D Day at Hardway

I was born in 1940 in Lyndhurst, where my mother had been a pregnant evacuee from Gosport. After a few years, (my father having been killed in the Western Desert,) she decided to return to Gosport. To get over the loss of my dad, she decided to take on some hard manual work. She joined Dyer's Dairy as a milk girl, starting at 7 in the morning and pushing a milk cart around the area delivering the daily pinta. This was after dumping me off at a local 'kindergarten' (though it wasn't called that in THOSE days!).
Dyer's Dairy was located at Hardway, which is at the northern end of Gosport on Portsmouth harbour. To get to this area my mother needed a special pass, for reasons that only later became apparent.
In June of 1944, the kiddy's school was closed and my mother took me on her milk round, me sitting on top of the milk cart.
St. Thomas's road, which was on my mothers' milk round, was full of tanks, and other khaki painted vehicules. My mother gave the boys a few bottles of milk "left over", for which they were quite grateful - they had been there a few days and were not allowed to leave their vehicules. I found out much later that the ladies in the road made them a bit to eat (remember, we were on rations at the time) and cups of tea.
A few days later all was gone, no tanks, DUKWs or jeeps. All had gone down the hards to Normandy.
Gosport was a strange place for a young boy at that time - although at the seaside, everything was 'off limits' - Stokes Bay was not de-mined until 1950. Most of the old area by the ferry had been destroyed (and a more rat infested place you could not imagine). My mother was able to get to be the 'manageress' (and sole chief cook etc.) of the Stoke Road branch of the dairy, as she realised the men would be coming home and wanting their old jobs back.

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