Basingstoke In The Late 40s And 50s

A Memory of Basingstoke.

I was born in Basingstoke in 1942 at 17 Mortimer Lane, pulled down during the town redevelopment.

I remember playing on the bomb site opposite St Michaels Church, now a remembrance garden.

We also used to go into the meadow at the back of Mortimer Lane at mid-day on Sunday, sit in a tin bath in the stream and wait for the torrent of water from Thornycrofts swimming pool to propel us down the stream, we usually capsized and went home soaked.

I went to Fairfields Junior then Secondary school, the secondary school was a boys school, girls went to the Shrubbery. I remember going to the Shrubbery one day with several other classes to sit in the playground and look into bowls of water to watch the eclipse.