|
 | |  | |
There was an air raid shelter built right outside our house in 1939/40. I remember a few people used it but the only time it was really needed was when a flying bomb dropped in Addison Way and destroyed a few houses.
When I left school in 1941 I worked at Harris the grocer in High Street as an errand boy. I joined the Army in 1942 after putting my age up by a few years.
Christmas 1942 I was on leave the same time as my father who was in the Military Police and we spent Christmas Eve in the Clifton pub at the bottom of the High Street together with several Irish Guards who were stationed in Northwood.
I later transferred to the Royal Navy and was demobbed in August 1946.
In September 1946 I married Audrey Bayly who lived in Wiltshire Lane near St Vincent`s Hospital. We had known each other since our school days and had written to each other whilst I was in the Far East.
When we were first married we lived (like lots of others) with our parents but later squatted at a disused US Air Force base at Ruislip. Not all that posh but it was a roof over our heads.
In 1948 we were given a council house in Cranbrook Road. I had helped build it as I was working for Cyril Deighton as a hod carrier. Hard graft but I enjoyed it.
In 1950 I rejoined the Army and was posted to Malaya. My family stayed in Northwood until 1951 when I was posted to Germany and they joined me there in quarters.
We used to return to Northwood when I was on leave and for a while in the late fifties my sons attended Potter Street School. I left the Army in1972 having served 19 years on the staff of Military Prisons and Detention Centres.
We came to New Zealand in 1985. We last visited Northwood in 1999 and had a good look round. Some places still look the same but others have changed out of recognition.
We went to the conker spinney in Northwood Way then up Hogs Back which looks so different now because it is so overgrown with trees and bushes. There used to 5 trees at the Bottom of Hillside Road where the boys used to congregate.
Because we were young everyone said it wouldn't last. We have now been married for 55 years and have three children, several grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Wally Reeve, New Zealand, 2001
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
