Camberley...Where Do I Start ?!

A Memory of Camberley.

Our family lived at Lightwater (1 High View Road) ; I passed 11 plus and was sent to Frimley And Camberley County Grammar School, starting in Sept. 1959. One of the first things we had to do was to get the uniform. We went to Over's (?) department store. ( or was it another? I may have that wrong) : I seem to recall Over's was not in the High Street? Can't recall the name of the shop IN the High street: there was a Woolworths nearby, a long 'thin' shop , i.e, fairly narrow frontage, but going quite a way back from the road. The floor was plain wooden boards. In the Dept store, it was still in the era of those tubes that sent money in a box to the cashier : The box containing the money for the purchases was put into the tube, and 'whoosh !' away it went, returning with any change due.
The fittings were still rather old fashioned, I seem to remember...a bit like "Are You being Served", but an even older style.... The uniform was summer: striped cotton dress, blue or red and white : Hat - a white nylon 'boater' ; other times : blue blazer, grey ( or white?) socks, black 'sensible' shoes, plain woolen skirt (later replaced by box-pleat grey skirt) , white blouse, with cardigan, dark blue beret, plus school tie : dark blue with a white stripe, on which in the middle was a red thinner stripe. I still have the tie and the beret...
For 5 years, I trundled down the High Street, on my hour long jouney from home at Lightwater : 1st, walk / run to bus, 7/10ths of a mile, carrying a heavy bag of books from the night before's homework, then bus 'all round the houses', to Camberley Bus & Train station (remember there was a newsagents , where I'd hop off and get 'The New Musical Express', once I reached teenage years, and 'got into' pop music; there was also a coal office, near or on the corner, in sight of the railway crossing.
I always thought it a nuisance having to spent an hour each way, 5 days a week, when by car , it took a maximum of 15 minutes, door to door.
After the bus station, you'd change buses (if yours was the one that stopped there), or continue on the right bus....down the High Street, left into London Road, past the big post office and Sandhurst Military gates, then the Odeon Cinema: we saw "Romeo & Juliet " there, as a walking visit from FCCGS at Bristow Road....I also saw other films there, most memorably, "West Side Story" : what a classic : wonderful work all round. I came out of the cinema and went straight into the record shop next door, to get the L.P., it had a bright orange cover. I think it was 21 shillings.....I still love the music....great work ! That record shop also provided me with another favourite : "Green Onions", which even my father liked ! I went in there one day, to see what they had, and "Green Onions" was playing : It 'grabbed' me, and I HAD to have it !. I still love it !
So, 5 years trundling to and fro.
Do you remember the fairs on the open green space near the big post office? I won a butter dish, where the lid was in the shape of a Jersey cow : I still have the lid....
Along the London road, past the cinema, and turn left at "The Duke Of York ", then whizzing down the Frimley Road, over the railway bridge (sign to the right, "Wells-King" (builders?) : was a fellow FCCGS pupil Elise? Never did find out, but it is an unusual name...).The bus ended up going very fast : you had to make your way towards the door while it was hurtling along : tricky if you usually travelled upstairs, and difficult while lugging a briefcase stuffed with heavy books to carry, 'dead-weight'........The bus driver must have surely been breaking the speed limit ?!
Wish I'd lived nearer to the school ( by the bridge, say ) although it was not the prettiest of areas....)
The nearest date I could find for FCCGS is 1941, and I found an old photo of some pupils, in front of the red brick building. The brickwork looked fairly new, still, so I guess that date was near enough..... the school "capitulated", (as I viewed it ) to become a Comprehensive, a few years after I left, in 1964. I was sad about that....
I wonder how much of the school's ethos remained after the transition : they went to near where the old Great Ballard School used to be, on the left, along the London Road, before you get to The Jolly Farmer pub.....
Later on, FCCGS became a Primary / Junior School...there are no traces of our old school, not even a plaque of the very nice badge, which I for one was proud to wear. The old desks from the classrooms were, I was told by a small pupil, when I visited with my dear school pal, a few years ago, (50 years since we were there !), now up in the loft. That visit was the first and only time I had ever been in through the front door. It still has the big old lantern in the porch. At the end of every school year, we had to bring in sandpaper, to smooth the tops of our desks..presumably to remove the fact that "Kilroy woz 'ere", and that apparently, he "ruled" .....the air was thick with dust, rather a pungent smell.....
The classrooms now have plain tables and chairs : the children don't have lockers or desks to keep their books in, so the rooms look rather chaotic, with books, bags, water bottles, lunch boxes, and coats, etc., all over the tables...the corridors used to have a sparkly, if cold, hard surface, now covered with blue carpet. The classroom doors are still there, as are the 2 main staircases, one at each end of the main block. The Physics and Chemistry lab's on the first floor are just plain rooms, like the others, as is what used to be the Domestic Science room on the ground floor by the girls' entrance. It seem a shame that so much equipment has gone : hopefully to new 'homes'....
In the main hall, they have removed the robust, wood panelled stage, and replaced it with a foldable structure....it has not the 'character' of the old stage, where the nice Dr. (?) Mortimer, and later the frightening Mr. Roe addressed the wicked children who would keep dropping sweet papers in the playground...I thought , if that is the worst you have to worry about, that's not bad going ! .....
The room that I most wanted to see on my visit was the room at the far end of the top corridor : my place was mostly by the window that overlooked the field : I gazed out through the window to my right, for brief spells, when toiling away indoors so many hours....it's funny what sticks in your mind for so many decades.....
