great Shelford and East West Rail
www.greatshelford.online/east-west-rail
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Well known people from Great Shelford
www.greatshelford.online/village-people
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Great Shelford Parish Council
www.greatshelford.online/parish-council
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Great Shelford health information
www.greatshelford.online/health
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Great Shelford planning
www.greatshelford.online/planning
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Great Shelford history
www.greatshelford.online/history
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Great Shelford environment
www.greatshelford.online/environment
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Great Shelford housing
www.greatshelford.online/housing
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South Cambridgeshire District Council and Great Shelford
www.greatshelford.online/scambs
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Our sister websites
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The Little Shelford community website
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