The War Years
 

My Uncle Fred joined the T.A. in 1938 and was called up on the 1st September 1939 into the Hampshire Regiment like his father in the Hampshire Cycle Battalion and was stationed in Kent on Coastal defence in 1942, before going abroad to North Africa, the invasion of Sicily and Monte Casino. See board in Museum.

My own father Edgar came into the business in 1939 at the age of fourteen as shop boy. In 1943 he joined the 413 Squadron Air Training Corps and then went into the RAF as a wireless mechanic stationed in the Western Desert.He spent his 21st birthday coming home on a troop ship in 1946. See separate display in Museum.
Photograph - August 1943

 

Photograph - Last Leave October 1944
During the war my grandfather was an Air Raid Warden and in C Group of the Home Guard which was stationed in the cellar of Ayling House. see separate display and album He and Eunice looked after the unit very well as a poem written at the time testifies.
My uncle and father came back into the business at the end of the war and by 1951 they were both becoming frustrated by their father not allowing them to do any buying. Mutiny was contemplated by them but that year their father died.
The deeds of 7 Wellington street reverted to my Grandmother. After a mild stroke in 1968 she retired from the business and a party was held for her at the Hog's Back Hotel.