REMEMBER WHEN: Bases for bombed-out families following Blitz
Stockheath Naval Camp can be seen at the top and Belmont Camp can be seen on the far left. To the far right is West Leigh Camp.
At the top in the centre is HMS Daedalus III, and below that is Fraser Camp. This camp was built especially for the bombed-out people who had become homeless in Portsmouth, following the serious blitz in the city which ran from 1940 into 1941.
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Hide AdEach hut was originally meant to sleep as many as 24 people, but were never used. After the war, with so many servicemen and their families not having anywhere to live, they were taken over for several years and used until the Leigh Park housing estate was built.
The full story on all of the camps can be read in the reprint of my book, The Naval Camps of Bedhampton & Leigh Park.
Next up is a lovely hand-tinted photo of Purbrook Church which is more than a century old.
It was sent to a Mrs J Scoot, of 51 Paxton Road, Fareham in April 1911.
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Hide AdSuch was the post in the days, the sender had written that everyone had arrived home safely and they would see Mrs Scott again on the following Thursday.
Our next photograph must be one of the oldest photographs of John Pounds workshop, Old Portsmouth, in existence.
It is of course where poor boys of the district were educated and fed by the cobbler, which led to the creation of the ‘ragged schools’.
As can be seen by the state of the boys the dress very poorly indeed.
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Hide AdFinally is a postcard that also must be nearly a century old, which shows sailors on a day out to a pub near Rowlands Castle.
It must have been like being in a ship’s boat as the charabang – a colloquial British name for the French charabanc – looked like a boat on wheels.
The sailors are out for the day and have stopped for a drink at the Staunton Arms which was then at a location called Whichers Gate Crossroads, near Rowlands Castle.
The crossroads have since been replaced by a double roundabout.
Located out in the countryside, a visit to the pub must have made a change from being on the high seas.