Memories of Chandlers Ford

Personal Memories of Chandlers Ford in the 1940's - 50's by Peter Smith

World War II

Until the summer of 1940, Chandler's Ford seemed little affected by the war, except for the call-up of local men for military service or the Home Guard or the compulsory requirement for some men to serve as Air Raid Precaution (ARP) wardens, and the introduction of a wide range of wartime regulations, including rationing.

My father had to do serve several evenings a week as an ARP warden, working from the local HQ in an underground shelter in Merdon Avenue, between its junctions with Tyrrell Road and Park Road. He was given a dark blue uniform and a white protective metal helmet with ARP painted in black on it. One of his duties was to go around checking that people had drawn their curtains and blackout material in their houses so that there were no chinks of light to attract enemy planes!

Soon, women without young children also had to join the forces or do other war-work. In Chandler’s Ford for example this could include making parts for aircraft and military equipment either at the large agricultural machinery works (Henry’s) in Bournemouth Road or at Vickers Aircraft in the big country house and grounds at Hursley Park several miles away. A large fleet of buses, both from the Hants and Dorset Bus Company and Southampton Corporation Transport, ferried workers in the mornings and evenings between the Southampton district and Vickers via Chandler’s Ford.

Some women worked on the farms and smallholdings as “Land Girls” (The Women’s Land Army), whose duties included coming round to collect food scraps for feeding to pigs. Families had to put left-over food and vegetables peelings into special dustbins placed in the streets. A number of women also worked at the large laundry in Park Road, but I don’t know how much of their work was directly in support of the country’s war effort. In recent years a lady who had been a “Land Girl” posted to the small-holding at Merrieleas House in Park Road/Brownhill Road, told me about her work there. This included looking after the cows which were kept in the adjoining meadow (now occupied by Merrieleas Drive).

During the war we learnt to recycle all kinds of materials, and not to waste anything particularly food -large quantities of which had been brought across the Atlantic from America and Canada by convoys of merchant ships at great risk from attack and sinking by German submarines. Very early in the war, aluminium saucepans were collected to help make aeroplanes, and garden railings were taken away for scrap iron which could be used to help build armaments and armoured military vehicles.

Perhaps I spent too much time playing in Monks Brook that very warm summer, but early in August 1940 I developed a large swelling in my neck and became very ill. My worried parents took me first to our GP, but not being satisfied with his diagnosis and lack of urgency, they took me straight away to another doctor in Chandler’s Ford. He told my father to take me immediately to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, where I had an emergency operation on my neck to relieve the swelling. I am not certain what the problem actually was, but I think it was something to do with some glands in my neck becoming infected. My parents blamed the stream for all this trouble and it was some time before I was allowed to play in or near it again!

There was no National Health Service (NHS) medical treatment in those days, but my father paid a few shillings a week (a shilling was 5pence in decimal currency) into a health insurance scheme which covered medical and hospital fees during illness. These health insurance arrangements lasted until the NHS began in August 1948 with its free medical care and treatment.

My stay in hospital for several weeks that summer, including time to recover, proved exciting. The aerial Battle of Britain had begun, and from my hospital bed looking out over the downs to the south of Winchester I could see during the long sunny daylight hours the vapour trails from aerial dogfights between Spitfires and Hurricanes and German fighters and bombers, and smoke from fatally-damaged planes crashing to the ground. Everywhere could be seen puffs of smoke in the sky from bursting shells fired by British anti-aircraft guns on the ground. Once home again from hospital, there were more planes to be seen battling overhead, and some planes crashed into surrounding fields, fortunately away from houses. I remember going to see the remains of a German plane in a field alongside Baddesley Road , opposite Knightwood, and people were taking small pieces for souvenirs.

After September 1940, following the success of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, which was a major factor in the Germans’ decision to halt their planned invasion of Britain, the Germans turned mainly to night-time bombing of industrial and military targets in large cities and towns, although there was also terror bombing of smaller cities and towns. Fewer German planes were seen during the day but occasionally a fighter would roar overhead defiantly, firing its guns at nothing in particular, and fortunately not usually hitting anybody or anything. After night-time German raids there were often large pieces of jagged metal (shrapnel) on the ground from British shells fired by anti-aircraft guns.

By that time Eastleigh Borough Council, like other local authorities, had provided brick-built reinforced shelters and underground shelters near houses for public use in the event of air raids, as they were stronger than houses for resisting bomb blast, although they would not survive a direct hit. Some people had half-buried shelters in their gardens. These shelters were called Anderson shelters, and there were also Morrison shelters, which were about 4 feet (120cm) high and constructed of steel plates bolted together and a steel frame, and which people built in a downstairs room in their houses. Morrison shelters could protect people from a house collapse caused by nearby bomb explosions but, like Anderson and public shelters, could not withstand a direct hit. We had a Morrison shelter in our house, and I would sometimes sleep in the shelter at night if there were enemy bombing attacks.

