Author: Paul Flint

January is typically a quiet month for our publicity as only three of the local magazines have a January edition – the Link (Oakley), the Basinga and Kempshott Kourier.

We had a small piece in the Link, had a two-page spread in the online Basinga Extra and as the Kempshott Kourier is always late the image shown in this month’s display is for their December magazine which featured the talk about WW2 memories of a schoolboy.

For once the Basingstoke Gazette gave us some space but chopped off half of the photograph and wrote most of their own script.

The Mill House hotel at Risley was once again the venue for the annual Christmas lunch. A combination of members, wives, families and friends, totalling thirty-six in all, enjoyed a splendid lunch in delightful surroundings, with good food and great company.

Hosted by President Dr Jeff Grover and his lady, Mary, the arrangements this year were the responsibility of our immediate past president and expert lunch steward, Alex Marianos, who was no doubt ably supported by his good lady wife, Sarah. This meant that everyone had the food of their choice and went away suitably replete with each couple taking home a Christmas gift.

The report on the presentation by our member David Styles accompanied by his partner Jenny Barton about David’s recollections of being a schoolboy in WW2 were well covered in the local magazines.

The CommunityAd publishers are starting to have a monthly edition for Overton, Oakley & Kempshott and once again gave us a double page spread. They have now requested that they receive a report each month which is good news as we have never previously had any sort of publicity in Overton.

The Loddon Valley Link, as usual gave us a miss and the Kempshott Kourier has yet to provide the files to the printer for their December edition as at Monday 11 December.

The Probus Club of Basingstoke had a personal history lesson by Kempshott residents David Stiles and partner Jenny Barton, who reminisced about his wartime experiences as a schoolboy in Southampton.

He knows exactly where he was when Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, gave the announcement on the wireless that because the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler had refused to withdraw his troops from their occupation of Poland, our ally, then
 “A state of war exists between our two countries.”

It was raining at 11.15 am, on Sunday 3 September 1939. He was five years old, listening to a car’s radio, in Ringwood with his mother and baby brother.

They had been walking around the town searching for a place to stay as they had not been selected by the evacuation committee when they were dropped off at the railway station that morning. Single children had been taken in as evacuees, but a mother, baby and young boy were left to their own devices to find a billet. A kind motorist took pity on them as he could see the mother was weeping and offered them a bed for that night. The following day they returned to meet the evacuation committee to see if accommodation could be found. It could, but only for the speaker. His mother and baby brother had to return home to Southampton.

It was was an unhappy period as although he was billeted with a kind family, he would not eat, nor speak and cried himself to sleep every night. This was the phoney war when little happened, and so he joined about a third of all evacuees that returned home.

Returning to school only a short distance down the road he was able to see the dog fights during the Battle of Britain knowing that the pilots on both sides were young men, not much older than his fellow school friends.

Winning the control over Britain’s skies had the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. on 20 August 1940, making his famous speech that
 “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

David Stiles’ father was a tram driver in Southampton, and they lived opposite his grandparent’s large house where their deep cellar made a safe and comfortable air raid shelter. This was much better than the Anderson shelters made from corrugated iron buried in most gardens that were damp and cold, or the Morrison shelter under which residents huddled during air raids that was really a table like construction with a reinforced top, angle iron legs and drop-down steel mesh curtains.

Later, during The Blitz, bombing raids on Southampton docks were a daily occurrence and one night, they had to remain in their grandparent’s cellar for fourteen hours. On another occasion, because of the amount of falling shrapnel it was not possible to cross the road to the safety of his grandparent’s cellar they took shelter under the stairs. With the bombing causing the house to shake many of his mother’s Royal Albert tea set, her pride and joy, had many cups shaken from their hooks on the dresser and crashed to pieces.

During one raid the Luftwaffe dropped over 2,000 high explosive and more than 3,000 incendiary bombs, killing 650 people and leaving Southampton a smoking ruin. Some nights the speaker’s teenage uncles ran up and down the street assisting the firemen, wearing pots and pans and small baths on their head for protection. Had it not been so serious It could have been a scene from an Ealing comedy film.

Each morning boys would collect shrapnel and became expert in identifying this jagged metal from bombs or shells. Shrapnel became school currency and could be swapped for cigarette cards or marbles.

