My mum lived all her life here, going to school in Thorley. She took the Scholarship, but didn’t hear anything and went to West Wight Secondary School. After she’d been there about 3 months, a man turned up in the classroom and asked what she was doing there:
getting on with her work she said. Apparently, she’d passed the Scholarship but no one had told her, so then her parents had to find the money to pay for her uniform and she had to travel to Newport to school on her own, leaving all her friends.

Sue Henderson nee Hillier

One day when she was at home ill with tonsillitis, Mr. Biddlecombe from Wellow appeared on a ladder painting her bedroom window frame. She politely asked him how he was and was surprised when he told her that he’d had a chill. His wife hadn’t aired the waistband of his underpants properly, he told her.

In WWII, Kath and Marge, my mum’s older sisters both joined up, the WAAFs I think. Because Marge wasn’t very old, they had to share a billet. Mum was only 10. Dad was 9 years older and went straight into the R.A.F. when he left school, ending up in Singapore.
Mary Henderson b 1954

Cyril Henderson in RAF uniform