During the autumn of 1940, Southampton was the target for a number of heavy bombing attacks on British towns and cities, particularly those playing an important part in the war, such as factories producing weapons and other military supplies for the British armed forces, and docks where raw materials and goods from overseas were unloaded from ships. Very heavy bombing was inflicted on Southampton during the week-end of 30 November and 1 December 1940, when the docks were the main target. During those nights I was awake because of the noise from the bombing and I can remember seeing the orange-redglow in the sky as the centre of Southampton and the docks burned furiously from the German raids.

Residents of Chandler's Ford responded to the plight of people bombed out of their Southampton houses by taking them into their own homes temporarily. For several weeks after the blitz, we had a family of three from Shirley staying with us. They were all active Salvation Army members and were very busy in Southampton during the day helping to deal with the plight of the many homeless people. At about that time also, whole schools from the Portsmouth and Gosport naval areas were evacuated further inland, away from the Hampshire coast,and in December a number of refugees were housed in Kings Road School for several weeks, and so it was closed to local children for lessons during that period.

One school, Gosport County High, was evacuated and housed in Northend Secondary School, Leigh Road, sharing the building with the local senior schoolchildren from Eastleigh and Chandler’s Ford. A boy about 5or 6 years older than me came to live with us during the week, returning home by train each weekend to Gosport, where his father was a dockyard worker. He liked the countryside and we often went out together exploring the fields and woods during the year or so he lived with us before his school returned permanently to Gosport. Mother and I visited his home several times by train, and our families stayed in touch for many years afterwards.

I returned to hospital in Winchester for several days next year for the removal of my tonsils (an operation which was fashionable with the medical profession in those days), but by then the aerial war had changed mainly to artillery defence against German night-bombing raids, and there were no more aerial dogfights to be seen from my hospital bed.

In the months and weeks before D-Day on 6 June 1944, as well as being on a main route for the many military movements by road and by rail, parts of Chandler's Ford filled up with very large numbers of American and Canadian troops, vehicles and equipment, with their living and eating facilities mainly in the Hiltingbury area (it was highly secret at the time that these events were part of the preparations for D-Day, but everybody guessed that something big was going to happen). The main military area had restricted entry, and residents and tradesmen had to have a pass to go in and out.

In many parts of Chandler’s Ford, military vehicles were parked all along the pavements, which had been covered in gravel and clinker (ashes) to protect them from damage, or simply along the roadsides where there were no pavements; also, many junctions and crossroads had been reinforced with concrete to facilitate turning by tanks and tracked armoured personnel carriers.

One evening my mother was cycling back from visiting her parents in Pine Road when she saw King George VI and Winston Churchill talking with soldiers at the corner of Brownhill Road and Park Road, which were just outside the military restricted area at Hiltingbury. It may seem incredible now that the King and the Prime Minister could be seen by a member of the public in such circumstances, but throughout the war they were often out and about meeting members of the armed services, emergency services and the public, although unannounced beforehand for security reasons. In Chandler's Ford in particular it would have been essential not to draw attention to the enormous concentration of troops and military equipment in the area. There was usually publicity afterwards (although not for the visit to Chandler's Ford as it was just before D-Day), and these visits were a tremendous morale booster for those troubled times and much appreciated by everybody.

Around the time of D-Day in 1944 there was a seemingly endless procession of trains from the large military areas around Salisbury Plain and beyond taking allied troops to the embarkation zones, which we later learnt were along the south coast. Many troop trains stopped in Chandler’s Ford station because of rail congestion around the junction at Eastleigh, and the halted trains in Chandler's Ford carrying Americans were often besieged by children asking for gum and chocolate. Similarly, motor convoys of American troops led to cries of "Got any gum, chum?" The Americans usually threw out an assortment of goodies – chewing gum, chocolate and "K-rations" containing other delicious things, such as tins of cheese with ham, previously unknown to children being raised on wartime British rationing.

For local children, the arrival of the American and Canadian troops in Chandler’s Ford brought another bonanza -food from military kitchens, visits to cinema shows and other entertainment provided for the troops in tents and requisitioned large houses; and always boxes of army rations and chocolate of which the American troops seemed to have limitless quantities. A friend and I often sneaked into the American restricted military area after school to eat in a military canteen and then watch an early film or a show. I particularly remember a very good conjuror. We got in through a small gap in the barbed wire, but we were never challenged; the soldiers had more important things on their minds. Then, quite soon after D-Day, all the troops had left for France, but now, almost as a last gesture of defiance, the Germans started to use their V1 and V2 rockets over much of southern England, although this menace soon ceased as the allied troops quickly overran and destroyed the missile launching sites in France, Belgium and Holland. However, before the launch sites were neutralized, several V1 doodlebugs landed in Chandler's Ford, including one which destroyed a house in Pine Road near its junction with Hiltingbury Road, killing two of the family living there, and badly damaging several nearby houses.

