During the last snowfall, I was standing outside the Post Office and thought back to 1948, trudging through the snow that was falling on the park. In the RAF, I was home on leave for Christmas, having caught the train from Waterloo to Bracknell – the train fare in those days was six shillings return or 30p in today’s money!! I was coming to visit my girl friend who then lived in the Army Nissen huts in The Avenue, near South Lodge. At this time there were a klot of these huts being used for temporary accommodation by Easthampstead Rural Council.
The Camp as it was called, seemed a long walk from the station – there were no frequent bus services in those days. Past the Green Man and Easthampstead Church, cutting across to the footpath going to the Church and then a short walk along the Crowthorne Road, until you reached the entrance to the park. that piece of road still exists under the footbridge across the dual carriageway.
The entrance with its farm gate was not the end of my journey, because it then meant going up the park road with its large potholes, until you turned left into South Road and the start of ‘The Camp’. The Nissen huts were positioned on both sides of South Road and carried on until you came to The Avenue which turned right, with more Nissen huts and some wooden buildings. I remember as you came to South Road, there was always a strong smell of pine wood smoke, each hut had a large stove as the only heating in winter – when icicles hung down from the corrugated iron roofing. South Road continued beyond The Avenue until you arrived on the Crowthorne Road at South Lodge.
Today South Lodge and The Avenue are still there as one approaches the Crematorium and it seems hard to think back to when Great Hollands did not exist.
Winters are now not so severe in the new Century; in 1947 and 48 the winter was so severe, wartime rationing meant real hardship, there was a national fuel crisis, even Big Ben froze up and the coal dump near the brickyard in Binfield caught fire. When there was excessive snowfall, there weren’t the snowploughs and road gritting that exist today. Everything was more dependent on horsepower, literally.
Tony Crane