Fawley In The Mid 1950s

A Memory of Fawley.

We moved to Fawley in 1954 and I spent my last 2 years of Secondary School at Hardley. My brothers John and Trev also went there. I have vivid memories of lying in bed on a clear frosty night and seeing the reflection of the flare bouncing off next door's wall and of the constant roar of the refinery. Visitors complained they couldn't sleep for the flickering light and /or the noise - I couldn't sleep without them. When we moved to Colville Avenue there were only about half a dozen bunglows there and we didn't know a soul in the village. In the paddock at the far end was the forest ponies "maternity ward" (there was also another in the middle of the roundabout at the Forest Home pub.) I can recall many a night mum in her nightie chasing a horse out of the garden, shooing away with a broom. The ponies got quite canny and learned to open the gates to get into the rubbish bins.

Mr Hooper had the fruit/vegie shop at the end of the road, there was Ken Wheeler's news agents, and I did the Fawley paper round for ages. There was the post office, Freddie Young was the bank manager, there was a chemist and a draper's and a junk yard - I think it was called "Sep's"and he used to frighten the life out of us kids. But if we girls were going to a dance or somewhere special we made a bee-line for the chemist at Holbury as he would unlock his glass -fronted cabinet and spray us all with copious amonts of Coty fragrances. Shame on me for not remembering his name.

My brothers liked fishing so got up early to bike to the beach to get rag-worms and many is the fright I've had wondering what was in the strange tin/box/jar in the airing cupboard. Sometimes it was maggots.Rock n'roll hit us teenagers like a ton of bricks; we loved it. I helped run a dance up the Esso Club and it was always jammed packed. Records one week, live band the next. We spent summers on our bikes and later motor-bikes speeding to either Calshot or Lepe (Costa Lepe) where we hung around the "Sea Shanty"- a jolly good caff in our estimation.

My first job was with ISR as a lowly junior shorthand typist. The rubber plant was being built at the time and I shared an office with Jean Smith in a row of huts set down in a sea of mud. We had to wad up damp newspaper to shove in the corners of the building to keep out the wind, sleet and snow. Then I had a stint working in the Falcon at Fawley then worked as a secretary for Monsanto and shared an office with Sheila Stacey (nee Smith).

Both my girls were born in Hythe Hospital and when the second came along I worked for Jean and Ronnie White in their Holbury vegie shop which sold just about everything under the sun.

Brother John now resides in Poole, Trev in Germany and I am here in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Great pal Heather Ghey is in Canada, Jo Soper with whom I worked in the Falcon and who is very dear to me, lives in Kent. I've lost touch with so many of the "gang"but I do occasionally hear snippets about this or that person. At school there were Maureen Amos, the Skelton sisters, Ellie Driscoll, Amanda Young, Anne Pinchin, Sylvia Ford and John Keefe's sister whose name I've forgotten, Pete Fenna, Mickel West. Lots of faces I can see but the names now escape me. Tubby Lott was our house master - Rhodes House - Mr King the head with whom I never managed to get along, Mr Budd. Freda Wetherall and Mr Wilson were form teachers at various stages and I can't remember the teacher who trawled us through shorthand and typing, but we spent many hours laughing in his class. Brian Lamont and Geoff Harris were the male sports teachers.

Later on the net spread wider to include Bill Ware, Tommy HUnter, John Poore, Mick Waddms, Rob Sillence, Dave Coombes, Dave Elkins and his sister and Biddie from the Forest Home pub, Roger Lowe (whose dad drove the first and last bus of the day out our way), the Menhennet boys and Mick LeMoignan. Fawley in the mid to late 1950s was a land of youngsters - probably due to the various building projects under way which attracted families emerging after the war. The refinery, the petro-chemical companies riding shotgun, the power station. There wasn't much money about, we made a lot of our own fun. After all who could forget the Esso cinema or the Club? We could make a pork pie stretch through 6 of us, make a coke last all night and laughter cost nothing at all but a ton of wrinkles years later.

And I do recall the shock horror of telling Mum I got fourteen bob a week for my paper round and she said, "Oh, goody, now I don't have to buy any of your clothes or shoes any more". I later worked during summer hols in Foster Wheeler's canteen along with mum until I collapsed in the tomato soup one day with acute appendicitis. I adored my step-dad, Lou Watkinson, and often wonder how he took on a teenage family but he was a kind and gentle person who cared deeply for my mum, Maidie. I don't think the White family of Colville Avenue put too much of a blott on the landscape. Hope not anyway.

And greetings to any of the old crowd if you happen to come across this memory.

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