I can still remember the night of this late German V1 raid (19 July 1944, I think). Mum, dad and I were with some neighbours in the public air raid shelter nearby as by then we had dismantled our Morrison shelter thinking that there would be no more air raids. We could hear the loud throbbing noise of a "doodlebug" coming over fairly low in the sky (they were in fact simply small pilot-less planes launched from ramps). As it was just after mid-summer, it was not really dark, and we took the risk of going outside when it was very close with its engine still chugging away. We saw it pass almost overhead going north towards the Hiltingbury area. Moments later we heard the motor stop and followed by a very loud bang as it exploded in Pine Road. An uncle and aunt of mine had to be temporarily rehoused as their nearby house in Hiltingbury Road had been rendered uninhabitable.

The next school morning my best friend said the doodlebug's engine had stopped as it was passing over his house off Oakwood Road, and it then glided down to explode in Pine Road a couple of hundred yards away. As in Southampton after the blitz of November 1940, the immediate area of the explosion was one of devastation, with pieces of furniture and personal possessions and shoes and clothing strewn around and among the rubble and in trees nearby.

Some indications of the temporary military occupation remained for a few years afterwards, for example a large water tower built in Sherwood Road to supply the troops. There was also some military equipment left behind, such as petrol cans, tools, life jackets, torches, wash-room facilities and kitchen and eating utensils, but never guns or other weapons.

VE and VJ -DAYS and post-World War II

On Tuesday 8 May 1945 (VE Day) the war in Europe ended officially, and there was much joy and celebration. Church bells rang out to end their enforced wartime silence; if rung during the war they would have signalled a German invasion! On 7 May I was in lessons at Kings Road School, when we heard the exciting news from our class teacher that the war was over, and that the next day would be a school holiday. In fact for everybody VE Day was a public holiday, and in the afternoon and evening there were street parties with bonfires and much merrymaking which went on well into the night, and some parties were still going strong the next day.

The war in the Far East against Japan came to an end 3 months later, during the school summer holidays. The exact day was VJ Day, 15 August 1945, after the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was another public holiday with more street parties. This time there was not quite the sense of utter relief and joy that VE Day had brought, as the war with Japan had been far away and had not threatened life in Chandler’s Ford as had war with Germany. I was only 10 and I was over-awed by the radio and newspaper reports that the new weapons used against Japan were more horrific and much more powerful than anything used previously in the 1939-1945 conflict. Fortunately, nuclear weapons have never been used since in war by any of the dozen or so countries which have to date developed their own, and such weapons have so far been a major deterrent against further global conflicts like the Second World War.

Gradually peacetime life in Chandler’s Ford returned to normal, although it would be many years before all wartime rationing of food, sweets, clothes, furniture and household goods finally ended (in 1954). At first there were shortages also of coal, gas and electricity, and the winter of 1947 was one of the longest and coldest of the 20th century, with very deep snow for several weeks. However, very quickly after VE day, the gas lights in the village streets were repaired and lit again at night for the first time since 1939. Local roads and pavements, which had been badly damaged by American and Canadian tanks and other military vehicles awaiting the D-Day embarkation from the South Coast, were quickly restored to good condition. Gradually local servicemen began returning to their families and civilian life. Long-missed goodies such as bananas and ice cream reappeared, although in small quantities at first, and queues quickly formed when news spread of the arrival in the village of these treats. There were still very few cars on the roads as they were expensive to buy and maintain, and fuel was strictly rationed, but public transport by bus and train was cheap, reliable, frequent and widely used, both for local and long journeys. The Hants & Dorset bus company desperately needed more vehicles to meet the high demand for bus travel, and they acquired some ancient red London buses with outside, open stairs to reach the top deck, on which I sometimes travelled to school in Winchester during 1946.

Like other German (and Italian) prisoners-of-war in Britain, those prisoners who had been housed in two large, closely-guarded camps in Chandler’s Ford (Hiltingbury Road and Hut Hill) after their surrender, did not immediately return to their country after the war ended. They had to help local farmers with tending the livestock and crops, or do other work, such as in forestry and cleaning out rivers, which had been neglected during the war while British workmen had been away serving in the armed forces. It would be several years before most of the prisoners of war were sent back to Germany from Chandler’s Ford, but a few got married to local girls and settled here.

