Shiplake Memories From 1942 to 1968

My mother and I came to live with Harry and Rose Marner (my mother's parents) when my father was "called up" and it was decided that Tonbridge was not as safe. Grandad was the lock keeper at the time and mother went to teach at the Henley Infants' School until my sister was born in 1943.

We lived in a house called Little Croft, at the end of an unmade road, between Street's Garage and the railway yard. At the top of the road were the village store and Post Office and the Off Licence. You turned left for the Station, presided over by Harry Goodey (Signalman) and Jack Simpson (Porter), who were related and lived with Mrs Goodey in the Station House.

If you went over the level crossing you could walk to Hobbs's boatyard (managed by grandad after the war and picnic on the small green there or go swimming. I believe this land is now privatised - a pity! To the left of this green (downstream) were some very large, beautiful houses. One was at that time owned by a member of the Tate or Lyle (sugar) families and another by a film director. Punts, dinghies or skiffs could be hired from the boatyard and there were several very nice private motor launches moored there and looked after by the boatmen - one I remember was a white, canoe-shaped, electric launch. I often "borrowed" a dinghy and went fishing or rowed round the backwater beyond the fields opposite the landing stage.

The social centre of village life in Lower Shiplake was the Baskerville Arms. If you walked past its gardens along Lock(?) Road you came to Cox's grocery shop, next door to which lived Pether the carpenter and decorator and his daughter. Miss Pether taught at Henley Infants' with my mother and taught me when I started there. I remember my mother telling me as I left for school on my first day that if I got into trouble there she'd hear about it and I'd get another lot when I got home so I can guess who the possible messenger would be!

Opposite Cox's were the allotments (later the site of an estate of council houses) and I have fond memories of walking with my grandfather or riding in his wooden wheelbarrow to attend to his plot. Further along on the right werre some bungalows, in one of which lived Mr Nichols, painter and decorator and his family. Opposite, across the field, was a large house which, after the war, became the Andrew Duncan Home for the disabled - given by his family in his memory, I believe.

A little further on, on the righthand side, another unmade road bordered Kingsley, a small estate. In one of the houses lived Peggy Makins and her husband. She was "Evelyn Home", the original agony aunt. At Kingsley there was a huge Packard car which the chaffeur used to bring to Street's garage to fill up. This provided me with a lot of amusement (peering through our hedge) and the garage mechanic with a lot of hard work as each gallon had to be wound up into the pump and then discharged. But it was even worse when Kenneth Moore (who lived in the next estate, at the junction with Mill Hill) came to fill his Isotta Fraschini!

At the junction with Mill Hill was a small gate house and a path (now closed, I think) led through the garden and up the slope overlooking the river and meadows and below Shiplake House (then run by th BBC) to the church. I used to walk there to attend Sunday School with Rev James Menin. Every attendance earned us a sticker and a prize for the best attendance. Down the hill one could walk to the lock and beyond it, across the fields, under the railway viaduct, to the banks of the Thames and catch the ferry to Wargrave. We sometimes did that as  Granny had been born there, one of a fairly large family, the Deans, and we had relatives still living there.

Back to our road - which was one of 5 whose junction was by the Baskerville. Station road led up the hill to the War Memorial, where there was a bus stop for  the bus to Henley or Reading. If you crossed tha main road and continued up the hill there was a big house on the left, occupied by Eileen Joyce, the concert pianist, and later by actor Richard Todd. I remember it best for the woods around it where you could see red squirrels - greys were rare and there was a bounty of 1d (old money) per tail on them.

Th 5th road at the junction was another unmade road which led past Harding's Nurseries and on to the fields which formed part of Green's Farm. The Greens provided milk to the villagers and Millie Harding was a family friend who became Britain's first woman Bank Manager.

If it seems from this that quite a lot of rich or famous people lived in Shiplake it's because it was a desirable place. Through trains to London ran in the morning and back in the evening, convenient for business men in their bowler hats. From our house we could see and hear the signal dropping and just clamber through the wire fence in the coalyard and walk to the station. I often rode on the engine with Mr Babbage, the driver. I remember when the Royal train came to Henley and the spare engine stood on the siding by our fence - and later watching, from the station platform, as the train returned with the royal party (Princess Margaret?) taking tea as they went. I believe it may have been Princess Elizabeth who came by car to open The Andrew Duncan Home.

I have fond and very vivid memories of Shiplake but in the late 60s my mother and grandmother moved to Benson and I have returned only very rarely.