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Ken Wakefield was born in 1950 and was brought up in a prefab at 84 Orpen Road, Southampton from 1953 until 1965.
 My very first memory of the prefabs was when I was three years old, I never realised of course that I was seeing my home for the next 12 years if I had I would have been more interested.
As far as I was concerned I was in the countryside, there were trees, grass and space. The space is what I remember most. Our estate had been built on what was in those days the edge of Southampton, it still is in many ways but the modern housing and developments have now spread out into what was the countryside.
We were moving from an area of mostly terraced houses with back yards and little space for a kid to run around. We were now going to this sea of white prefabs with gardens and trees on large greens.
I remember little of the next 18 months apart from Watch with Mother and Muffin the Mule on the television. School was next in line for my continuing adventure into life.
Heathfield infants and junior schools were both built in 1949, side by side surrounded by playing fields, and just over the school fence were prefabs on one side and fields on the other.
I started school in 1955, the infants was a good school. One of the lessons that we all did was finger painting. It always seemed strange to me, teaching kids to finger paint, then when they do it on the walls at home they get into trouble with their parents.
The next two years I spent at the infants, and then in 1957 I moved up into the junior school. My brother Brian was to follow me through the same schools some years later.
Brian was born on a cold day in February 1958. That morning as I was getting ready for school Mum had said to me 'You may have a little brother or sister when you come home at tea time.'
I can't remember what my feelings were about another person in the house but other children had brothers and sisters so I probably guessed it was the normal course of events.
When I got home, one or both of my Nans were there and they asked would I like to meet my little brother? OK said I not really knowing what to expect. I went into the bedroom looked at Mum and Brian, probably said something silly and went and watched television.
Trouble is I never realised that this meant I would be sharing a bedroom for the next umpteen years! I decided that it would not be a problem as I was eight years older than Brian and after all I was here first! Strange how things don't always work out as one would like.
On my ninth birthday I received, amongst other things, a blue coach with real working headlights, I was so happy with this that I remember thinking to myself, 'I will remember this day for the rest of my life.'
And I can still see and feel that toy now. It was around this time that I thought it would be a good idea to try and ruin the prefabs built-in fire. It was one of those coke-burning fires that had doors with tiny inch square windows.
I would sit there and try and make holes in the windows with a red-hot poker. I was always being told off for that but it never stopped me trying to do it.
Some of my toys were battery powered and had been bought for me in America by an Uncle who worked on the Cunard liners. The problem with batteries is they went flat and useless after a very short time.
I had seen Dad partly recharge them by wedging the coal shovel into the front of the fire and placing the battery onto it for the heat to charge it up. If Dad could do it I thought there is no problem with me doing it as well.
I placed the battery in front of the fire but figured it would charge quicker if I forgot about the shovel and put it on the bars keeping the coke in. I forgot about it and the next thing the battery was spread across the ceiling! Never mind learning is part of growing up.
I was in the Cubs for about six months (16th Itchen) and then got fed up with it. There were a few badges on my arm because Mum bought the jumper from another person when her son stopped going.
When Brian was about six and I was around thirteen or fourteen, for some reason and I can't remember where it came from, but we had an old upright piano in our garden.
Also in the garden was a drain cover, and when you looked through the slits in the top you could see running water a long way below. The slits were about one inch wide by about six inches long if I remember correctly.
Brian and myself decided that it would be a good idea if we tidied up the garden by posting the piano through these slots. We managed between us to get the piano posted down the drain apart from the metal harp frame that held the strings.
There were no strings on the frame because we had already posted them. We would have got away with it had it not been for neighbours complaining to the council when their gardens flooded.
We never owned up to doing it but the council knew it was us because they put a tin catch tray under the drain cover. I told Brian it was a stupid thing to do posting a piano down a drain but would he listen?
No he went right ahead and did it anyway! That last bit was for Southampton council just in case they are reading this!
The prefabs were a wonderful environment for children to grow up in; we had the freedom to do more or less what we liked within reason. We could go out to play in the mornings and not return home until teatime and our parents knew we were OK with our friends.
We had fun places to go like the dump or tip in Elgar Road, or we had the old brickworks in Butts Road, and there was always the stream at the bottom of Bunnies Hill where it was possible to walk under the road and through a tunnel.
Life was good for kids in those days, it's a shame that children today cannot be given the same freedom as we enjoyed. One of my lasting memories of the prefab was lying in bed at night listening to the rain on the roof.
In the winter it was not unusual to have frost on the insides of the windows because of the metal frames. Life was not all rosy but the bad times tend to be forgotten and the good ones come to the fore.
It was in early 1965 that the council informed us that they would be pulling down our prefab estate and building houses on the site. Everybody who lived there was offered the chance of moving back to the houses when they were built but we never did.
We were moved to another estate about three miles away. We had been given a council house with a garden, in fact everything that the prefab had, only better............but it wasn't.
The prefab was special, it's not just my childhood memories that say it, ask the adults of the day who lived in them and the vast majority would agree. We moved out in September 1965 and one of the last things that I did was push through those little windows in the doors of the fire.
Ken Wakefield, Hampshire, 2002
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To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.| Comments | | hi | Posted
09 May 2012
13:43
By bubsteroo | hi Ken,its Andrea Gransden im on facebook, we have lost your phone number, and would like to give you a update on my Eileen my mum. Just search us on Facebook. | | Prefabs | Posted
05 Jun 2014
19:10
By Jacqueline | Hi Ken, I could certainly relate to your story, having been born in a prefab in 1947, we lived in it until 1962 when they were pulled down. I have such wonderful memories of those times, and still meet up with friends from the estate. I am going to get along to Excalibur as soon as I arrive in UK, although these prefabs looked different to mine, I would love to meet the residents. Our prefab looked the sane as the one on your newsletter. I remember how cold they were, and the small fire, and the large garden, the tin cupboards and the bathroom, which was a luxury in those days. I have many old black and white photos of the prefab. I did enjoy your article, thanks for sharing, jackie |
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