December 21, 2018|

Mrs Sherwood of 2 School Road, Wickham

Mrs Sherwood has lived in the same house for 53 years and remembers when there were only two other houses besides the School in the road.

To her the most striking change in the village was the starting of the busses and other transport. But she added that the people nowadays were less friendly and the “togetherness” which existed in the old days had disappeared. People went far afield for their pleasures and hardly knew each other.

Her husband worked on the railway for 45 years. The pay was poor and the hours long, 6am till 5.30pm and no Saturday afternoon off. He supplemented his earnings by keeping pigs and selling vegetables. She had 15/- a week to look after her first two children.

The great attraction of the Wickham Fair used to be the boxing booth.

Of the war years, she can only remember scrubbing the Church out every week and helping at the village hall when Gosport was bombed and the evacuees were sent out here.

From the WHS archives 1972