Cavendish Road street party
In the background are surface air raid shelters erected by Sunbury Council. Above them, as well as bunting, clothes are hanging – a sign reads ‘We have hung our washing on the Siegfried Line’, a reference to a popular wartime song. Another sign reads ‘God bless our boys’. At the centre stands the Rev George Elcock, Vicar of St. Saviours. Patricia Green lived with her parents at no. 45 and attended the party. Martin Levey lived in Lyndhurst Avenue and also attended the party, he won first prize for fancy dress as a Red Indian.
Sunbury Victory Parade
The Sunbury Victory Parade makes its way along the Lower Hampton Road, accompanied by a policeman and boys on bicycles. At the centre the lorry ‘float’ carries a display by British Thermostat Co. of Windmill Road, who manufactured the vital thermostat for the Rolls-Royce Merlin, the most widely used British aero engine of the war, which powered the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster amongst other famous aircraft. The white vehicle to the right of the lamppost is a milk float from Job’s Dairy of Hanworth, who had a depot in Station Road, Sunbury.
Staines Road East street party
A street party held at P.J.Scott’s builder’s yard for residents of Staines Road East, Sunbury. Denis Scott was 4 at the time and his mother and father are standing centre at the far end of the table.
Crescent Road street party
Tables are set out in the form of a ‘T’ at the junction of Crescent Road and Linden Way in Shepperton. It seems to be a common feature of these parties that children are seated while the adults are on their feet and serving the food, which was of course still rationed.
Sunbury Victory Parade 2
Another view of the Sunbury Victory Parade, again featuring the British Thermostat float. The photo is taken just outside the factory, looking south along Windmill Road, with the platform of Upper Halliford Halt in the background. This station on the Shepperton Branch was built especially for employees of British Thermostat, whose workforce expanded dramatically during the war. There was only a platform on one side, as the other track was used for storing damaged carriages.
Land girls Laleham Shepperton & Halliford
A group of Land Girls from the local branch of the Women’s Land Army, who helped out on farms in the absence of many male farm workers in the armed services. A variety of uniforms, from the working dungarees to the smarter pullover and breeches, is in evidence. Peggy Bardwell is left of centre, she worked at Yates’ Nursery in Upper Halliford, now the site of Squire’s Garden Centre.
Shepperton Victory Concert
The programme for a concert to celebrate Victory in Europe, held exactly a month after VE Day in the Parish Hall (now known as the Village Hall) in Shepperton High Street. Messrs Marchant and Kaye were shopkeepers in Shepperton. The technical side of the performance was overseen by RAF personnel from the unit at Sound City (now Shepperton Film Studios).
Sunbury and Shepperton’s adopted warship HMS Sonnet
During the war, towns and villages around the country ‘adopted’ warships during fundraising events known as ‘Warship Weeks’. The amount of money raised by each community was reflected in the type of warship they were offered for adoption. Sunbury and Shepperton Urban District adopted the boom defence vessel HMS Sonnet. Her role was to lay and maintain a floating barrier (or boom) across the entrance to harbours, to prevent incursion by enemy ships and submarines. Her ship’s bell hangs today in Shepperton library.
Shepperton Green VE Celebration
The location could be Littleton Nurseries off Laleham Road. Stella Smith (nee Cheeseman) who supplied the photo is bottom left holding her younger brother Andrew.
Colonel Turner’s Department at Sound City, Shepperton, c1945
Colonel Turner’s Department was an RAF unit based at Sound City (now Shepperton Studios), and was initially concerned with the making of dummy aircraft for airfields. It developed into a large organisation which manufactured decoy sites all around the country, to mimic airfields, factories and even towns, to persuade the enemy to bomb them instead of the real targets. They also trained the staff to operate them.
Kempton Park Prisoner of War camp
Kempton Park Racecourse was converted into a Prisoner of War camp during the war, and after D-Day, the invasion of France by the Allies in 1944, prisoners began to pour in, brought to the camp by rail. Prisoners were held at Kempton while they were processed and divided into the committed Nazis and the ordinary soldiers, before going on to other camps. Here prisoners line up with their belongings in front of the grandstands. Many were held after the war, some as late as 1947.