Chandler’s Ford was also home for the duration of the war for many evacuees from Southampton (about 5 miles away), whose homes had been destroyed by the intensive German aerial bombing of the port there in the early years of the war. There were also refugees from Poland and other Eastern European countries, who had fled to Britain either at the start of the war, or later in the war as the Soviet Red Army advanced through their countries towards Germany. All the evacuees and refugees lived in what were described at the time as temporary, pre-fabricated dwellings (but known locally as ‘the hutments’), in two areas of Chandler’s Ford. However, because of shortages of building materials, it would be many years before sufficient permanent housing was built to replace that destroyed by the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe), but eventually even the ‘hutments’ themselves were replaced by traditional houses.

The Railway Station

The railway station at Chandler's Ford, then part of the Southern Railway, was much used during the war because private transport was banned, except for official war business, and the trains were the only practical way of travelling to direct Romsey, Andover, Salisbury and beyond, or to Fareham and Portsmouth. However, there were bus services to Winchester, Southampton and Eastleigh and a daily “Royal Blue” coach-service to London and Bournemouth, both of which could readily be reached also by trains calling at Eastleigh. There were, however, posters everywhere asking people “Is Your Journey Really Necessary”. Coal and other freight were also delivered to the station by a goods train several times a week, and which spent a leisurely couple of hours shunting, including taking away empty wagons.

A large number of railway men living in Chandler’s Ford and working at the locomotive works and carriage works in Eastleigh were regular users of the train about 7.05 am to Eastleigh and they returned from Eastleigh at about 5.15pm (earlier on Saturdays). I remember my grandfather, who worked in the carriage works, getting off the train from Eastleigh and then walking up Park Road to his home in Pine Road. He should have retired in 1939 when he reached 65, but skilled older men like him were much needed during the war to help keep the railways running.

The train service was still basically that operated by Southern in the 1930s, but included a single Great Western Railway train for Salisbury, Bristol and Cardiff which called at Chandler’s Ford on weekdays at about 8.30am. The last train to Chandler’s Ford from Eastleigh about 10.15pm was later than the last bus, which departed at 8.30 pm while the two cinemas shows did not finish before ten o’clock. I liked to go into Eastleigh by train. The return fare for a child under 14 was 3 old pence (1½p in decimal currency), and by bus it was 2 old pence. However, I preferred the train ride, as it went right into Eastleigh Station where fast main line expresses to Southampton and London could be seen at close hand thundering through.

Freight and mail trains ran non-stop through Chandler’s Ford during the night, and the first passenger train to Romsey calling at about 6.15am also brought mail and newspapers. A local newsagent took the morning papers on an iron-wheeled station barrow to his shop. Similar barrows were also used by postmen from the Chandler’s Ford Post Office to carry bags of mail and parcels to and from the station, and local deliveries were made from the small sorting office behind the Post Office in The Parade, Bournemouth Road by postmen walking or on bicycles. There was also a telegram delivery service from the Post Office by uniformed telegram boys, as few people had phones. There were however about half a dozen red public phone boxes around the village, also used by policemen on their bicycle patrols to report to their senior officers in Eastleigh (no ‘Dr Who’-type police telephone boxes in Chandler’s Ford)!

During the war,and for a few years after, Chandler's Ford station had a Station Master,who lived with his family in the Station House just inside the Hursley Road entrance; the staff included also a ticket clerk, a signalman and some local men who maintained the railway lines in the Chandler’s Ford area. The facilities at the station did not include a refreshment room. However, there was a small single-storey sweet-shop/tea room (owned by a Mr and Mrs Hoar) almost opposite the station entrance in Hursley Road and during working hours this was always busy serving railway workers and the coal delivery men who bagged up coal from railway wagons in the station yard. There were at least 4 coal delivery firms as coal was then the main source of heat in people's homes -there was virtually no, if any, gas, oil or electric central heating, although a few houses had coal-fired heating and hot water systems).

Another feature of train services through Chandler’s Ford of particular interest to ‘train spotters’ was the use from time to time of recently-repaired mainline Southern engines of all sizes, including large main line express engines, to haul the local trains between Eastleigh and Romsey and back in ‘running-in turns’ before returning to their normal duties. At other times, small elderly tank-engines were usually used for the local services.

Not surprisingly as photography was prohibited during the war, I have never seen any photos of wartime Chandler’s Ford Station. However, the story of the station, from its opening by the London and South Western Railway in 1847 to its closure by British Railways in 1969 is told, with pictures and maps, in “Fareham to Salisbury via Eastleigh” by Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith (Middleton Press, 1989), ISBN 0-906520-67-3. There are also two excellent pictures of the station taken in the 1960s from the Bournemouth Road over bridge on page 76 of “The Heyday of Eastleigh and its Locomotives” by Tony Molyneaux and Kevin Robertson (Ian Allan Publishing, 2005),ISBN 0-7110-3088 –X.

