My Godalming

A Memory of Godalming.

I lived my early years in Godalming, in a small house opposite the Salvation Army Hall in Mint Street. In the 1930s we moved to Peperharow Road. My father Ernest Covey was the Steward of Brookhall, Charterhouse for a number of years. I went into the Royal Engineers in 1937, as a Boy Soldier. I learned to swim in the Ginny and went to the Bell School. I found since, that Covey folks have lived in Godalming since the 1600s, and around Surrey generations before that. I now live far away in Oregon, USA, but a part of me will always be Godalming. Old friends were 'Champ' Brown, the Kingshots, my Haskell cousins, 'Ticky' Wheeler, Peggy Smith, ('Chunky'),  my Uncles Percy, Albert, and Harry. I remember Dr Boyd (who mounted his bicycle from the rear step) and Eddy Leroy and the 'Kings Own' canoe trips up the Wey to Somerset Farm and strawberries and cream. and our meetings in the hall next door to my grandmother's house. I also sang in the choir of St Peter and Paul's Church before I went into the army. I must also mention special people who were very kind to me, Wilfred Noyce, Sir Frank Fletcher, and the Haig-Browns and Mr Mountney of the Charterhouse Museum.