Category: Wartime Wickham
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 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 »July 19, 2020|Local People | Personal memories | Second World War
Joyce Cleife – Cycling to Work
Joyce was l8 when war broke out and living with her parents in Fareham. She was working for Flux’s Laundry in their office in High Street, Gosport, handling the invoices for the luxury yachts that moored in the harbour. When war broke out, the yachts were commandeered and she was moved to the laundry’s office…
Find Out More »July 19, 2020|Local People | Personal memories | Second World War
Margaret Gwynn – A Schoolgirl’s Memories
My first memories are as a child living at No.7 Star Cottages, the two-up two-down middle cottage of three next to the Star Inn (now Greens). It did have electricity. It had no sink, no running water and no inside toilet or bathroom of any kind. That facility was up the garden where a wood…
Find Out More »July 19, 2020|Personal memories | Second World War
Anon – Planning for D-Day with Admiral Ramsay
I started my service in the WRNS aged 17 in 1944. I wore a plotter’s badge with DD under it. DD stood for “Drawing Duties”. I was called to HMS Vernon (Gun Wharf) in March 1944 and introduced to a Naval Lieutenant with whom I was to work. The work was on masses of charts…
Find Out More »June 19, 2020|Second World War | Wartime Wickham
Supporting the war effort – Spitfire production
During the Second World War, Park Place was turned into a factory sorting rivets used in the manufacture of the Spitfire fighter plane. At that time, James Bird, naval architect and aircraft engineer, was the owner of Park Place. In 1919 Squadron-Commander James Bird became a director of the Supermarine works at Woolston, buying the company…
Find Out More »May 29, 2020|People | Personal memories | Second World War
John Pearce – Memories of an Evacuee
At the outbreak of World War II, Portsmouth children were evacuated to the Isle of Wight. My mother refused to let me go, as she reasoned that if the Germans invaded our country, they would use the Isle of Wight as a bridgehead. However, when the bombing of Portsmouth became very bad early in 1940,…
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