See also http://www.chandlersfordonline.com/history/photos.htm for historic pictures of Chandler’s Ford railway station, one showing the start of the rail track to the Brickfield Lane brickyard – the only one of the four brickyard's in the village to have a rail link, even if horses rather than steam locos pulled the trucks to and from the station. I don’t know when the link was built but it is shown on a 1890 Ordnance Survey map of the station area.

The re-opening of Chandler’s Ford Station in 2003 with an hourly service 7 days a week has provided a welcome opportunity to go down memory lane by travelling again by rail to Eastleigh and Romsey and back, albeit on modern trains, but still through the largely unspoilt country between Chandler’s Ford and Romsey, particularly after Flexford overbridge. Unfortunately, the landscape between Eastleigh and Chandler’s Ford has been transformed by the many housing and industrial estates alongside the railway. Unlike the main line between London - Southampton and the Eastleigh - Portsmouth line, the line has not been electrified and carries modern multiple unit passenger diesel trains, as well as diesel-hauled l freight trains.

King’s Road School

My first school was King's Road Junior School -a local authority mixed school for children aged 5 to 11 years. I do not remember the actual first day at school, but I have some early memories of walking with my mother to and from home in Hiltingbury Road, near the top of Pine Road, about 1 mile each way. My mother never learnt to drive a car, but in those days nobody went by car to school anyway, and even the teachers walked or came by bicycle or bus.

My first teacher was Miss Bourne in the Infant (Reception) Class, and subsequently my teachers were Mrs Adams (Year 2),Mrs Tanton (Year 3),Mrs Bean (Year 4)and Mrs Drover (Year 5). There were two other teachers (MrLush and Miss Cockerill), but I was never in their classes. Sometimes we had what are now known as “supply teachers” (I can remember a Mrs Empringham, Mrs Grafton and Mrs Stocker) when the usual teachers were absent. There were no classroom assistants, nor a school secretary.

I don’t think I spent a whole school year in each of the lower classes, but finally spent two years in Mrs Drover’s class (called “Standard IV”). The Headteacher (then called Headmistress) was Miss Beatrice Goulding, who had been at King's Road since soon after the school was built in 1908 to cope with the growing child population which the original small village school (my father’s old school) at the corner of Bournem outh Road/School Lane had been unable to meet. Miss Goulding had white hair and seemed very, very old. She came to school daily by bus from Winchester, and was affectionately known to her pupils as "Granny" Goulding, but she would nevertheless punish children for major infringements of discipline, such as fighting in the playground, or after being sent to her by a teacher for disruptive behaviour in class. Sometimes she would smack the palms of the child’s hands with a wooden ruler or a small cane. It was more of a gentle admonishment than a
punishment and was even a welcome warming of the hands on cold days!

After a few months, we moved home to Hursley Road and I was able to walk to and from school alone, as it was only a few hundred yards away. My mother no longer came with me or to meet me, and my father never did. In those days it was safe for children to be out alone. There was little traffic at that time as few people had cars, but anyway private motoring was prohibited because of the war. Until nearly my last year at King's Road I came home at midday for lunch (or dinner as it was called then by most people) as we did not have school meals provided until late in the war at first in the Ritchie Hall next to St Boniface Church in Hursley Road, a short walk from the school and to which we went in a long “crocodile” with teachers along King’s Road and up through Church Cut by old ‘Granny’ Bailey’s thatched cottage (long ago demolished in the name of progress!). A school dinner at that time cost the equivalent of 2p per day in decimal money, and was not part of a family’s wartime food rations. Later a canteen was built at Kings Road School which was in use in my final school year there, and for many years later. Eventually it made way for a new school assembly hall, the opening of which I attended by kind invitation of the Headteacher in September 2002. I also attended the Open Day and Fête held in 2008 to celebrate the school’s centenary, again with many personal memories to enjoy.

Life at King's Road School during the war was very much the same as in other schools. At first, in the early part of the war, we had to take our gas masks to school and we had regular practice at putting them on. School windows, like homes, had transparent anti-blast material glued to the glass to minimise damage from windows being blown in. After the Luftwaffe blitz of Southampton, Gosport and Portsmouth in December 1940, the school was closed for a few weeks to accommodate refugees who had to leave their damaged or destroyed homes. When school resumed, lessons were frequently held in the air raid shelters in the school grounds. We went into the large earth-covered shelters when the air raid siren warning sounded (nicknamed "Moaning Minnie"), and remained there until the all clear siren was given. The teachers tried to continue lessons, but I remember that we mainly sang songs such as "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and “Ten Green Bottles”. One day the Headmistress wrote a letter by hand to my mother saying that I had lost my war savings-stamp money (decimal equivalent 12.5p) on my way to school,but as I had been a good boy, she would pay for the stamp herself! I only learnt of this letter many years later (see pp. 12 and 13 below).

