Category: People
September 10, 2023|Local People | Personal memories
Ron Burt – Looking after St. Nicholas churchyard and other memories
Ron is in his eighties and has lived in Wickham since the age of three. He has always been involved with St. Nicholas Church, later looking after the churchyard and also reading lessons. Ron still opens the church each day. Following the Canadian Pipe Band During the war there was a Canadian pipe band based…
Find Out More »February 18, 2023|Buildings | Local People | Personal memories
A Farming Life – Memories of farming at Great Fontley Farm
Great Fontley Farm, Titchfield Lane, Wickham – a Grade II listed building dating back to the 16th century Jenny Mallett has lived at Great Fontley Farm, on Titchfield Lane, most of her life – these are some of her memories of her family’s time farming and living there. “My parents (Commander Harold & Betty Dickson)were…
Find Out More »February 6, 2022|Local People | People
Joseph Ratty – A man of good character
In 2021, Sandie Vigar was looking through books belonging to her late mother-in-law and came across a Book of Common Prayer that had been presented to a Joseph Ratty in 1854. Although no definite connection with the family has been established, Sandie passed the book to Wickham History Society to ask in their best David…
Find Out More »November 25, 2020|People | Personal memories
Helen Talbot – Growing up in Hundred Acres in the 40s and 50s
I lived in Hundred Acres from 1944 till 1964 when I left to study in Edinburgh. My parents were born in Portsmouth and spent most of the war years in the New Forest while my father taught the children from his school who were evacuated from Portsmouth. Later, he was moved to the Spitfire factory…
Find Out More »July 22, 2020|Local People | Personal memories | Second World War | Wartime Wickham
Joan Dennis – Living in Wickham, working in Portsmouth
My grandfather, Mr Bailey, was headmaster of Wickham School before the first World War – he died in 1921. However by the time the Second War started, I was in my last year at school, having been at school in Wickham, then Fareham, and Hilsea. The whole school at Hilsea was evacuated to Leigh Park…
Find Out More »
July 20, 2020|Notable people | People
Arthur Hamilton Lee, 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham
Arthur Hamilton Lee, who was elevated to the peerage in 1918, was the tenant of Rookesbury Park from about 1900 to 1912. A soldier, politician, diplomat, patron of the arts and philanthropist, Arthur Lee served as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, and First Lord of the Admiralty following the Great War. He donated his country…
Find Out More »July 19, 2020|Local People | Personal memories | Second World War
Yvonne Case – Business as usual at the Bakery
Throughout 1940, strenuous efforts were made to keep all normal services running as usual — the local buses stopped briefly only during air raids, and postmen climbed over rubble to deliver the mail. Cases Bakery Vans c.1950 During the worst period, one night the two main bakeries in Portsmouth were put out of action….
Find Out More »July 19, 2020|Local People | Second World War | Wartime Wickham
Joan Bramley – Finding happiness during the War
Joan was 13 when war broke out and living with her parents in School Road and her grandmother lived in the same road. She was attending Fareham Girls School, but remembers Miss Warren, headmistress of the Primary School, telling her that the autumn term for the younger children would be delayed until air raid shelters…
Find Out More »July 19, 2020|Local People | Personal memories | Second World War
Carol and Susan Robbins – Two Sisters’ Memories
My sister (Carol Hazard) and I were born and brought up on the Winchester Road, just opposite Begs the Vets. Our maternal Grandmother, Mrs Lizzie Isaac May lived in the little black and white cottage in the square which is now the wine bar. In those days it was a beautiful cobbled village. She lived…
Find Out More »July 19, 2020|Local People | Personal memories | Second World War
Evelyn Maulden – Bells rang for her wedding just after D-Day
I was at school at Rookesbury before the war – we had no electricity or running water, in fact the water supply was due to a massive ram pumping water up from the river. When the the house was taken over by the RASC in 1940, this proved to be a blessing in disguise, as…
Find Out More »