One day two Junker 88 bombers, with anti-aircraft shells exploded around them, flew straight at the school during playtime, firing their machine guns.  The school windows were smashed, and the shells caused the tarmac to burst around his feet as he racing to the shelter where he was flung inside from a bomb blast.

With their house damaged by an incendiary bomb they were moved to a farm worker’s cottage in the country but close enough to see the night time raids on Portsmouth and Southampton. Fortunately, his father had been brought up on a farm and became a dairyman, while the speaker, as now a ten-year-old boy, was taught to drive the Fordson tractor.

The time came when many thousands of men and equipment were camped for several days all around in fields and on roadside verges ready for the expected invasion of France. He recalled their kindness as well as the gifts of sweets and chocolate. Then one morning they had gone. It was June 6^th, 1944, D Day. The troops headed for what has now become well known, the five beaches in northern France that go by the code names of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword invaded by British, American and Canadian troops. During the morning the sky was filled with gliders being towed south by Dakota aircraft. He now knows that 10,000 men did not survive that day.

David and Jenny brought along a comprehensive display of war time memorabilia with a week’s food ration, ration books, identity cards, gas masks and other war time paraphernalia which added to this stirring presentation.

A good result for our report on the popular artist Norman Thelwell who had three sides to his persona in being well known as the creator of stockily built ladies on tubby horses, a painter of English country scenes and a keen countryman supporting many green issues.

The CommunityAd magazine for Oakley, Overton & Kempshott gave us a double page spread about the changes over the years in Basingstoke.

Report by Dr Jeff Grover

In extremely wet conditions when the rain was relentless, a clear winner emerged some 7 points ahead of his nearest rival. There was a brief period when there was a break in the inclement conditions when the winner, clearly determined to succeed, removed his outer waterproof garments to reveal a golfing jumper depicting the wearer in days gone by. This psychological advantage spurred the owner to score a commendable 33 points.

In second place was the host who normally only ever plays 9 holes at Test Valley and there was a real fear that he may get lost during the 2^nd nine holes. Fortunately, this did not materialise.

Third and fourth places went to the defending champion and a nonagenarian who, in reality, put everyone to shame as he played commendably well under the onerous conditions. He lost only on countback over the last 9 holes.

The bedraggled golfers emerged over the horizon in two buggies and left the 18^th green to be met by David Wickens who had laid on bacon and sausage butties and plates of chips that were eagerly devoured by all.

 The official results were:
1.    Alan May with 33 points
2.    Richard Stettner on 26 points
3.    Jeff Grover with 24 points
4.    Geoff Twine with 24 points

The winner receives a trophy for safe keeping for 12 months and then has the responsibility for organising its defence in 2024.

Readers, probably over the age of thirty-five, when the name of Thelwell is mentioned, will remember iconic subjects of small, fat, hairy ponies ridden at full tilt by alarming young ladies. Indeed, the Thelwell pony has become part of the English language.

But, as speaker Tim Craven explained, Norman Thelwell’s range as a cartoonist went far beyond ponies and included fishing, gardening, house hunting, motoring, sailing, dogs, cats, farming, stately homes, children and country pursuits, all given the Thelwell treatment. There was much more to this artist than first appears as the speaker went on to outline.

Life for Norman Thelwell had started in lowly circumstances, born into a terraced house near Birkenhead, he just had a natural affinity for drawing. A pencil sketch of a self-portrait created when he was only ten demonstrated his skill.  Joining the army at eighteen in 1941 his artistic talent kept him away from hostilities, even when in India he became involved in producing the Victory magazine which prevented him from action in Burma.

His time in the army enabled him to develop cartoon illustrations of military life. He came to recognise that selling a picture to a magazine was worth more than a month’s army pay so it dawned on him that there could be a living to be made using his artistic talent.

Formal artistic education at Nottingham and Gateshead schools of art was followed by a degree at Liverpool School of Art so it was natural that he became an art teacher. He persevered with expanding freelance work until it reached such a level that he decided to go completely freelance as an artist. He worked in this manner for Punch Magazine for twenty-five years during which time he produced over 1,500 cartoons and sixty front covers. National newspapers were another outlet for his work.

