Chiseldon Camp memories
Here are memories of Chiseldon Camp and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Chiseldon Camp or a Chiseldon Camp photo.
Many Fond Memories 1955 - 56
Hi, I remember with fondness Chiseldon, being at the camp in 1955 and early 1956. My best memories are of Ma's cafe which we all visited throughout the week and the many times we visited the Saturday night dances at the British Legion hut. Relaxing times were also spent at the Patriots Arms. I also remember a nice young lady who came into Ma's cafe on many occasions with a little dog, I think her name was Wendy. I also remember walking a nurse back to Wroughton hospital and on reaching the hospital boundary found the time was 11:30pm, and I had to run like mad the full mile to Chiseldon camp to arrive on time or be marked as absent without leave. We were then shipped out to Libya and finished up in Malta and Cyprus. My very best wishes to Chiseldon. From Allan Reid, ex Duke of Wellingtons Regt.
Draycott Road.
I was born in Draycott Road, Chiseldon, short walk away from the camp. My early memories are of the Sunday morning church parades of the different regiments who were stationed there. The troops, in full military dress, along with the regimental band would march from the camp to the village church a mile or so away. Most of us village kids would run behind enjoying the music. Chiseldon was a very busy village in those days, with a railway station. Many troop trains passed through to the Camp halt, and we would often be asked to post letters for the soldiers - we earned a few pennies that way.
Village children were often asked to parties, especially at Christmas times, where we were very well fed and all went home with chocolate and fruit. Once a week or so we were invited, along with parents, to a film show in the gym - that was great!
Chiseldon camp had many famous people there, some in the forces and some just... Read more
Memories of Wiltshire
Lament on A London Landing
.
When I was a gusty young airman
So many seesaw sunny days
Were spent with blue girls on Marlborough Downs
Our only access, a path both straight and narrow,
Thinnest and steepest in its final assent.
Emotions of young lovers floated like kites
O'er pastoral scenes of sheep and suckling fields
Rare Wroughton landings and take-offs
Were sights to be seen but not heard.
Coy and demure tiny Burderop
You hid thy shy self
Under thicket and tumble of trees.
Old, Old-Town of Swindon:
Station – Spires – Steeples
Faint shadows through summer’s sultry breeze.
Ground and grass were closer to me then.
Lying in milk and fallow fields
And struck drunk by the silent sail-by:
Of fluff flotillas commanding cerulean seas
We’d tease and toy our differences
of language, culture and sex.
Now I am that airman no more, no more,
Yet... Read more
Fish And Chip Shop High Street (1965-1971)
My parents (Mr C and Mrs P Gosling) used to own a fish and chip shop for 6 years. I have a fantastic memory growing up with my 6 brothers and sisters in that big house (please see photo). It had 14 rooms (including the cellar). The house was haunted and it didn't bother me and my family at all. We all loved this house so much that we didn't want to leave. We were very upset and very sad that we had to leave the house which my parents sold the house and a shop to Mr Haddock from Highworth. My parents bought a restaurant/cafe in Gloucester from (1971 -1980). The house was very special to me. I am wondering what does the house look like inside today? Is there a book for information about the house I can buy?
Old Dick's Bakery
We were brought up in Wroughton and my dad worked at Burderop hospital as a nurse in the 1970s to the very early 1980s. We had a staff house in the grounds of the hospital. I have so many happy childhood memories of being brought up there and going to school in the village. One of the most vivid and enjoyable was that I used to love going down the hill with Dad in the car to get our bread from Old Dick's bakery, the smell of the shop, the shelves with his just-baked goods on it and the rustle of the tissue paper as the bread was wrapped up and most of all sitting with it still warm and fresh from the oven on my knee going back home in the car, being told not to pick at it (impossible not to, and I still love fresh baked bread to this day, it has to be crusty though just like Old Dick's!). I remember going to the infant... Read more
Dick Preddy's Bakery
When I was at the grammar school in Swindon, I used to catch the Hawkins bus at The Three Tuns. On the way, I would go into the Bakery for a hot roll from the real fire oven. The 'shop' was in the Bakery adjacent to the ovens and was nice and warm on a cold day. Fred Morse, who worked there, used to let me get rolls out of the oven with a long pole like a spade (Health and Safety!) and I would clutch my roll (piping hot) in my hands on the way to the bus stop.
Village Life1952
thi8s is dawn downey from brisbane australia,have been living here for 38 years and still treasure memories of my school days in wroughton .My sister virginia still lives there.If anyone sees this ,let ginny know...Remember the old school by the moat,miss morgan was our teacher,,,happy days,,we then moved to chiseldon
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