Fareham area memories Part 1

I was born in Motherwell, Scotland 73 years ago. At the death of my father in 1938, our family of one sister and four brothers moved down South to London. We were split up and went to various aunties. I had a rich Aunty who lived in Grosveners Road in Westminster, a few hundred yards from “Big Ben”. Opposite was Castles Ship-breakers, where the old “Wooden Walls” of England’s Nelson’s Navy met their fate after surviving the Battle of Trafalgar. The wood was made into garden furniture and bags of fire wood. The only parts of the ship surviving was the giant ship’s figureheads. I took great interest in these ladies of the sea with the big bosoms and wooden smiles; over sixty odd years I’ve carved and made models of many of them and have become an authority in the subject, in which I have written a book to encourage young people to take an interest in our heritage.

Sadly, one night in 1940, during the beginning of the WWII blitz, 3 high explosive bombs dropped on the yard and all that was left was 3 large holes. I could at the time not believe that a few bombs could make such a large yard disappear. I guess that the target was Vauxhall Bridge or the Houses of Parliament. We were stuck in the middle. I am pleased that the gerries were bad shots and didn’t get the lovely Victoria Bridge or Big Ben, but sad that I’d lost my playground and my from 7ft to 17ft wooden giants of the sea. Fortunately, it spared our house with only broken windows. Shortly after that event, my mother remarried a serviceman in the army and we moved down to a village named Portchester in Fareham, Hampshire, quite near Monty’s Bungalow on Portsdown Hill. My step-father was in charge of the German P.O.W.s who he distributed to various farms as working parties. Few wanted to escape, despite the discomforts.

During WWII, I lived in the village of Wallington, opposite two square air-raid shelters built on the road verge.

My step-father, who was in the R.A., was stationed in Wallington Barracks at the top of the hill. The Canadian Tank Regiment had their tanks in the front gardens opposite St Peter & Paul Church. We cadged gum and cigarettes off the yanky servicemen and yes, we smoked behind the bike sheds amongst other things. Townies from London were already STREETWISE and were not in awe of death having seen many blitz victims. The things kids collected in those days was to see who had the biggest bit of shrapnel. One does not see any of it in WWII exhibitions. There were hundreds and thousands of bits spread about the country and not one bit found by archaeologists; metal detector buffs find bits and discard them. Why?? It’s our darn history!! People my age are far more interested in shrapnel than Saxon coins! I witnessed the Mullberry pontoons being built at Lee and the D-Day preparations. Walking to a 3 miles away school in Gosport was a breeze and yes there were just as many dangers around in 1943-44 for children as there is today.

More tea vicar? We used to have Sunday tea and sticky buns at the vicarage on Sunday School days. I later joined the R.N. and became a “Church of Turky” — ask any sailor what religion that is!

As a young lad in the mid 1940s, I lived in the village of Wallington, Fareham with a middle-aged couple by the name of BENNETT along with a younger brother. With an older boy from the village, I would take the giant shire horses used to pull the beer wagons that supplied the beer to the local pubs in Fareham and beyond. Two of these horses were killed in a field that was bombed by WWII gerry bombers discharging bombs that were left over from bombing raids on Pompey Harbour. On returning to London, I was evacuated to a town called KETTERING and HUNTINGDONSHIRE. Again, on return to London, I again found myself in Fareham around 1943-44 when the doodlebugs were sent to destroy the R.N. Dockyard. I then lived half-way up Portsdown Hill, near General Montgomery’s house and discovered one of the many tunnels under Portsdown Hill. We boys witnessed the building of the concrete boxes and coming up to the D-Day preparations where the Canadian Army tanks chewed up the lawns of the posh houses. They had to be hidden from spies etc. and were well camouflaged. My step-father, who was at that time stationed in Fort Wallington, built a machine gun fortified concrete box alongside the road leading up to the Fort from Cams Alders, stopping for a refreshing pint of beer at the Delme Arms, this concrete pill box was made using corrugated iron sheets and must be the most unusual pill box ever constructed by the army.

At a bridge crossing over the river Wallington, there is a plaque commemorating a young R.A.F. pilot who’s plane crashed in the field alongside the river. The resulting explosion killed a number of cows and horses. In the roadside hedges, the free range farm hens would lay up to a dozen eggs. We would remove them and sell them to restaurants for sweets, money and coupons. The odd piglet who strayed also supplemented our rations. One could call it stealing, but with a “war on”, farmers were the rich people at the time. They always appeared to be fat and jolly and they stole from the then government. We children knew the rackets they got away with in the “black market”. We used to help ourselves to milk from the milk urns that were awaiting to be collected by Parkers’ Dairies. I later worked with the milkman and his horse-drawn milk float. Milk in those days was dished out in a tin and brass pewter measure.

