Hampshire

All Tanked Up - part 6

Thus we read that Canadian soldiers were involved in a number of vehicle accidents: such as the Bombardier...

Bombs on Bournemouth

Jack and Margaret both grew up in Bournemouth, Jack at North Cemetery Lodge, where his father was cemetery...

I Lived to Fly -Part 2

Tam and I taxied up the Halifax and the cable was attached. Charlie Cranmer and the boffin flew in the...

Daphne Cross - Land Army Life -Part one

Having just been to Sparsholt, the agricultural college in Hampshire, for a year the choice was pretty...

I Lived to Fly -Part 1

31 Halifaxes left Middleton St. George. As you take off the glider always rises above the tow aircraft,...

From Portsmouth to France and Back Again... Twice!

The rest of the family - Pepere, Memere, Serge, Violette, William and Ivy, with Guy following later -...

Machine-Gunned on Swanage Beach

It was a lovely place to be, and in the fateful August of 1942 that all Swanage people remember we shared...

Life in the Services 1939-46, Chapter 2

After many visits to the Royal Marine Sergeant at the local recruiting office, he reluctantly agreed to...

World War 2 - Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.

Monty is remembered more for his exploits as the Commander of the 8th Army in North Africa and the never to...

From Farmhand to Making Spitfires

The factory was always a prime target for the bombers but it was only towards the end of the war that the...

One Woman's War

Earlier of course we had been issued with gas masks like everyone else; a Mickey Mouse for the little boy...

Memories of a Girl Working in Beales [S.Ward]

I was in Directory enquiry on this girl came on and said do you know someone who takes lodgings in...

Entertaining in World War 2: A Concert Party in Southampton

As soon as I was qualified I wanted to go to work, and landed up atthe British Power Boat Company which was...

MY WAR IN THE WRNS (Officer Training & Postings)

Part 2 Plotting & Ops Officer HMS Eaglet Liverpool; HMS Phrosopine Orkney; HMS Heron I.O.W over D Day...

Through the eyes of a child: Memories of Portsmouth and Liverpool

I am wakened early - it's still dark as we catch the bus to Portsmouth Station -will the planes come...

A Wartime Memory - May 10th 1940

When i met Miss Blackadder she said the timing of my visit was fortuitous as it was expected to be a very...

Childhood Memories of War. Life in Cosham, Portsmouth.

I was 18 months old at the outbreak of war and lived in Freshwater Road at Cosham on what was known as...

Memories of the Second World War and the effect it had on my Family

My very early memories were when I was just four years old, I was living with my mother Mabel Jarvis and my...

All Tanked Up - part 4

It wasn't just the troops based in Headley”, said Pat Lewis, “we had the Canadian Army...

Wartime Experiences of a Girl in her Twenties [B.Devereux : Part 2]

Very soon I was working in an army records office Pioneer and Intelligence Unit, situated in Dunholme Manor...

Happy Hampshire Childhood

My father was musical director of Southampton Icerink and had his own dance band, my mother taught piano...

A Child’s Memories of 1939-1945

They flew over Burton Bradstock, having crossed the channel en route to bomb Bristol, Bath and Yeovil......

All Tanked Up - part 9

In early 1943, Pat Lewis remembers sharing the few Ram tanks the Sherbrookes had between their four...

All Tanked Up - part 10

There were four Canadian camps locally each named after one of the Canadian Great Lakes: Huron and Ontario...

VAD Andy's War

At the beginning of June 1940 I was called up by the Civil Nursing Reserve, and travelled to Blackburn...

A Limited Growing-Up

We lived with my grandparents, though, and my grandfather remembered the hopeless streams of refugees he...