Arriving In Verwood Aged 11!

A Memory of Verwood.

This photo brought the memories flooding back. My parents moved to Verwood in '57. My dad worked for the De Havilland Aircraft company in Christchurch. I'm searching my memory but I think the building on the left had a stationers called Nellie Hopkins. More interesting to me was a fish and chip shop just opposite the car photographed there. In front of Nellie Hopkins was Shearings Garage, selling Esso petrol. Shearings also had a bike repair shed there and that's where the Sunday papers were delivered to us paper boys for distribution around the village. Jessie Mathews was on my round, although she was just a square fuddy duddy to me! As I'm writing more and more the memories are flooding back, so I'll stop before this becomes boring. One more thing though, my dad was made redundant from De Havillands in the early 60's and he set up a little workshop in the Old Potteries, in the village centre, working with wrought iron. The village has changed tremendously in the past 50 years. Once the Bournemouth / Ringwood spur road was built, it was just a matter of time............