chapter two

Chapter 2

Early Years

Although I don’t remember this, in 1940/41 my Father was stationed at The Sparrow’s Nest in Lowestoft Suffolk and my parents and I were apparently in lodgings there.  I was told by my Mother that it was here that I had bronchitis quite badly. Later on I inherited a striped knitted pram blanket, still used for the air bed that the Grandchildren sleep on, that was made for my Mother by the landlady of our lodgings.  The Sparrows Nest was formally called HMS Europa and was the headquarters of the Royal Naval Patrol Service (RNPS), a branch of the Royal Navy consisting of 70,000 men and 6,000 ships during the war years. It was commandeered by the Royal Navy on 3 September 1939 having previously been the Pavilion Theatre where a many great artistes such as Paul Robeson and Stanley Holloway appeared.  Apparently it is now a park which slopes down towards the sea

Later places my Father was drafted to during the war were HMS Vernon, HMS Mercury, HMS Hornet and HMS Collingwood.  All these were within reach of home but, because of the bungalow being in the vicinity of HMS Collingwood, with the subsequent fear of that establishment being a target for German bombs, my parents and I moved temporarily to a bungalow in Purbrook and here I have my earliest memories.

I must have been two or three when I remember having my own garden patch where I grew seeds, and about the same age when, with my Mother and Aunt Elsie, one of her sisters, I went walking and collecting bluebells in Stakes Hill Woods. I was told by my Mother, although of this I have no recollection, that when I was just two I one day let myself out of the front gate and toddled off down the road, crossing a main road before a neighbour spotted me and took me home.  Thank goodness for the lack of traffic in those days.

Our neighbours in Purbrook were the Scotts, later to emigrate to Rhodesia.  Maureen Scott was about a year older than I was and, after a shaky start when she was not too keen to share her swing and see-saw, we formed a friendship that lasted the two years until we left there followed by several more years when we visited prior to them emigrating.  One day playing with Maureen in the garden, and being too young to appreciate danger, we planted thin bamboo canes in the flower bed that ran two feet above the path round the bungalow.  Being four years old and wanting to impress my older friend I tried to jump over the stick down onto the path, but I slipped and the stick went down my throat.  Fortunately not a lot of damage was done, Mum panicked and my throat bled a lot and was very sore afterwards, but it could have been a lot worse.  I didn’t play that game again.

Life in Purbrook was not without incident.  Mum and I both had ‘flu together at the beginning of 1944.  One day we were in bed together when, going down the road past the window, we saw a convoy of tanks.  Such excitement!

In early 1945 we returned to our bungalow in Fareham.  A bomb had fallen in the field about a quarter of a mile away, leaving a huge crater that was to remain there until a new council housing estate was built on those fields in the sixties.  The blast had caused damage to all the paving stones on the pavements, causing them to lift at uneven angles, and, even more serious for us, it had blown all our windows out leaving the bungalow insecure.

Therefore we left Purbrook to live back in Fareham.  I can remember that my cot which we had left in the front bedroom, was full of glass from the windows.  The ceilings were also all cracked which, in retrospect, must have been upsetting for my parents, the bungalow only being six years old.  We could never get rid of those cracks so eventually they were covered up with Artex.

My memories of the war are few really, I remember going into the Anderson shelter in Purbrook, sometimes spending all night there.  That was an adventure to a three year old, with cups of cocoa and stories read by Mummy or Daddy.  I also remember one day being in Portsmouth and hearing what we thought was aircraft going over, making us run for a street shelter, until we realised that what we actually had heard was a heavy horse and cart coming down the road.  I remember seeing the ruins of bombed shops in Portsmouth, particularly in Southsea when we visited Bulpitts, one of the larger stores.  The girders and gaping basements, full of deep black water, being the images that little girls’ nightmares were made of.  And the other memory I have is of visiting the British restaurant for lunch and the all-pervading smell of cooked cabbage that greeted us as we entered the restaurant.  In fact I do remember having nightmares where I was falling down the black holes from girders in the ruins.

VE (Victory in Europe) day, May 1945, was exciting for those of us only used to the drabness of war.  We had a street party – it was held in Fairfield Avenue just around the corner from us.  It was fancy dress and I went as a fairy, wand and all.  I can remember afterwards there was a bonfire and the adults were all singing in the street.  I was four years and nine months at the time.

