Where I Grew Up Born 1944

A Memory of Stoke Poges.

My Mum and Dad moved into the village in the 1930's into a new house in Rogers Lane and lived there for 66 years.  My father was the village tailor working from a workshop in the back garden.  My mother was very involved in the village life, joining the WI and also the secretary of the Old Peoples club for a while.  Also a member of the local tennis club.  My father was a Special Policeman during and just after the war and was a member of the British Legion. I spent my childhood playing in the fields which surrounded Stoke Poges, which now all but a few have been built on.  I was in the Stoke Poges church choir for quite a few years, when Rev and Mrs Bevan where there.  I can remember many things from my childhood, including going up to the common and selecting our Christmas tree each year. On moving into Stoke Poges, Mum and Dad were told they had the rights of the common.  This gave them the right to pick their own pea and bean sticks and tree.  Mum later found out this came from heathland which had been designated as a ''Poors Fuel Allotment'' as a result of an Act of Enclosure in 1810.  Mum was very much into the history of Stoke Poges and I have quite a few sheets of her writing.

I remember riding to Black Park Lake where I learnt to swim.  Going shopping was different then, Mum used to write her list in a book and drop it into Mrs Newell's grocery shop on Bells Hill and then collect it later. We had a very good butcher, a Co-op and Jack Hearne the bike man, he use to mend bikes as well I think sell them.  Then we had the sweet shop and newsagents Tom Caldecot.  I loved that shop spending my pocket money most weeks in there.

My mother wrote we were one of the few to have early TV in the village and many came in to watch the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip.

I remember our phone number was Farnham Common 206, the exchange was in Farnham Common.

We used to walk up to Brockenhurst Wood regularly to pick up wood for our fire, quite an expedition.

We used the village hall for many things but as a teenager I can remember going to the Fellowship club on a Friday night for a disco.  My Dad and my brother use to supply the music.  I always say my brother was one of the first DJs around, he used to buy the top three records in the charts each week.  

I used to love going to the jumble sales in the hall as well, coming home with many a good find.

I left Stoke Poges in 1962, Dad died in 1983 and Mum left her house in 1995 dying in 1996.  Our family name is Sowersby.