Cookham memories
Here are memories of Cookham and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Cookham or a Cookham photo.
Bassett's Allsorts
I don't actually remember this but I was born in Maidenhead at the Bassett's Licorice Allsorts Mansion. This was apparently used as a maternity hospital during the war. I have tried to find out more about this place but have failed. Can anyone help me? My mother was a widow but also an unmarried mother evacuated from London.
My Childhood
I was born in Cookham in 1952. I attended Holy Trinity Primary School and sang in the church choir. One Remembrance Sunday I was given the honour of carrying the cross at the head of the procession from the church to the war memorial. I was extremely lucky to spend my childhood in such idyllic surroundings. My brothers and I, along with many of the other local children spent many hours swimming in the river at Odney or playing on Cockmarsh. In the winter when we had snow, we used a sheet of corrugated iron as a sledge to whiz down the steep slopes before being launched into the air by the track at the bottom, like a giant ski ramp. We would spend whole days playing in nearby Quarry Woods before the onset of the evening darkness forced us to return home. My gran lived in Station Road and on my way home from her house I would stay and watch the steam trains coming through the station. My... Read more
Memories of Berkshire
Cricket on The Village Green
When I worked for Samuel Jones the boys in our office played cricket against a team in Cookham Dean and we girls went along as support. What a great place this is! I remember a lovely village in lovely countryside - must be a nice place to live. I didn't realise at that time the connection with Wind in the Willows but that just about sums it up. I hope its stayed much the same.
A Happy Time
I was born in 1965 at Cliveden and lived in Grubwood Lane near the entrance to Quarry Woods with my parents for 16 years. I remember walking to Cookham Dean Primary School where the headmaster Mr Turner made my life a misery! I remember scrumping apples in the orchards opposite my house but had to watch out for the 'bangers' - the farmer hung small explosives off ropes in the trees to scare off the birds and they really did go bang! Quarry Woods was a fantastic place in which to play - I found hundreds of old medicine glass bottles buried in there once - all marked 'poison' and dated from about 1900 onwards. It was a beautiful place to be brought up - I've been back since and a lot of the small cottages have either been knocked down and replaced with large 'flash' houses; or the remaining old houses have had huge extentions on them, changing them forever. Winter Hill was a great place to go... Read more
The Green (Wayside Cottages)
My paternal grandmother, Kate Paine Whitbourn, was born in these cottages in 1896. Her father was the head carpenter at Bisham Abbey. The Paine family had lived in Bisham for several generations. When I was little, Gran and I would visit the kirk and 'water' her grandad. He was a great cricketer. We would stop at the monument, the war memorial, to read the names of Charles Paine and Guy and Berkeley Paget (Vansittart Neale). When Kate married after the Great War, she went to live in Eastbourne, Sussex, but returned to' The Green' with her children in W.W.II in search of safety. She never left again. Uncle Harry, Kate's older brother, lived at the other end of the row and he was a beekeeper. Uncle Curly, Aunty Nan, and Aunty May lived in the village, and so did Kate's second son, David, his wife Frances and my cousins Fred, Bernie, and Wendy. The Paines have disappeared from Bisham now, as have the Vansittart Neales whom they served. You will... Read more
Watching The Boats in The Lock
Summer Sunday afternoons were often spent at Boulters Lock when I was a child. We would have a walk along the river and end up at the lock to sit and watch the boats go in and out.
There would be the people who thought they were the bee's knees in their blazers and straw boaters but who usually managed to make a mess of getting in and out of the lock. And the dogs that would jump off the boats into the lock causing pandemonium, fortunately they all seemed to get rescued OK either by their owners or by someone from the crowd that was always there sitting on the side of the lock.
Happy Memories
My mum Lois and I used to catch the blue bus from Dorney Reach and we would go to Maidenhead to visit the doctor or the dentist and then pop into the library where I would always pick a library book about animals.
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Places this week
Here are some of the places you've shared memories of this week:
- Irby, Merseyside
- Rochdale, Lancashire
- Dulverton, Somerset
- Aveley, Essex
- Spinkhill, South Yorkshire
- Helsby, Cheshire
- Fyfield, Essex
- Brentford, Middlesex
- South Tidworth, Hampshire
- Langley Park, County Durham
- Boxley, Kent
- Easington Colliery, County Durham
- Cononley, West Yorkshire
- Chedworth, Gloucestershire
- Braunston, Northamptonshire
- Bridge Of Gairn, Aberdeenshire
- Knypersley, Staffordshire
- Sedlescombe, East Sussex
- Bethesda, Gwynedd
- Ewell, Surrey
- ... and lots more - Browse this week's memories now.
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I Remember When...
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