My maternal Grandparents, Ada and Richard Bate, lived in Jesse Road, Portsmouth and we used to travel by bus from Fareham bus station to visit them, a journey of half to three quarters of an hour.  This was not a pleasant journey as the buses, which had a large heater at the front blowing out hot air and which always smelled of fumes, used to make me feel sick.  In their house I can remember a front room, a small back room and a scullery kitchen.  In the back room there was a range and a Grandmother clock on the wall.  The table was covered in a red chenille type cloth and there was a glass fronted cupboard beside the range where my Grandmother used to keep small white peppermints to give me.  Another treat was a cup of soup with pearl barley in it.  After dinner the old couple would have a nap with their faces covered with a newspaper to keep out the light.  When I was four years old, I was taken to see Grandma for the last time when she was dying in bed.  I can remember a very tall bed with a brass head and foot, the bed was so high that I could only just see over it to Grandma.  After she died in June 1945, I used to be taken to visit the grave with Grandpa when he took flowers, I remember him crying, they were married for 56 years.  She was buried in Milton Road cemetery, Portsmouth.

In September 1945 I started school.  The school for the catchment area of St Michaels Grove was Redlands Lane Primary School. My parents had other ideas and sent me to St Peters and St Pauls Church of England School (C of E school) in Osborne Road Fareham, opposite St Peters and St Pauls Church.  It had an excellent reputation and, being a church school, I am sure my Mother approved of the Christian ethics.  Even though I was to have to learn the catechism and attend the Church of England services on Saints’ days.  You will remember both parents were Baptists.  I had no fears about starting school, my Mother told me the first thing I said to Mrs Cummins, the teacher of class one when I went in was ‘Where is Barry Taylor?’  Barry, a few months older than me, lived with his parents and sister Jean opposite us in St Michaels Grove and I considered him to be my friend.

1. Birth & Family Background

2. Early years

3. School days and education

4. My home and neighbourhood

5. Our Town -Fareham

6. Childhood and early teens

7. Late teens and starting work

8. Wedding and early married life

9. Life after the royal navy

10. The children grow up and leave us

11. My Parents

12. Family Fortunes

13. Holidays

14. Birthdays and Christmas and presents I received

15. Family Health

16. Entertainment

17. Annual events

18.  Our Church

19. The cars we owned

20 Homes I have lived in

21. The wider family

22.  Reflections

Chapter 1

Birth and Family Background

In 1939 my Mother miscarried a baby boy, she was later to blame it on having to scrub the stairs where she was living at the time.  If that little boy had lived, it is likely that I would not be here today and there would be no story to tell.  Life, we are told, is full of choices, seemingly not always our own.

I was born on Tuesday 13 August 1940 at Beverley House Wickham, in what was then the county of Southampton, during the battle of Britain as the bombs fell over Portsmouth. On this day apparently, the day that the Germans called Adlertag or “Eagle Day”, waves of strong attacks at different times over a ten hour period came in against Essex, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. In the afternoon at approximately four o’clock there were two pronged attacks at Middle Wallop airfield and Southampton. The Germans lost 45 planes and the British only 13, and from these six pilots were able to return to their units. (Beverley House, which is part of the Rookesbury Estate, was built for the widow Beverley as a dower house.  Commander N J E W Powlett and his wife Elizabeth, who came from Droxford, took on a two year lease of Beverley in 1937.  The lease was extended, and in September 1944 when it was due to expire, it was again extended for a further seven years, with an opt out clause for either party after three years.  In 1941 Elizabeth Powlett requested that an air raid shelter be built at Beverley, which was granted.  She also asked if the paddock could be dug up and used as a vegetable garden to which the reply was ‘…the paddock was laid at great expense, but in the circumstances, yes it could be used to grow vegetables….’

It is understood that the Naval Maternity Home in Southsea, Bowlands in Osborn Road, was bombed early in the war, which is perhaps why Commander Powlett offered Beverley as a maternity home.  Many of the expectant Naval wives stayed with families in Wickham pending the birth.) I, of course, remember nothing of the Battle of Britain but I am sure it must have been frightening to be in labour at such a time.