The cottage I lived in with my youngest brother was the home of a Mr & Mrs Bennett, who, if they were alive today, would be over 100. Opposite the cottages were two box air raid shelters which fortunately were not often used. I don’t recall any bombs being dropped on Wallington but they did attempt to bomb the railway bridge at the Delme and Fareham Quay. Some did not go off and must be buried some 60 to 80 feet below the mud. The Delme House was occupied by the Canadian Army who, unlike our army, tolerated children playing in the pond and surrounding beach. They would give us sweets and other treats that were on ration to we English. We told them about the ghosts and it only worried the sentries at the main gate opposite the Delme Pub, which apart from a missing wall and new entrance is virtually the same as it was when used by the allied servicemen. One thing I enjoyed at the time was “mucking out” and riding the 15 or so mares and one stallion up the hill to “Nelson’s Column” fields. The yanks took to them like ducks to water. They were riding the horses ‘wild west style’ and told us lads that they were real cowboys in the States. I suppose it did remind them of home and we used to say “got any gum chum?” Chewing gum and ‘Lucky Strike’ cigarettes could be exchanged for sugar, clothing and other items. My sister would do all my household chores for a pair of nylon stockings. As a schoolgirl, she would pencil in a line down the back of her legs to kid the other girls that she was wearing real nylon stockings. I dread to think what dye she used to colour her skin.

Fareham at that time was a farmers town where there was a live meat market with cattle, sheep, hens etc displayed in iron pens and wire cages. There was also the “Black Market” where I used to sell chicken and duck eggs that were ‘free range’. The descendents of these ducks still swim free in the river Wallington. Also from the river, we caught fish (no bailiffs in those days). On the farm, a strict check was kept on pigs’ litters by M.O.F. inspectors. But some piglets ended up in local restaurants - the perks of older boys from the West End of London who also were the sons of local servicemen in local army depots or camps.

1944 — 45

On yet another return to London, I was then, with my two brothers, sent to a school called Fortiscue House run by the Shaftesbury Homes. It was on the outskirts of London in Twickenham. I stayed there till the end of WWII and witnessed V.E. Day in front of Buck Palace and Trafalgar Square. By 1944 bombing raids on London were over and German air-raids were attacking military targets but, for us, half the excitement had not worn off as in early 1944 I lived on Portsdown Hill and it was the “doodlebug” run. You were OK so long as you could see and hear them coming but when the eerie silence was followed by a loud explosion you knew you were OK and that some other poor sod had copped their lot. These were then followed by an even more terrible weapon, the V2. One minute a road with over 100 houses was there ,the next large areas of flat surfaces with a lot of smoke. This period was the ‘wake up call’ for me. I thought, I’ve survived this long don’t bomb me off at the coming end of the war, but I was one of the lucky ones!

1945-46

On 8th February 1946, it was my 14th birthday and, on that day, my mother delivered me to the boys training ship, T.S. Arethusa, run by the Shaftesbury Homes, to which was one institution from another. At least I was streetwise and soon settled in. The only thing I found hard was the food rations. I’ve never felt so hungry in my life but soon cottoned on that the best fed lad was the captain’s flunky. I exchanged my collection of U.S. gum and cigarettes for his job. A bargain if I may say so, although one was then termed a “creep”! Albeit a well fed creep! I stayed on the ship that was named H.M.S. Peking until December 1947 and joined H.M.S. St Vincent on 9th March 1948 and then onto 12 years with the Royal Navy until 1960. The old T.S. Arethusa ended up in the Sea-Port Museum as a museum ship reverting to her merchant naval ship’s name of Peking. On a recent visit to the USA, N.Y., my first since 1949 on board H.M.S. Glasgow, a ship similar to the H.M.S. Belfast near the Tower Bridge in London, I was dismayed that, like me, she was getting older and worn out! But still majestic. I’d have loved to have seen her with all the other tall ships at the Sea Festivals in the City of Portsmouth. I talk on ‘Pal talk’ online on a Sunday morning with my old shipmates who trained with me on the T.S. Arethusa nee Peking. They too lived through WWII and like me had lost a mother or father and had lived through all that Hitler could deliver. It was an exciting and frightening time of our young lives — we were men before our time. One wonders how our grandchildren of today’s generation would have coped, bearing in mind that to sailors of the WWI we were a bunch of wimps.

(cont in Part 2)

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.