Although no children at King's Road School were killed or injured during the war by German air attacks, there was nevertheless a tragedy which affected the school. A small boy of about 7 years old called Brian Gill (who was in my class, and lived at “Pinedale” in Station Lane) was killed in May 1941 by an army lorry as he crossed Bournemouth Road near the main shopping area. It was very sad, and we all gave a few pennies for a small heart-shaped memorial plaque on his grave in the old Chandler's Ford cemetery in Pine Road, with the words "To Brian from his Friends at Kings Road School". The plaque was on his grave for many years afterwards. However, unlike today, there was no counselling for school children or teachers or parents grieving the death of a child, and we all just had to get on with our wartime lives.

I remember little detail of actual school life in the classroom, apart from one small incident in Year 2. We were about to start a music lesson with some singing, and as we got up to take our places, a boy bumped into another boy, who fell against a desk and broke his wrist. Throughout my time at Kings Road pupils sat in pairs in rows of desks facing the teacher. There was considerable emphasis on the "3 Rs", particularly reading aloud, word spellings, and the mathematical "times tables" -which we had to learn by "parrot" chanting together from 1 times 1 up to 12 times 12! There were as yet no ball-point pens, so for writing we used a wooden pen with a steel nib which we dipped into an inkwell set into the corner of each desk. The ink was made by mixing a blue-black powder with water, which was the job of an "ink monitor" -a pupil chosen at random by the teacher when the need for making a fresh supply of ink or refilling inkwells arose. At that time there were no hand calculators or computers/internet or mobile phones to disrupt lessons, as all of these gadgets had not yet been invented; nor were there TV or radio in classrooms. No homework was ever given at
Kings Road, but in the last 2 years at the end of each term pupils were given progress reports for parents to read (see page 14 below). There was no school uniform, nor parents’ evenings to discuss pupils’ performances.

School inspections by a lone Inspector occurred from time to time but these were much less intrusive and less structured than the present day OFSTED inspections. Another regular official visitor to the school was the “Truant Officer” (Mr Pullinger) who came on his bicycle to ask the Headmistress for the names of missing pupils, and he would then cycle off to their homes to ask parents the reasons for absences. Most homes did not have phones, and I think possibly the school didn’t either. Sometimes a “Nit Nurse” would come to inspect the children’s hair for head-lice!

My favourite lesson was nature study which reflected the changing seasons. In the spring we brought frog-spawn to school from a nearby pond in King’s Road and watched it develop into tadpoles which we released back into the pond. In the autumn we brought coloured leaves to draw and paint. Sometimes the teacher (by herself) took the whole class along Kings Lane up as far as Brownhill Road and back, to look at the local flora and fauna. Once I found a chaffinch’s nest with eggs in a low tree, and one year there was a spotted flycatcher’s nest in a disused lamp-post at the end of this lane in Brownhill Road. On one occasion we crossed Winchester Road and went along a track opposite the end of Kings Road to what was known as the “Bunny Field” where there were rabbits, and in the Spring lots of primroses and bluebells. There were many species of animals, birds, reptiles and fish in Chandler’s Ford at that time.

There were no team games at school such as football, hockey, cricket or netball, but this was normal at that time for a school like King’s Road. However sometimes we had compulsory “drill” organized by our class teacher, and held outside in the playground in all but the most inclement weather. We did physical activities such as “running and jumping on the spot”, and playing rounders with a tennis ball. In winter break times children made slides on the frozen playground or played in the snow. In autumn there were rounds of “conkers” to be played using horse chestnuts from the many trees in the village. All year round marbles, “hop-scotch” and skipping were popular, along with boisterous chasing games such as “tag” and “top and tail”.

The usual childhood illnesses went the rounds in those years -at the time there was only immunisation against diphtheria (which my mother never took me for, nor for any other vaccination or immunisation) -so while at Kings Road I had mumps, measles and chicken pox, but fortunately never diphtheria or scarlet fever (which were treated by a stay in the local isolation hospital, in open country off Oakmount Road, as they were very infectious). More serious illnesses such as tuberculosis were treated at the Sanatorium in Pine Road. A girl in class caught tuberculosis and was away from school for over a year, but she survived and I have met her again in recent years. Polio (then called “infantile paralysis”) was not widespread until several years after the war when there was a major epidemic, but fortunately it did not touch me or any of my close friends, although the son of a local businessman was partially disabled by polio. I had, however, wanted to catch chicken pox at Kings Road -to avoid having to take the lead part as the Angel Gabriel in the school nativity play at Christmas 1942; chicken pox was going the rounds, and although I felt unwell I did not fully develop the illness until after the end of that term and in time for Christmas!

