Northwood W.I.

Posted by Mrs Jackie Walder on Friday, 12th February 2010, 16:21

I am still searching for any information on my late husband’s Granny, Mrs Beatrice Jenkins.

I understood from my late Mother-in-Law Mrs Clara Morgan of Wyatts Lane that her Mum helped to start the Northwood W.I. before WW2, and she was also a great help to those women in the village who needed help when giving birth or laying out after the nearest and dearest departed. She was married to William Jenkins and had 5 daughters and one son and they lived in Pallance Cottages.

William was a carpenter/builder. My late husband Michael went to school with his brother Ray at the local village school during WW2 and could remember his Mum getting him and his brother up during a very bad bombing raid on Southampton Docks, and her telling the boys aged about 9/10 that they would never see the likes of this again. They could read a newspaper during the night-time raid out in the garden as the lights from the burning docks lit up the whole sky.

He also remembered getting a plane flying very low over Northwood and emptying its guns out. The two little boys were thrilled to pick up bullets from the ditches down Wyatts Lane and take them home to show their Mum; she wasn’t too impressed with that though and told them off for being so daft.

I understand that where my late Mother-in-law’s garden was is now an estate of houses called Wyatts Close, but the cottage that she lived in for almost 60 years – LILDRED – is still standing. It’s almost opposite the scout hut.

Mrs Jackie Walder of Rainham, Kent.