Aldershot, the home of the British Army
Like many English Army Brats, I grew up in this town.
I was born in the Cambridge Military Hospital. I called Aldershot home, even though we moved around a lot with the military. Wherever my Dad was posted with 1 Para – we would move there for a year or so, then end up back to Aldershot.
Schools were Talavera Infants, Beaumont Middle and Heron Wood.
Home was in the old Military housing complexes, Willems Park (which used to be near Asda is now) and then Talavera Park (at the top of Barnard Way – the most epic death defying skateboard run down into a busy road LOL)
Willems Park block was army married quarters on Wellington Avenue. It was built about 1964 and demolished in the 1990s, to be replaced by houses again used as married quarters. It was built on the parade grounds of the old cavalry barracks.
By God those housing complexes were grim, but as a kid we had great fun knocking on doors and seeing how far the angry squaddies (or more scary wives) would chase us when we ran away.
In my teenage years I went to Heron Wood Boys School… but there is whole blog on its own. LOL
The official ALDERSHOT SHOWREEL displays a much glossier version of Aldershot than I remember. PS: It’s (rather unfairly) nicknamed Aldershit for a reason 😉
Thanks for the memory jogger 🙂
idiot
In Russian they say “intelligent thoughts have always followed him, but he was faster”.
Thank you Mr Litten. Knockdown ginger in Willems! Seriously, there were some hard geezers there. Not for me, we did that at the top end of town, West End. Got a relative called Andy, from Aldershot?
I lived in Willems park as a young kid in the late 70’s, when the 4th field regt. Royal Artillery were part of the Airborne, great place, always remember the long path where you could get hit with falling conkers from the trees on each side