Memories of Godalming

The Licenced Victualler

My great-grandfather Walter Alfred BEARMAN was the 'pub manager' in 1908. He was married to Helen Mary Bearman and had been resident in Godalming for some time, the earliest I am aware of was 1899 when my grandfather's sister was born. Walter was originally the blacksmith in Godalming. There is a picture in the Frith gallery of two children standing on the streetside under the blacksmith sign. The two children are my grandfather Cyril Wallace George Bearman, and his elder sister Irene May.  When Walter took a change of career I am not sure, sometime between 1903 and 1908. My great-grandmother divorced him in 1908, virtually unheard-of for a woman to do, and she cited violence, drunken ways, and the fact that he committed adultery 'frequently' with a local woman called Annie Simmonds, who bore him a child on 22 September 1908!

My Grandmother

My grandmother lived in Godalming at 20 Pound Lane, her name Annie Winter. She used to work in the Milk Bar in the High Street with a lady named Mrs Margaret Barnes. She did not die until 1977 and is buried alongside her husband Thomas Winter in Eashing Lane cemetery. She was a member of the deaf club. She had friends all over the place near to Godalming. Does anyone remember her?

Margaret Finch

My Godalming

I lived my early years in Godalming, in a small house opposite the Salvation Army Hall in Mint Street. In the 1930s we moved to Peperharow Road. My father Ernest Covey was the Steward of Brookhall, Charterhouse for a number of years. I went into the Royal Engineers in 1937, as a Boy Soldier. I learned to swim in the Ginny and went to the Bell School. I found since, that Covey folks have lived in Godalming since the 1600s, and around Surrey generations before that. I now live far away in Oregon, USA, but a part of me will always be Godalming. Old friends were 'Champ' Brown, the Kingshots, my Haskell cousins, 'Ticky' Wheeler, Peggy Smith, ('Chunky'),  my Uncles Percy, Albert, and Harry. I remember Dr Boyd (who mounted his bicycle from the rear step) and Eddy Leroy and the 'Kings Own' canoe trips up the Wey to Somerset Farm and strawberries and cream. and our meetings in the hall next door to my grandmother's house. I also sang in the choir of St Peter and Paul's Church before I went into the army. I must also mention special people who were very kind to me, Wilfred Noyce, Sir Frank Fletcher, and the Haig-Browns and Mr Mountney of the Charterhouse Museum.

Last Public Hanging

I think it took place in 1818 opposite the church and what is now the Phillips Memorial, on the other side of the river . ( Llamas Lands?) The depression made in a horse shoe shape was where the crowd stood to watch the event! Each year, the Horseshoe, as we called it, flooded and froze and we all gathered to scate and slide on it. Was the Boarden bridge the only one there at that time? Still a ford, I think.

Doodlebug 1944 ish.

Hidden by or almost visible in the trees beyond the large house on the left is a small cottage or lodge, opposite the beginning of Busbridge Lane just visible behind and to the right of the people in the road. One morning during the war (WW2) a stray
Doodlebug (Flying bomb) landed and exploded opposite this cottage and destroyed it. Minutes before, the occupants, adults and several children had left and gone down to school in Godalming. I lived in Duncombe Road and we had broken windows and a cracked wall in our house.

Boyhood memories of Peperharrow road.

It was the summer of 1946 and we used to go swimming in the river at a spot called "The Ginny" which was up the road a little (towards the camera) on the opposite side of the road to these houses. This part of the river was used as a swimming pool by Charterhouse school. We, that is children from Busbridge School aged 10 to 11 years, were about to start at Meadrow Secondary School at the end of the holiday.
Sadly , my friend Billy Ranger drowned whilst swimming here, we had planned to start the new school together (for mutual support). Billy was a lovely character and lived
in one of Tuesley Cottages between Quarter Mile Road and Minster road. He had two older brothers , one a plumber and the other, a well known blacksmith.

The dental technician I was with , as an apprentice , lived in one of those tall houses pictured on the left of the photo.