The young men, boys really, involved in this unpleasant act above were Ettore and myself, on the 25th of July the year Mussolini was deposed by the Italian King Vittorio Emmanuele the 3rd and general Badoglio was given the job to form another government. We used a lump of chalk from the local builders' yard and wrote ...
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Smithwood Common was a favourite destination for black-berrying. This idealised postcard is post-marked 1916. Does it bear any resemblance to Smithwood Common? It is one of Hildersheimer’s Views of Surrey (courtesy of Vera Wilkinson) The headmaster of the Village School, Henry Hayman, wrote in the school log book ...
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Memories of the fun at Oakland’s: recovering soldiers put on a Pierrot show (with grateful thanks to Mike Rackley) The Oakland’s Red Cross Auxiliary Hospital in Knowle Lane closed this month. Since January 1915, when the hospital opened, a total of 617 soldiers had been cared for, with no death or infectious ...
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Postcard of the Onslow Arms, post-marked 1908 (by kind permission of Roy Pobgee), one of the Cranleigh pubs that may have been flouting DORA’s regulations on ‘treating’ At the Guildford Borough Bench, a bar attendant and the manageress of the Lion Hotel in Guildford were both fined £5 on two counts of buying a ...
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The shop run by the Cheesman children’s aunts, Mercy and Mary Mann, in Dorset House (now Pimm’s Funeral Service) After two agonising months without any news of their son Joe, on June 2nd Chris and Ruth Cheesman of Victoria Road received a letter from him. It had been written on April 18th. The good news was that he ...
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During the week beginning 11th June, we are celebrating 50 years of education at Park Mead. The Infant school opened first with 36 children as the estate was being built and the older pupils transferred to the Junior school to form their first intake of 99 pupils. Over the years, many changes have taken place; ...
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Arthur Wadey and others on Pitch Hill, working for A.B. Johnston (photo by kind permission of Don Hilsdon) The impressive monster of a machine shown in the picture was used by employees of A.B. Johnston, farmer of New Park. Here, Arthur Wadey (born 1895) and others are cutting pit props on Pitch Hill. The props ...
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British troops blinded by gas on April 10th 1918 at an Advanced Dressing Station near Béthune (Imperial War Museum) British civilians faced more and more restrictions in support of the War effort. The ‘Curfew order’ that came into operation on Tuesday April 4th specified that no lights were to be used on shop ...
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William Heath Robinson’s ‘Spring-cleaning the Ark’ (1925) In March 1918, a new family moved into ‘The Copse’ at the corner of Horsham Road and Grove Road. This was the artist and cartoonist, William Heath Robinson, his wife and four children. A gifted artist and book illustrator, he is now remembered principally ...
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The wartime wedding of Albert Kevern and Olive Streeter, with the bride’s parents on either side of them, and several soldier friends. The bridegroom’s parents could not travel from Cornwall to Cranleigh for the service. (Photo by kind permission of Brian Kevern.) Monday February 25th was the big day when food ...
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