Alastair Gauld

He lived at Inholms Farm until the early 1970s.  Born in 1914 he became chief steward of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club in 1974.  He had represented his Oxford college at tennis and competed at Junior Wimbledon. Enlisting in 1941 joining the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders he went to The Gold Coast & Ghana where he recruited from the local population for service in Burma. He enlisted men in the Northern Territories Australia & went with them through India to the Burmese Jungle where they became first class jungle fighters. In hostile terrain, carrying all their equipment in headloads.  He recorded tapes of his exploits for the Imperial War Museum after the war.

 

Irene (Rene) Marguerite Gill

She moved to Wood Street in 1975 with her husband Stanley to be near her son Ken & daughter in law Margaret.  They lived in New House Farm Lane before moving to sheltered accommodation in Frog Grove Lane until that closed in 1996.  ( Presume this is Pound Court that closed in about 1996 for redevelopment ).

The Giles Family.

Refer to the Yellow Book for more information.  There seems to be two William Giles, one living in Braod Street & one in Wood Street in 1588. William Giles was a Billman & a  Thomas an archer.

 

Mrs Gilliat

Born in 1884, she came to Wood Street in 1963. Her childhood was spent between Cannes in the winter and Bath in the summer. She had moved to Merrow at the age of 20 when she married Algernon Gilliat.  She lived at Clovers, White Hart Lane & each summer provided lunch for an Interdenominational Medical Mission from Islington followed by a speaker and chorus singing.  In 1974 she celebrated her 90^th birthday with several of her 6 children 14 grandchildren & 29 great-grandchildren.  + photo

 

Dermot Gleeson

Resident of Wood Street Village. He was the chairman of construction group MJ Gleeson.  This was set up in 1903 by his great uncle Michael Joseph, who handed the business to nephew Jack who passed it on to his nephew Dermot.   +photo

 

Mrs MJ Harper ( nee Goddard )

Mary Harper was the daughter of Alice Goddard and Mr AE Goddard, who was the headmaster of the village school. Mary lived in Wood Street for 30 years from 1936, living in the schoolhouse that adjoined the classrooms for 16 years with her parents.   The house had two rooms downstairs, with a kitchen at the back & two bedrooms upstairs.  With gas lighting, black lead stove.  The house & school were heated by coal firs and had outside bucket loos. School dinners were cooked in the hallway where Mrs Page, Mrs Jelly. Mrs Stovald & Mrs Mullard worked. There was a well in the back garden covered up for safety reasons.  In the infants class the village Maypole was kept.

Her father used to take the boys ice skating on Pinks Hill Pond on the common.  Her mother helped once a week at the church baby clinic with Mrs Rushen, along with a district nurse and a doctor,  dispensing dried milk, cod liver oil and tablets for expectant mums.  She remembers during the war, the Canadians sent over chocolate powder for the people of the village.

Leslie George Goodship

Born in 1903 his family’s ( Mother & Father, 4 sons & 1 daughter), first home was for three months in Tin Town ( down White Hart Lane). They then moved on to the Green, 6 Nightingale Villas staying for 4 years. Latterly living in Hill Place farm for 2 ½ years.  He recalls in about 1913, Thomas Wheeler and his daughters Fannie & Nellie lived at the Royal Oak.  Mr Harding & her sister lived at Pound farm; Mr & Mrs Mitchell lived at the Signal Box up Pound Lane.  Mr & Mrs Boylett lived at Hook Farm, Mr Sheppey lived in the Roundabout White Hart Lane, Mr & Mrs Crooke lived in Passengers Farm, Mr & Mrs Poulter at Russell Place Farm, Mr Kennedy lived at Inholms Farm.

Mr Kennedy was the Scoutmaster of the Wood street Scouts. They met in the Wooden Room at Inholms. It was lit by four paraffin Lamps hung on the walls.  They played cards, draughts, dominos, Ludo etc.  There was a stage where concerts were arranged.  He learnt to swim in Pinks Hill Pond ( Boys only in nature suits ).

 

Major Harry B Gray.

Born in 1919, his family came from Bermuda.  In 1938, he attended the Royal Military Academy in Greenwich, sailing to Egypt in 1941 via South Africa & Suez.  After two years & battles of Alamein, Tobruk, Benghazi with Montgomerie’s Desert Rats they went through Italy in 1943, watching the Americans bomb Monte Casino.  Later served in India, Cyprus & Benghazi retiring in 1960.

It was then he trained in Market Gardening and bought Greenacres converting it from Greenhouses to a cloche garden. Producing lettuces & 9 tonnes of tomatoes per year.  He retired in 1982 and bought 4 Frog Grove Lane, renaming it from Road Ashton to Spring Field after his grandmother’s house in Bermuda.

He was one of the founders of Wood Street Village History Society, reformed the Horticultural Society 1962 and committee of Village Association 1970.  A Parish Councillor from 1983 until 1986 when he resigned over an issue with SCC about their request to move commemorative trees   planted to commemorate a Miss Jermy & one for 50 years

Julie Pavia nee Greaves

Born in Wood Street in 1938 and spent her first 23 years living at 32 Frog Grove Lane. With her sister, Shirley, she would go to Russell Place Farm for milk each day, sometimes helping with the bottling & fixing the cardboard lids. When the pond behind the farm was frozen, they would slide on it.  At the house lived Major Baird & his housekeeper Miss Patillo ( thinks she was her Sunday School teacher) would give them bread & butter with sugar on – a treat during the war. Recalls fishing with jam jars for minnows in the pond, collecting bunches of primroses & bluebells in the woods past Pinks Hill.  She recalls during the war receiving chocolate powder to take home (from Canadians).   There was a party celebrating the end of the war in Mr & Mrs Fisher’s market garden in Frog Grove Lane.  They shared an air raid shelter with their neighbours the Harris’ and Wicks from opposite them. A bomb went through Billy Wicks’ cot where he would have been sleeping.

