Childhood

A Memory of North Tidworth.

I was about 5 when we moved here approximately 1943 from Perham Down. I went to the Garrison School in the Tidworth Barracks, with the American PX behind us. They chucked us kids sweets etc. - a luxury with sweets on the ration. There was a very old market next door to the front of the school and it was pulled down. Believe there were rats under the floor boardings. They sold food and had a shoe shop at one end.

My father was on the barrack staff and we had a very nice house in Zouch Avenue. The Yanks gave us a party every end of term of which I had pictures still.

When my father died in 1947 and was buried in the Military Cemetery, a year later mum and I came to South London - always thought that my childhood was over when we did that. Children were so different and had not had the excellent Army education I had had.I easily topped the class in all subjects and no one spoke to me so I stopped working and played about. What a waste of an excellent Army education.

Saw the Dagenham Girl Pipers when they visited the Garrison Theatre. Saw my mother "have a go" outside the school one morning when Field Marshal Montgomery stopped to chat to the mums. She told him he should be getting her brother out of a German prison camp - not riding about - he left quite soon!

Still have a couple of friends from those days - long time to be friends.Mrs. Sadler was the headmistress of the school. After the Yanks went off we got the PX building as our next school, until we were 11 but I had gone off by then. It really was a perfect childhood - always used our bicycles with no great worry about traffic, especially in the years between the Yanks going and our own troops returning.A truly happy time at Tidworth.


Joan Norman (as I was)

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