The Son Of A Preacher Man

A Memory of Thames Ditton.

1946 to 1951 - my father was the vicar at St Nicholas Church. The vicarage was a huge place in nearly two acres of land, with a quarter of it wild and rambling. Loads of trees and bushes to make a delightful hunting ground for me and my grubby urchin friends! Playing on Giggs Hill Green, shooting off arrows from commercially available bows (illegal now, of course) and cycling all the way to Oxshott Woods and back. Friends from school; (Long Ditton), Richard Bryan and his sister Rosemary, Richard Milne and David Hedges. Thames Ditton; Nicholas Fawcett and Betsy Stitt.
My father Hedley Wilds, had a curate called Chris Cheetham who was very much involved with the Boy Scout movement. Some readers may recall some of the people mentioned. The vicarage front garden backed onto an iron foundry in Summer Road, which clanged and crashed late into the evenings. I also remember the AC car factory in the village centre and marvelling at the stylish coupe cars (which for the 1940's, were ultra mod and futuristic), to say the least. Is the old Bay Tree tea & cake shoppe still in existence in another guise? Summer Road - I still remember the floods which crept up the road from the direction of Hampton Road, and my dad making off in a punt to render what assistance he could to those unfortunate enough to have been flooded out.