Her parents used to take her for crisps & lemonade outside the White Hart Pub some Sundays.  They were active Hort. Soc. Members, church & WI, British Legion and The Gleaners a village charity.

Doris & Keith Grimmond.

Doris was born in 1915 & married Keith in 1937.  In 1945 they moved to a recently built house in Frog Grove Lane called ‘Darenth’.  Bringing up two boys, Richard & Robert was full time, but Doris helped with the family business delivering eggs from the 300 hens they had.  In the 1960s she trained as a florist, working on her own from 1965 in a flourishing business run from Darenth until about 1995.  As a member of the Horticultural Society was heavily involved in the flower show, a church member, also a member of the Frog Grove ‘stich & bitch’ group ( a sewing group!).

 Keith Grimmond

Born in 1914, one of four children of a Guildford baker,  ‘Grimmond’s Bakers’ .  After working in his father’s business, he became a dairy farmer in Ash and then a haulage business. In 1966 he took over Vi Thorp’s poultry business at Woodland’s Farm with Robert using some of the land for his nursery garden. + photo

 

 

 

Hannah Joan Grimshaw

Born in 1907.  Joan lived to be 99 years old. She was an accomplished portrait artist with many Wood Street residents having drawing of their houses in black & white.  Her parents Colonel & Mrs Grimshaw lived in Nightingale Old Farm on the village green. Joan in her later years lived in the ‘Wheelwrights’ on White Hart Lane.  Her son was the famous architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw who designed the Eden Project and the Waterloo Eurostar terminal amonst other great works.

Mamie Grover

Born in India in 1914, the daughter of a Bernard Whatley a regular gunner, soldier, who went to fight in the first world war when Mamie was a baby.  He survived the war though badly wounded. The family moved back to Merrow.  Marrying Charles in 1935, they built their first house in Burpham for £300. They moved to Frog Grove Lane in Wood Street in 1963 and she moved to a Pirbright home in 2006 when her husband Charles died.   She made instruments for the Admiralty in Merrow Sidings, a job she kept for 21 years, and took in evacuees from London.  + photo

 

 

Paul Gumbrell

Mark & Sarah (nee Kurn) Gumbrell came to Worplesdon & lived in Littlefied Cottage , on Littlefield common with six children.  James, the oldest b 1859, worked on Fairland’s Farm for about 61 years from 1878.  At the age of 80, in 1939, James was awarded a medallion by the Royal Agricultural Society for long and loyal service for the same employer. James & Emily ( nee Rackley) lived in Shep’s cottage which was demolished when the land in front of Fairlands farm was compulsory purchased for road widening at the Holly Lane/Aldershot Road  junction. They then moved to Clasford Cottage. They had eight children between 1885 and 1901 including Mable.

Paul’s Grandfather, Maurice was born in 1885. Maurice married Sarah Annie Louisa Kurn (b1891). They had seven children with Dennis Charles being Paul’s father. Maurice was born at Merrist Wood Estate where he started work at the age of 12. He also worked at Fairlands Farm for 43 years retiring at 70.

Paul was one of four children, Carol, Sandra Denise & Graham, born in 1957 to Dennis & Brenda nee Ansell.  First living at 88 Pound Hill, then 102 Pound Hill in 1959.

Emily Gumbrell b 1858 with her daughter Mable

James Gumbrell at Fairlands Farm,

 

Lettie Freda Reeves, later Gunner

Lettie, born in 1919, moved to Wood Street in about 1935 with her parents & lived above what was then Jubilee Stores.  She met her husband David Gunner & married in 1939 and had one child Patricia.  Patricia was born above Jubilee Stores & had three children, Dale, Julie & Michelle.

Lettie joined the land army where she worked for 4 years. She worked on the land, mainly looking after chickens & horses, but also looked after German prisoners of war and Italian soldiers.  She then went to Bangor University in Wales. She was fluent in French & later learnt Spanish, German & Italian.

David & Lettie had their own house in Wood Street. David had been to War and suffered Dunkirk.  She was 40 when she started travelling, mostly alone, in Europe. She went to a Spanish Convent where she taught the nuns English.  She worked in England as a language teacher until she was 67.  + photo

 

John Gunner

Born in 1947 in Leeds, he farmed 300 acres of land at Russell place Farm in Wood Street, with his son Steven. In 2007 an outbreak of foot and mouth disease saw them lose their prize herd of 119 pedigree bulls from the Pyrenees and  Charolais cows.  The virus escaped from the Government run Pirbright Institute for Animal health facility.

John was a most generous man; with the many things he did to benefit residents often unknown to many. He quietly got on with this work for the heart of the community. For many years he did a huge amount of work for Wood Street Village and Worplesdon Parish Council .

He was a “man of the land” and his family and his community were very important to him.  To celebrate his work, Worplesdon Paris Council awarded him a posthumous award of Freedom of the Parish together with a fine metal bench next to the village pond.   As well as farming, John was a trained car mechanic and a seafarer. He also ran a Christmas lights company with Steven, JDS Decorations Ltd.  He provided the Christmas Tree and lights for Wood Street Village Green for many years.

 

 

 

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