In the later part of the war, big changes in secondary education were planned for implementation when the war ended. The 11+ scholarship examination for entry to grammar schools was introduced in 1945 and during the spring that year, nearly at the end of the war in Europe, I went with fellow classmates to the area examinations held in Northend School, Eastleigh in Leigh Road. The exam was in two parts ("an intelligence test" and the "3 Rs"). You had to pass the first part to be able to take the second, which was several weeks later. I was successful in both parts, but remember mainly that after each part we did not have to go back to school, so my best friend and I went "train-spotting" on the Campbell Road railway bridge near Eastleigh Station and adjacent to the loco sheds and works. I think at Kings Road 9 children were successful in the 11+ exams in 1945; 3 girls and 6 boys including my best friend and myself.

I left Kings Road at the end of July 1945, shortly before the conclusion of World War 2 (VJ Day in August), so my whole time at the school had been during wartime. 65 years later those experiences of my first school remain very vivid in my mind.

Wildlife in the 1940s and 50s

The urbanization of Chandler’s Ford in the last 100 years or so has led to the loss of much natural habitat for wildlife species in the fields, streams, woods and heathland.

Among the birds which I remember could be seen and/or heard in the village in the 1940s/1950s (including summer residents) were: Barn Owl; Blackbird; Blackcap; Blue Tit; Bullfinch; Chaffinch; Chiffchaff; Coal Tit; Cuckoo; Dabchick; Dunnock (Hedge Sparrow); Goldcrest; Goldfinch; Greater Spotted Woodpecker; Great Tit; Greenfinch; Green Woodpecker; Hawfinch; Heron; House Martin; House Sparrow; Jackdaw; Jay; Kestrel; Kingfisher;Lapwing (Peewit);Lesser Spotted Woodpecker; Linnet;Long-tailed Tit;Magpie; Mallard; Mistle Thrush; Moorhen; Nightingale; Nuthatch; Partridge; Pheasant; Pied Wagtail; Red-backed Shrike; Robin; Rook; Skylark; Song Thrush; Sparrow Hawk; Spotted Flycatcher; Starling; Swallow; Swift; Tree Creeper; Tree Sparrow; Turtle Dove; Willow Warbler; Whitethroat; Wood Pigeon; Wren; Yellowhammer.

Fish in Monks Brook and its tributary streams included: Brown Trout; Bullhead (Miller’s Thumb); Eel; Lamprey; Minnow; Stone Loach (Catfish); Roach; Stickleback. Water voles lived in the banks of Monks Brook and other streams, and could be seen swimming in the water where deep enough.

There were also reptiles in ponds and ditches – such as frogs, toads, newts -while grass snakes and adders could be seen in their haunts in fields and heathland. There were rabbits and the occasional hare in fields. Red squirrels could be seen in many of the woods, as well as grey squirrels, and there were occasional glimpses of foxes, badgers and deer. On long summer evenings there were many bats flying around, their hi-pitched squeaks unheard except by young people!

Entertainment

There was no television during the war, and in any case it did not reach southern England until the mid-1950s, and then only in black and white for a few hours each day on one channel each from BBC and ITV. However, after the war, a few people on higher ground in Chandler’s Ford could receive fuzzy pictures from the BBC’s London transmitter, and I first saw it in the village towards the end of the 1940s. We had no TV at home before 1955, when ITV started. The main sources of news and home entertainment, apart from books, card and board games, magazines, comics, official war reports and newspapers, were the radio and the wind-up gramophone, although a few people had radiograms which played records through the radio’s internal loudspeaker. Like many homes in Chandler’s Ford at that time, we had no electricity, so our radio was battery-operated. Actually there were three batteries -a large 120-volt battery about 250 cm by 150 cm and about 100 cm thick; a smaller "grid bias" 9-volt battery (both these batteries had to be replaced every few months) and a re-chargeable lead-acid "accumulator" battery of some 2 volts, housed in a transparent a glass container and with a carrying handle; the accumulator had an overall life time of several years before needing to be replaced. However, it had to be re-charged at Mr Latham's shop in Hursley Road (one of several facilities of this kind in the village) every few weeks, so we also had a spare, allowing one to be on charge and one in use in the radio.

Mr Latham had a large area in his shop where he charged customers' accumulator batteries for a small fee, and he also sold batteries and did radio repairs, as well as bicycles and cycle accessories. Mr Latham also had a telephone in his shop which members of the public could use a sign outside said “You May Telephone From Here”. Otherwise the nearest public telephone kiosk was in Bournemouth Road, a few hundred yards away.

There were two BBC radio services (channels) during the war -the Home Service (important for news, particularly the 9 o'clock nightly bulletins, to which most people listened for news of the war) and the Forces Service which had mainly program mes of dance music and light entertainment (it became the “Light Program me” after the war). We could also tune into the German propaganda program me in English -“Germany Calling”, for which the presenter was an Englishman (William Joyce, also called “Lord Haw-Haw”). Nobody took Joyce seriously, but nevertheless after the war he was tried and hanged in 1946 for treason. The BBC was the only British broadcaster during the war and in the early post war years, with 3 radio and one television channel after the war. It was in fact 1955 before ITV started, and commercial radio got going in Britain in the 1970s. All radio was “national” program mes with some occasional “regional” variations. There was no local radio.

