Dorking memories
Here are memories of Dorking and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Dorking or a Dorking photo.
My Weekend Job
WOW, I never thought that I would see this post card again. Yes, that's me doing my weekend job as a waitress at the funky new Wimpy bar on Boxhill. My name was Vanessa Howard and I lived at Ismanola, Boxhill Road. Reputed to be one of the first in the UK, locals, mods and rockers, and day trippers flocked to buy their Wimpy and Chips and Coffee, Knickerbocker Glory, Pepsi Cola in a glass bottle and all else Wimpy by the thousands. Hot doughnuts were a speciality with queues of folk waiting anxiously for their fix at 4d each or 4 for 1/-. Folk marvelled at the huge picture window which overlooked Dorking. Astute locals would return the glass Pepsi bottles to get the 3d deposit - it was quite a lucrative way of earning a bit of pocket money. Oh! and the washing up on a Bank Holiday was never ending! Situated opposite Upper Farm, the Wimpy bar was previously a tea garden and now is a restaurant.
Wedding Day
My wife and I were married in this church on the 30th March 1957. I had spent most of the first twenty five years as a Sunday School member and later as a full member of the Methodist Church.
Working For The Southern Railway Company
I started work for the first time on 31st December 1946 as a messenger in the Bridge Section of the Chief Civil Engineers Department of the Southern Railway. Our offices were situated on the whole of the top floor of the building. Then on the 1st January 1947 the railways were nationalised and I worked for the Railway Executive at Deepedene until I was called up for National Service in 1951.
W.T.Henley Cable Manufacturing Company
I worked in the Buying sction of W. T. Henleys as a Clerk for about two years before leaving to join another cable manufactring company at Leatherhead. I remember there being a very fine staircase in the building.
Not so Much Traffic Then.
The photo was taken from the railway bridge and the new dual carriageway was only a year or two old. Round to the right opposite Deepdene Garage was Fairfield Drive and what a lovely area it was to be growing up in. We lived at no 4, the Parsons at no 6 and the Skiltons at no 8 or 10, the Barrows were no 8 or 10, but it was many years ago. The road was full of baby boomers. The Cooke twins lived at no 26 and the Chatfields at no 54. All this was in the 1950s and until the early 1960s. We had a stream to play in (which now runs under flats), there was Bonfire Night on the waste ground with the torch procession round the drive. We moved to a posher Yew Tree Road in 1963. Hedges each side and now 16 years old and everything changed, but I still have photos of the first car, a little tin pedal job, and tea parties in... Read more
Working For British Railway's Southern Region
My mother, Valerie Evans, worked for British Railways southern region from 1957 -1960 at Deepdene House. She was a shorthand typist and remembers Deepdene House to be a beautiful building with extensive grounds. She has happy memories of friends in the typing pool.
The building hadn't changed much since 1891 although I don't believe there was a conservatory in 1957. During her lunch breaks she would play tennis, table tennis and netball or just sit out on the grass and enjoy the scenery.
Pepsi-Cola And Merry Legs
These two ponies belonged to Dorking Riding School and they were popular characters with gentle dispositions. They retired in 1963 to good homes. Pepsi-Cola is in the foreground. I was a groom at the stables and regularly rode them around the area.
My First 9 Years
I love my home town of Dorking. I was born there in Lincoln Road in July 1939, five weeks before the start of WW2. We played in the street and used people's gate posts for rounders bases as there was not a car in sight. We roamed for miles in the beautiful surroundings and to the top of Boxhill as well games of tracking with arrows chalked along the many footpaths and alley ways. I attended Pixham school from August 1944 (holidays were shorter during the war) and spent long hours in the air raid shelter when the 'doodlebug' V1 flying bombs were coming over thick and fast. In spite of this they were such happy times because we knew no different and took all the war restrictions - blackouts, sweet rationing, air raids etc in our stride.
In 1945 at the end of the war we had our Victory party and the street lamps eventually came on again after years of blackout. Now, in my... Read more
Memories of Surrey
Location
The Bell Holm Hotel was in Mid Homlwood on the A24 nearly opposite the Norfolk Arms, on the south bound side and was finally demolished in the mid to late 1970s. I played around it as a kid but never went in though. It was haunted, so we thought.
The Crown
I was landlord of the Crown from 1971 to 1973. I was only 19 and apparently the youngest landlord in England at the time. My father, Bernard Edmund had been landord at the Prince of Wales across the road, for many years. We had some wonderful times at The Crown.
Sometime in The 1950s
Imagine my delight as a child to discover there was a swimming pool on top of Box Hill!
Although we lived in Sussex we would often have "days out" in Kent or Surrey.
Box Hill was a favourite, and I remember a swim on a particularly hot day, it was my first experience of an open air swimming pool. The photo is just as I remembered it and I would love to know what is on the site now, and when it was closed.
Work
From leaving Bookham I moved to Dorking where I worked for the same family at Dorking High Street, Earlswood Lakes and their Wimpy bar at Box Hill, it was good. I lived over the shop, the tobacconist, and I know and love Dorking.
Photo Ref 88353 Upper Farm Camping Site
I am the boy on the bicycle in the foreground of this view of The Upper Farm camping site. I am a member of the family that ran The Upper Farm business. My father built the swimming pool which is featured in other photos.
Bernard Burbidge
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