Chipstead, Valley c.1955

Photo ref: C484020

I was a pupil at Fairdene School from 1960-1965. I had lived in New York until I was 6, so being a girl with a Yankee accent in a school for young ladies was quite a challenge! The two female headmistresses, Miss Turner and Miss Delmege lived in a cottage at the end of the lane behind the main school building. They were like a good cop/bad cop duo - Miss Delmege was the strict one. I loved my ballet lessons with ...see more

My Grandma, Hilda Taylor, lived at No 1 along with her daughter, Vera, and son-in-law, Wally Atwood. Vera worked for many years at Butcher's, Newsagents. Rosemary Morris, Shrewsbury.

I am writing this on our 39th wedding anniversary, which brings back happy memories of St Margaret's Church, where we married in 1975. We were so worried about the then vicar, who had a terrible stammer. In our meetings before the wedding, he could barely finish a sentence without stuttering. What would the service be like? Well, when it came to the hour, you would have never known that he had any speech ...see more

During the period we lived in the Fruit Shop in Hooley (see Hooley pages) I belonged in the Girl Guides and my Sister Moira was in the Brownies. (Actually, when we moved into the Fruit Shop I was still a brownie, but sadly got stripped of my 'Sixer' status I'd had in North Harrow Brownies, as the Hooley Brownies' complement of Sixers was complete.) Once a month we had Church ...see more