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South Stoke memories

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Memories of Berkshire

Lived Here

I was sent here some time around 1944/45?, I lived in a farmhouse to the left of this picture, just after the turning left, in fact the entrance was just on the right as one turned left.
The family I think were called "Choules", or Choles", I can remember the post office on the right, and I also remember going down the lane on the right to what was then farm buildings on the left, where the cows were brought in for milking. I was not an evacuee, but these people fostered me for a while.
This is the first time since the 40s I have seen this picture, does anyone know of that family, or the whereabouts of them? They had a son who I played with, but I'm afraid I cannot remember his name.
I was adopted a few years later, please, any news on this family.

Don Lucas.

In Memory of My Grandparents

Mr Gran and Grandad had their home in North Stoke, a Mr and Mrs Sallis (Elizabeth and Arthur). They lived in Calendula Cottage, as it was called then. My mother had three sons, Ray the oldest, Tony, and me, Nick, the youngest. For some reason our mother decided to have us live there; our grandparents were in their seventies and still working. As you can imagine, it must have been traumatic for them and the worry and more hardship to cope with. From what I have gathered they couldn't have tried any more than they did and found it too much to cope with. Eventually we were taken into care; I was only two years old then, Tony was four and Ray was six.

It was only a two-bedroom cottage, leading down the stairs straight into a very small kitchen and into the front room and that's all. The toilet was at the back down the garden.

Gran and Grandad over the years never forgot us and used... Read more

Dad Evacuated to Cholsey WW2

Wallingford Road c1960
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I recently found your site and was excited to show it to Dad. He was evacuated out of central London during WW2. He was sent to live with the Bumpass Family from Cholsey. Andrew and Mary were their names and they had two children Eileen and Dennis. Dad told us lots of happy memories that he had of his time in Cholsey. He remembers the old school and Bunkers hill, tha old pavillion in the centre of the village where tramps slept. He went to Sunday School and speaks very fondly of a Mrs Kelson who ran the mission .
He never returned to visit the Bumpass family, because even though he was happy with them he had memories of a much harder time with a lady who first took him in,who lived in the same area.
I have shown the photos to Dad to jog his memory and he says it would be lovely to see his old school again .He tells me there was a brook that... Read more

My Childhood in Cholsey

Wallingford Road c1960
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I was born in Cholsey in 1946 and spent probabably the best childhood I could have in a wonderful country village. I attended the village school, I was in the Church Choir and also the Brownies. A wonderful Vicar came to the village in approx 1956 (can't remember the exact year) Mr Bontoft he was called and I became very friendly with his daughter Lisa together with my next door neighbour, Beryl Hobbs, we had so much fun. My mother (Bessie Smith) also took in an evacuee during the war, he was called Brian Barham. He loved the village so much he demanded he had his first year at the village school and he also came back to visit us every year for his school summer holidays and when he grew up and married he still returned to Cholsey with his wife and family.
Unfortunately in 1968 I married a young man from London and moved away from the village and would say it was one of the worst decisions... Read more

Hawkins Bakers, Honey Lane

Wallingford Road c1960
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We moved from Chelsea, London in 1959 to the baker's shop in Honey Lane. My dad was the baker's man and my mum worked in the shop. Brett's garage was next to us and Pete and Fiorella lived opposite. My friends were Jane Sadler and Colin Edwards. There was a sweet shop down the road, Johnnie Preece's, and then Tynan's before you reached the Forty. I went to Cholsey School with my brother Paul and my sister Trish. I have fond memories of Cholsey, Miss Hearmon, Maggie Davies, and Archie Campbell etc and try to get to the flower show each year. It's good, but not what it was back in the 1960s.

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