  The babies born at Beverley House are known as Beverley Babes according to the Parish Magazine for Wickham.  In 2007 a reunion of Beverley Babes was held during the annual Wickham Fete.  Unfortunately I had no knowledge of this so was not there.   A quote from one person who did attend which she attributed to her Mother was “There were usually about ten babies in the nursery all labelled and swaddled like little sausages in their white cots”.
Beverley House is in Southwick Road, Wickham.  A description of it says it has three dormers a cornice and parapet, Mansard roof tiles and a trellised porch.)

 My parents called me Ann Jennifer, my Mother winning the battle, my father wanted it the other way round.  I looked like my Father but, whereas he had dark hair and brown eyes, I was fair with blue eyes. I weighed in at 6lb 2 oz and I was bald.  When my hair grew it was white blond and curly until I was four years old, then it straightened and went light brown but always remained very thick and strong.  My skin was inclined to freckles and later in my teens was the bane of my existence because it was greasy and spotty. At the time of my birth and until I married we lived at 89 St Michaels Grove, Fareham, except for the two years that we lived in Purbrook when we evacuated during the war.

My Father, Norman Edward Allen, was a Chief Petty Officer, Writer, in the Royal Navy, he had married my Mother, Phyllis Bate, in 1934 at Devonshire Avenue Baptist Church, Portsmouth.  They spent their honeymoon in a hotel in Torquay. He was born in October 1908, the eldest of five boys, although one died in infancy, and she was born in March 1909, the youngest of a family of six girls and three boys, although one of the girls unfortunately died aged 12 years.  They had met when he was eighteen and she was seventeen. My Father told how they used to meet during lunch breaks in the field behind Smith and Vospers, the shop where they both worked.  Norman joined London Road Baptist church in 1918 and Phyllis went to Devonshire Avenue Baptist church.  They were both to remain life- long Baptists.  Phyllis signed the pledge when she was very young and during her whole life she never touched any alcohol.  When they married Norman was living in Nelson Road North End Portsmouth with his parents, and Phyllis lived with her parents in Jessie Road Portsmouth.

Neither of my parents came from particularly well off families, although possibly my Maternal Grandparents had more of a struggle to feed and clothe their family because there were so many children and, although my Grandfather was a Royal Marine, and then worked in the Dockyard, his jobs were not well paid.  My Mother tells how sometimes money for food was scarce and it was not unknown for those who were working to have a whole egg to eat, while she, as a young child,  would be offered the top of her Father’s egg. Unfortunately the lack of money did not seem to preclude my Grandfather having his pint which is one reason my Mother gave for signing the pledge, he was not an alcoholic, but she used to tell me how she would have to return the empties for him when the money given was spent on more beer and not on food.  Both my Bate grandparents were born in Portsmouth, and are buried in Portsmouth in Milton Road cemetery, my Grandmother died in 1945 and my Grandfather in 1948.

My Paternal Grandparents seem to have been slightly better off, my Grandfather Edward Allen was the manager of Smith and Vosper, having been a grocer all his working life.  My Grandmother Eva Allen nee Riggs was always very much involved with London Road Baptist church and she lived her life according to her Christian faith.  She was a genteel lady, living with a friend Caroline Priscott (Edward’s sister Lilian’s sister in Law) all the time that I knew her. My grandfather Allen died in 1939 and I never knew him.  My Grandmother died in 1960, a few months after I got married.

Were the circumstances any different in my Great Grandparents’ lives my parents would probably not have met because they would not have been born in Portsmouth.  My maternal Great Grandfathers, Isaac Bate born 1839 in Staffordshire and Charles Warner born 1842 in Somerset and my Paternal Great Grandfathers, Seth Allen born 1844 in France (British subject), his family came from Derbyshire, and Henry Riggs born 1857 in Dorset all moved to the Portsmouth, Gosport area for various reasons in their twenties and, with the exception of Charles, all married Hampshire girls.  Charles brought his wife, Elizabeth, with him when he moved from Somerset.

 

photos through my early life

 1940 a war baby

 1941

 Teenager

 engaged

1960 married to Tony