After being born in a damp old house (flooded every winter) in "the Ugliest village in England", I was baptized in "the Ugliest Church in Western Europe". In 1917 I was sent to a boarding school near Lee-on-the Solent.
In order to get there my father took me on a tram (the Portsdown and Horndean Light Railway) in which it was fun to travel on the open top, (though one was liable to get nasty slaps in the face from overhanging branches of trees) to Cosham.
From Cosham another tram took us to Portsmouth Hard, where we met other boys going to the same school, and where parents handed us over to one of the masters of the school, who took us over the ferry to Gosport (fare: one penny). Then we got a train to Fort Brockhurst and changed to another train to Lee-on-the-Solent.
Finally, we piled into a horse-drawn brake, which took us to the school, past the wreckages of Avros, which had come down, killing young men who were being trained by the R.F.C. to drop bombs into German trenches.
This took most of the day. I wonder how long it takes now to go by car from Waterlooville to Lee-on-the Solent?
written by Canon Arthur Suffrin, Melksham, Wiltshire
Return to the September 1999 Features page
return to Home page and main index
page last updated 22 AUGUST 1999