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Page 24 |
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Childhood Memories of Red House, Pamber Heath, Tadley
My parents Bob & Edith Wheatley and I (pictured top right) moved into Red house from July 1948 until November 1949 (according to my dad's National Registration Identity Card). No-one had cars then so the men had Home Office vans to ferry them to the Hannington depot or out to the various police HQs. Overnight they were parked at the back of the house often filled with various radio equipment. My memories of Red House are hazy as I only passed my sixth birthday whilst there and I'm in my eighties now. I remember Red House as being very large with many rooms on three floors and set within large gardens and woods. Opposite the open common a gated drive led from the road to a circle at the front of the house with a very large clump of laurel (as a small lad it was fun pushing into its centre hiding from everyone!). With several families it was a bit like living in a commune. Each family had a few rooms to themselves but everywhere else was common to all the families. Shared bathrooms and toilets and just one shared kitchen too - but there was a house cook who prepared evening meals and breakfast. Meals were served at a fixed time in a large dining room that looked out onto the gardens. Next to this was a large sitting room, and then a snooker room with full size table which only adults were allowed to use. The downstairs rooms were off a largish central hall from the front door with an impressive stair-case (to a six year old!) leading to the first floor. There were cupboards under the stairs in which I was locked during a game - the terror I experienced imprisoned in the dusty blackness amongst creepy-crawlies and cobwebs left me with an illogical phobia of spiders. Down the middle of the hall was a long wooden table - just right for playing table-tennis! From the sitting room french-windows opened onto the garden terrace above two grass tennis courts - much enjoyed by the adults through the summer. And the gardens were surrounded by acres of woodland. I think our few rooms were in the attics as I have a memory of peering out of the small windows on rainy days over the laurel bush and down the drive watching any comings-and-goings. But as the families had several children there were plenty of fun and games playing both in the house and surroundings. I went to the small primary school at Tadley just a mile away though it seemed further. Usually my mother took me - I would pedal a tricycle as she walked and leave the trike at a garage near the school ready for the return. Some days I would be given a lift by my father in one of the Home Office vans. I would grip the steering wheel as I sat on his knees whilst he drove - hazardous in hind-sight as no safety belts so I would have been crushed in an accident - but there were few cars on the roads long ago. The school playground across the lane was just part of the common - grass and the bushes of gorse etc - so I can remember trying to catch lizards which were plentiful but would escape by shedding their tails which continued to twitch! I once remember a loud noise as a formation of planes towing gliders flew overhead - probably from Aldermaston airfield (part of the effort to supply the Germans when the Russians blockaded Berlin?). Strangely I don't remember the children from the other families going to the same school. We children used to play in the house gardens and woods - paradise for us I suppose. I remember the fallen pine-needles being so deep in the woods that we would heap them up to form low walls and ramparts for our imaginary houses and forts. There must have been vegetable gardens and an orchard too - for once when my cockney cousin visited from London's East End I picked apples off a tree and offered him one too eat. He looked horrified and said "Garn! Apples come in boxes - they don't grow on trees!" We used to catch butterflies for one of the house residents who collected and mounted them (not something we approve of these days but "the past was a different country"). He also collected eggs and we would follow their development through caterpillar, chrysalis to adult butterfly or moth - fascinating for us children. A family trip to a local village fete was set into chaotic turmoil when a large hornet repeatedly dive-bombed the attendees - everyone running about and some screaming! Very disturbing for a six year old. But for me the highlight was the purchase from a second-hand stall of my first 'grown-up' full-sized book "The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass". I found the inclusion of chess in the latter fascinating and I still have the book on our bookshelf! It kindled my lifetime enjoyment of reading. Another outing was to a model aircraft display by a runway at Aldermaston airfield. Several whizzed round in a circles on long control wires and some flew free possibly radio controlled. Over by the hangars were two large silver aircraft (Avro Tudors?) which we were told had been modified to hold large tanks of fuel that was flown into the German capital during the Berlin Blockade. It seemed strange to me so soon after we had been sending aircraft to bomb 'the enemy' Germans. Whilst at Red House I caught Chicken Pox and then Mumps and was poorly. Unluckily my dad also caught the Mumps from me but was not affected long term so I eventually had a sister! I have memory of the doctor visiting when I was ill - probably our first call on the newly formed National Health Service. I was told to keep clear of others whilst I had Chicken Pox and can remember being chased around the tennis courts by a very young Jill Brooks whose parents wanted her to catch it to get immunity! Don't know the outcome? She didn't chase me when we met years later!
Unfortunately I only have two photographs whilst we were at Red House. One shows me flying a kite on the tennis court by the house with the gardens in the background (pictured left). The other is of my family sitting in the garden on chairs (from the lounge?) with my mother in a dress with stylised scenes of racehorses and grandstands (pictured top right). Apparently she made this when they went to the Royal Ascot Races - my father was one of those setting up the extra radio communications for the event so had free passes! I just wish I had photographs of Red House itself! Michael Wheatley 11th November 2025 |
"Red House" at
Pamber Heath, Tadley was a large country house rented by the Home
Office to house the families of several staff during 1948 to 1949.
They were installing and maintaining radio communications equipment
for the police, fire service and Civil Defence in the local counties.
The maintenance depot near Hannington was on the top of Cottington
Hill in the North Hampshire Downs and featured a very tall radio-mast
to provide coverage for much of Hampshire and Berkshire with other
scattered sub-stations to fill in the gaps. But after so many homes
had been destroyed during World War 2 there was little or no spare
accommodation for families near Hannington - so the Home Office
temporarily housed the staff and families in Red House whilst
building new homes in Kingsclere.
We left Red House for
our new home not many miles away in Kingsclere on 1st
November 1949 - I was peeved because we children had built a
seemingly huge bonfire for Guy Fawkes night and now we would be far
away!