A very popular radio program me during the war was "ITMA" ("It's That Man Again") with the Liverpool comedian Tommy Handley, always broadcast at 8.30 pm on a Thursday, and containing numerous comic sketches about the Germans and wartime life generally; the Germans were always portrayed as figures of fun. There was also "Workers' Playtime" with radio and music hall stars which was broadcast live at lunchtime from factory canteens (location not given during the War for security reasons!), and during the morning and afternoons there was "Music While You Work"-lively dance band music broadcast especially for office and factory workers. After the war it became possible to tune into Radio Luxembourg -a continental commercial station broadcasting dance and popular songs (eventually called "pop") and entertainment such as quiz program mes with prizes (e.g. "Take Your Pick" and "Double Your Money"), into which BBC radio had not yet ventured. The first popular “soap-opera”, called “Dick Barton, Special Agent”, began in the late 1940s, but was short-lived, and the now still-running “The Archers” began in the early 1950s. Radio audiences gradually declined with the advent of TV and even further after ITV brashly burst onto the scene in 1955, but even in the mid-50s some radio program mes could still hold an audience of millions; “Journey into Space”, a weekly serial and the last radio program me to have a bigger audience than most television program mes.

Chandler's Ford had no cinema, but Eastleigh had two cinemas -the "Regal" and the "Picture House" opposite each other in Market Street. Sometimes I went to the pictures (as we then called the cinema) in Eastleigh with mum and dad, or occasionally with mum only. One evening mum and I got into a train at Eastleigh station to go home, thinking it was the last train to Chandler's Ford, but to our consternation it backed out of the station into a siding. Fortunately, it was summer and we were soon rescued by a railway worker who escorted us across the lines to await the correct train. Occasionally I would catch a bus down to Eastleigh and go to an aunt’s house and she or my cousin would take me to the pictures. They always went to the pictures on a Monday evening, usually every week, but mum and dad went less frequently, but always on a Thursday when they did.

It was very difficult for children under 16 to get into the pictures without an adult, unless an all-"U" certificate program me was showing. The cinema program me was normally a main film (“A”)plus a supporting (“B”)picture) with between the two films a newsreel and advertisements, sometimes also a cartoon, plus trailers for forthcoming films. The Regal had a cinema organ which came up out of the ground with a man playing it during the adverts which were silent; gramophone records were played in the Picture House, which did not have a cinema organ. I remember an advert for a local radio shop (Bryce Slade's) showing a man with headphones listening to an early crystal set radio -which was totally out of date and comical at that time as radios by then had built-in loudspeakers. Now headphones are back in vogue again on thinks like Walkmans and i-Pods.

On special occasions there would only be only one film, such as “Gone With The Wind", “The Wizard of Oz", “Bambi". For the more popular films, and nearly always on Saturday evenings, it was necessary to queue to get into a cinema. Sometimes there would be queues down both sides of Market Street for the two cinemas, even in wet weather. However, performances were continuous so it was not usually necessary to have to queue until the start of the next program me, but it could mean missing the start of a film and sitting through the entire performance including the interval until it came round to where you went in. This did not matter much with the supporting "B" picture, but was inconvenient for seeing the main feature. After the last evening showing of the feature film, people would rush for the exits before the National Anthem was played; those not in a hurry or not quick enough had by convention to stand still during the anthem!

After the war, the two cinemas started Saturday morning films for children, and for 3 pence (pre-decimal money) they both showed a cowboy film or a "swashbuckler", together with a cartoon and a “nail-biting” serial. However, I rarely saw a serial from start to finish on successive Saturdays; during term time, I had to go to school on Saturday mornings, and so Saturday morning cinema was for me a school holidays treat. The Eastleigh cinemas always had new films a few weeks after their release, and some people would go to Southampton cinemas to see the latest films.

The Ritchie Hall in Hursley Road was a much-used facility, including as a source of entertainment – such as parties, dances, occasional film shows, and plays performed by the local Chandler’s Ford amateur dramatic group. I recall their production of Noel Coward’s comedy “Blithe Spirit”. There were also lively political “hustings” for General Elections. Being next to St Boniface Church, it was also a convenient location for wedding receptions my wife and I were married in St Boniface on 16 July 1958, followed by a reception in the Ritchie Hall. We were able to attend a communion service in the church on the same date in 2008 as part of our Golden Wedding celebrations.

(Written originally to tell my grandchildren about life in the mid-20th Century).

Editor - My grateful thanks to Peter for his story about Chandlers Ford.