In the first year, I was in form 1M, and others were in Form 1D : the letters stood for Mr. Mercer (Geography), and Miss "Dolly" Dowell.(music). I tried quite hard to stay in the A stream, since the B stream seemed to me to be a bit unruly at times : I often noticed voices from their classes, when presumably they were supposed to be working ....The B stream did end up with fewer O Levels than the A : we felt a bit superior, I fear, but we WERE there to work, not mess around......not the easiest or the happiest of times : I struggled a bit, but all the time, I had the choice to 'decamp' to the alternative next door (France Hill), or more likely, Bagshot....That was not a prospect I relished, since my father took my older brother out of Bagshot, and sent him to West Byfleet....the Bagshot school had a bit of a reputation for 'roughness', and indeed, we knew of one nasty bully who had attacked my brother, with his cronies..(the bully's cronies, that is : my brother only had his few nice pals, outnumbered by the 'baddies'...)....so you see, taking the easier academic path was a non-starter, in effect. I chose mainly science subjects, figuring I might catch up on ' arty' things later. I had no advice from anyone , so naiively made a possibly less than happy , and perhaps, harder, choice...I had no career in mind, and plodded on, staying in the A stream, getting my French O level a year early (a few of us did, on the advice of the kindly, avuncular Mr. Kempster), and getting a school prize for 7 O-levels. ... One advantage, when later I came to sing choral works in French, German and Latin, pronunciation held no fears for me....
On leaving school, I 'set about' art and music, and even had some pictures exhibited in Camberley: I got into the Camberley News ! Fame at last !
The music took longer, especially as the family home broke up in about 1973, when all 5 of the 'core family' went separate ways...
As a family, we didn't get to know Camberley very well....cinema, shopping, and fairground visits were just about the limit of our involvement.......
I just remembered : before Grammar School in 1959, my Primary School at Catena Rise, Lightwater, prepared a few songs for our choir of about 20 (?) to sing in a festival, with a competition : we sang "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" from 'Oklahoma', "Inch Worm", and I think a third song (sorry, it's 'gone' !): I was placed on the end of the front bench, which was at an angle, and meant that I was nearest to the audience....Maybe the headmaster thought I was competent enough to show the choir off to advantage.... maybe I was the prettiest ! ....I wonder....I didn't choose the place.... : we didn't win, but the judges said we were the ones most in tune....ah well...that's something ! I remember, before our performance, we were asked to wait in a side room, and I just read a comic ! I think now, "how blase can you get ?! " But we were word perfect, having been coached by the excellent Mr. Clarke, who lived a few doors 'up' from us in High View Road. .. we should have been warming up our voices, really, I suppose... Much later, when doing big classical choral works, the last few minutes before a concert were inevitably on the tense side, but there was never a comic present.....how I loved learning such sublime music, then sharing it with the audience and the choir ... 'magic' times !
I wish I had pursued music and art now, but at the time, I didn't think I was much good at them (although I did get offered a place in Sandhurst Silver Band, after a musical intelligence test at FCCGS : I couldn't take it up, as I was always so tired, with 3 to 4 hours homework every night.....
I wish my parents had helped me with pursuing music, as I longed to play the piano : we had an old upright , given by a neighbour, but parents threw it away, despite my earnest pleadings : I was just starting to get little tunes out of it....I was later given another old upright, which travelled with me to East Anglia, but wasn't played, as it was in 'rooms' in a private terraced house and it would have annoyed neighbours , then it came back to Andover : looked after by acquaintances, then moved to a friend's house, then the poor piano was put in a damp shed, which ruined it...I salvaged the ivory keys, and gave them to a piano tuner......I managed to get a small electric keyboard at Andover, and started learning 7 Goldberg variations by Bach (the easy ones !).
It was 1985 before I got a 'proper' piano, a Bluthner Grand, dated 1882. It was a gorgeous thing to learn on, and I made swift progress : luckily, for some 10 months, we were in a detached rented place, by a busy road, so hours of practice bothered no-one...when we 'downsized ' (charitable way to say it), the Bluthner was put on its side in store, and It's been nearly 2 decades since I played it....hope the mice haven't nested in it.....Luckily I got a Clavinova, but will have to start again from scratch, due to time lost to demanding physical work over many years....
I joined a proper choral society much later (Romsey, Hants), and the musical memories from those years there are some of the happiest of my life....
Camberley still holds strong (if not very earth-shattering ! ) memories, mainly of the period, 1956 to 1970, approx.
I went into "The Duke Of York " several years ago (it is now 2018), for the first time ever : a charming meeting with my first ever boyfriend from Heston, Middlesex : we were about age 6 and 7 when we moved from Heston to Lightwater, via Laleham , (a little chalet by the river, where I saved my toddler brother from running onto the river, he was running towards the edge, and I caught up with him, whisking him away from the fast flowing river, by which there was no fence or barrier.....he would have gone over the nearby weir and would have surely drowned..)....
.Philip (the young boyfriend) and I had lost touch for about 46 years ! We had a simple meal, accompanied by his daughter (chaperone, though there was no 'need' ! There was nothing 'like that' going on ! ).
Then, a few years ago, while browsing on Google Earth Street View, I saw that "The Duke of York" had had a catastrophic fire....(perhaps planning permission etc was a bit slow?! ). It looked a very sad sight , as it had been quite a handsome building, previously. So it was demolished, and stark -looking flats, etc., are there now....
To the 'left' of "The Duke of York", as you look at it, there was a side road running parallel to London Road, which went up a rise, and had lots of shops along it...if you carried on along that side road, you'd reach the cinema.
Thinking about the opposite direction, I remember the concrete 'elephant', on the left as you went down towards Blackwater.
There was (is?) a dance hall called "The Agincourt", which had a bit of a reputation....I didn't dare go there....it was also known as "The Ag".
The area has generally changed a lot since we left....
Best Wishes from Rosemarie Mann, a nostalgic old 70 year old, now at Chandlers Ford, near Southampton.
08 Novemeber, 2018.

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