Tim Craven was the curator at Southampton City Art Gallery when, in 2001, he received a phone call from Mrs Thelwell about the conservation of water colour paintings. By this time Norman Thelwell was outside the mainstream of being a public figure and had lived for thirty-five years near Romsey in Hampshire, so Tim was eager to become involved in conserving the extensive work of this local world-famous artist.

There was a large quantity of paintings to consider but what became apparent was that while cartoons had made him famous having published 32 books, selling over two million copies which had been translated into several languages and earned him a good living, it was his interest in painting landscapes that was his real passion. The quality of work was so good that Thelwell’s country scenes could sit alongside those of the greatest English artists.

Thelwell was very much an adopted countryman and did his best to support the protection of rural England and especially the Test Valley fighting against gravel extraction. There have been several exhibitions of Thelwell’s artwork, showing his various styles that were curated by Tim Craven with one exhibition attracting 64,000 visitors.

Today, a century after his birth, it is still possible to use Thelwell’s images for many types of merchandising opportunities, so the drawings of his small, fat, hairy ponies continue.

The October magazines did us proud with all featuring the report about changes that have impacted on Basingstoke. While the talk by Derek Anthony concentrated around visual images of the town prior to the extensive changes that took place in the 1960s I expanded it to include historical points and the current position of our modern town.

After much planning by Outings Organiser, Chris Perkins, beset with several delays over a year, the day dawned on Thursday 28 September for the self-drive trip to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

Sixteen in total made the easy drive, all arriving ahead of schedule and had to wait for Chris and Carolyn who then obtained the wrist bands that were to gain us entry into this magnificent edifice built to celebrate the victorious battle of Blenheim in 1704. Queen Anne, in 1705, made a gift to the Duke of Marlborough, of Woodstock Park and a promise of £240.000 to build a substantial house as a gift from a grateful Crown.

Well known as the birthplace of Winston Churchill, this building and grounds is a splendid place to visit but the first call was in the Oxfordshire Pantry which housed a shop and café but most importantly also had toilets. After that it was left up to ourselves where to visit first. Probably most headed into the house for a tour of the magnificent state rooms with wonderful tapestries and paintings which was aided by an audio guide. Nick Waring was surprised that his guide started the commentary in Russian before selecting English from the six languages available.

In the lower part of the palace was the Churchill exhibition which was a spectacle of his life with facsimiles of letters to his wife Clementine, his writings, several of his paintings and the famous speech of “blood, toil, tears and sweat”.

The park land is so large that it was not possible to include much of this within our time although many did reach the formal gardens that faced the Great Lake.

The following photographs give an indication of the richness of the contents of the palace.

During the centuries following the Roman withdrawal from Britannica the population in the area declined. In the Domesday Book of 1086, only around 200 people lived in what is today known as Basingstoke but it noted that it had a market.

Basingstoke grew slowly through time with significant changes occurring with the Basingstoke canal opening in 1794 which was then eclipsed by the coming of the railway in 1839. Previously there had been 17 coaches a day passing through Basingstoke where several inns attended to horses and passengers. Today the Wheatsheaf in Winton Square and the Red Lion in London Street still remain while the George in the market place is now Zizzis Italian restaurant.

By the start of WW2, the population of Basingstoke was only 13,000 but this almost doubled to 25,000 by the end of hostilities. With the post war London Overspill plan Basingstoke grew rapidly from the 1960s and today is home to a substantial array of world-famous companies all of which needed employees who in return needed homes.

The town centre changed dramatically in these latter years, to the chagrin of some older residents. There were modifications to the highways and the demolition of much of the older properties to make way for a new road system and pedestrianised, shopping centre. This was built in three phases, The Walks, The Malls and Festival Place which opened in 2002.

This was presented as an illustrated talk to the Probus Club of Basingstoke, by Derek Anthony, the Chairman of the Friends of the Willis Museum, which is based in the old town hall in Basingstoke’s market square.

Today the population of the borough is around 186,000 and in a survey by a national mortgage company, Basingstoke was placed in the top fifty best places to live in the country.

The borough council rightly promotes Basingstoke as “Amazingstoke”.

There are some older residents who have a different opinion.