Memory Lane

A Memory of Knaphill.

I lived at 27 Victoria Rd, Knaphill and went to the school at Star Hill then the school down the lane at St Johns, past the barracks and cookhouse. When the soldiers were demobbed we used to be given sweets, chocolate and fags which we took them home. I must have been about 8 or 9. I can remember when going home after school, passing the cookhouse where they used to leave cakes out to cool and we used to nick some. One day a 'redcap' chased us and he would not give up. We took him through the woods where the old brickworks were and he lost us as we hid in the ferns. There was a rope that hung from a tree with knots tied in it near the lane by the cookhouse - we used to climb it and often got shouted at and we would run off. We also went to church at the barracks and I remember there were boys dressed in the same uniforms and they called them the Gordon Boy. I remember it was 1952 because we were sent home from school when King George VI died.