The Editor,
Viewers’ Letters,
The Collingbourne Kingston VillageWebsite,

A LETTER RECEIVED  JUNE 2008 (prompted in part by other correspondence. See below. Editor.

It is hard to know where to begin in response to your letters about
Collingbourne.
I was born and lived at Spicey (N043) until I left home to do an engineering apprenticeship. I was at the school 1939-45.
Starting with the crashed aircraft at the back of the Fairmile/ Tinkerbourne (also known locally as Tinkerbarn and by the OS as Tinkersbarn. Ed.). I think it was a Fairey Battle trainer that got into a flat spin. It certainly had yellow livery when Terance Hedges (No41) and others went in search of 'aeroplane glass' (Perspex, which could be used for all manner of things). We had been watching it from the school playground when it went down rather rapidly. I thought there was a column of smoke but there was no sign of fire
when we got near. It seemed to be completely intact until we noticed that all the rivets seemed to be loose. We beat a discreet retreat. I think it was this one where my father George and Frank Perry had to play undertakers
and take the bodies sheeted down on a flat bed lorry to RAF Upavon. They were offered a meal which would normally have been gladly received during rationing, but somehow Dad could not face it. It was not a problem for Frank who was a First World War veteran.
Regarding the Wards and Gibbons, I remember Walt Ward as big man with the tiniest of dogs that accompanied him to the Cleaver (Kingston Hotel if you don't mind)! (It’s now The Barleycorn! Ed.)Dick was in the navy and I was at school with Margaret, Olwen
and David Gibbons.
Does anyone remember Home guard commander and cycle/radio shop owner catching boys playing football with an unexploded bomb on the football field outside the school; after they had dragged it over rough tracks from the
training ground on the downs?( see the Ancestor Search page. Editor)
How about the glider that came down in the field at the back of our house? I expected them to land a Halifax to tow it away! Mum was duty tea maker to the RAF for weeks while they stripped it down. he photo brings back memories and I remember Kathleen Kent dying and Miss Lewis (from Swansea) explaining to the class that "an angel had come down saying come along Kathleen you are very tired before taking her in his arms and carrying her off to Heaven". No doubt there are people in the second photo I should know but without the names I am lost.
That is enough for a start. I can ramble on for hours as I have been trying to put a book of my childhood together for my children who had the fortune good or otherwise to be brought up in towns.
Should the two pictures open up as there seems to be a link that does not go
anywhere? (Apologies, but after a computer crash and restoration several things on the site aren’t behaving themselves as they should. I am trying to get them sorted out. Ed.)
I like your website, it is very informative.

Frank Hall frank-hall@supanet.com (Now living in darkest Gosport)

I found your site on the web and was intrigued by the mention of an American military plane crashing, which I had always thought was a Spitfire (but I was only five at the time!).
As my father was a regular soldier, my mother decided to bring the family back to Wiltshire from Kent at the outbreak of war.  My mother, Hephzibah Bushell (nee Bailey), was born at Burbage in 1907 and both her parents and brother were living in Collingbourne Ducis, so we had family close by. We lived at No 53 Collingbourne Kingston, one of the semi detached cottages in the triangle, which I understand have since been converted into a single property called Church Cottage.
I was five years old in 1943 and I was inside our cottage at No 53 Collingbourne Kingston when the plane crashed. We opened the front door and I remember seeing the air full of dust. As far as I recall the plane ended up in the grounds of the big house opposite our cottages on the other side of the triangle after crashing. My mother worked for the lady who owned the house.
I remember my mother telling us that the pilot was a lady and that she was taken to hospital, but that is all I know. I hope this is of some use to you.
I attended the local school, can any of your readers remember during school holidays taken a billy can to the school to be filled with milk.

Dear Tony
      Many thanks for replying to my request for any information about the crash. Your letter led me to being put in touch with Mr Fred Palmer who had not only been an eyewitness to the crash but it was also his home that the aircraft struck. On the day Fred was working in a field on Inham Down  when the aircraft, and yes it was a Spitfire, came over the down from the east and suddenly turned and headed for the village, and obviously in trouble, crashed into the thatched roof of no. 57 in the High Street.It seems that the impact pushed the entire roof off of the walls and this dissipated much of the force of the impact and no doubt saved the pilot’s life.
After scattering the roof remains and the upstairs furniture into the road the aircraft came to rest in the garden of the house opposite. Fred recalls that it was almost intact. The pilot was thought to be American, (village lore says because she was chewing gum!) and was rushed to the Military Hospital in Tidworth. And was found to have suffered no serious injury.. No 57 was one of a pair of cottages which stood immediately to the north of the Barleycorn Inn . Fred said that cottages’ walls always leaned alarmingly and  they were demolished soon afterwards.
      Many thanks to Fred for his vivid memories of the day. There are still a few questions to answer and it would be great to identify the pilot or her family and was she really American or perhaps Canadian ( another rumour). Subsequent to the bombing of the Supermarine factory near Southampton  Spitfire components were made in various scattered locations in the area (my aunt built their wings in the Wilts and Dorset bus garage in Endless St Salisbury. Fuselages were made in the Castle Road Garage .Editor) and then assembled at Highpost near Boscombe Down..
Regards from L. McG. The website editor and manager.
PS Any thoughts about the milk cans?

    In my previous message I meant to allude to the downed Spitfire. I remember it well, also I didn’t know what type of plane it was but it was generally kicked around that it had an American female pilot ( with a mouthful of chewing gum).
    There was also another plane that went down over the hills above the school. It may have been a crash. Anyway, a bunch of us from school dragged up there to see the wreck but were shooed away by the police.      All the best
Olive (nee Broadway) Bishop
Always, many thanks for writing Olive, can anyone else remember this incident. Seems there was never a dull moment in Collingbourne Kingston during the war  (I have subsequently been told that it was a crashed Beaufighter and that there were dead aircrew in it so no wonder children were shooed away. Also, it seems a Fairey Battle crashed in one of the Hosier’s fields on the Fairmile, known to this day as Aircraft Field.  L.McG.Editor 4th March 2007)

    My name is Chris Utrup nee Broadway I was raised in the hamlet  of Augton . Our house ran alongside the railway line. It was the last house before crossing the track to our schoolteacher and her father’s house. Her name was Miss Sherman. Our house was very rundown with no running water , plumbing or electricity. We carried every bit of our water from a well and then took it to the top of the garden and emptied it. We could clearly see Brunton to the east , would cross two meadows to get there, connecting them was a little stile over the river Bourne. There were heavy tree limbs going across to the other side. How many times my did my twin brother push me in leaving me drenched and cold?
We also used to take jars and catch tadpoles. I worked in Collingbourne Woods planting trees, it was really great riding our bikes down Tinkerbarn Hill. My favourite places, Bryans Hill, Spicey, Greenlands and of course Collingbourne Kingston. We were poor but the happiest days of my life were spent in that pretty, and very friendly village. Memories will last forever. I still do miss England. Thank you again. I will be one of your favourites reading your web site. Regards Mary Broadway.
Mary lives in New Mexico and Olive, who writes below is her sister. Editor.

    I have just discovered the Courier web page and have spent the last two hours devouring it. Let me congratulate all who have put these pages together.From the history, current events, minutes of meetings and the wonderful pictures.
    While on one or two past visits to St Mary’s church I tried to subscribe to the magazine but didn’t succeed in doing so, perhaps this web page will tell it all instead.
    Let me explain that I’m a Collingbourne Kingston ex pat living in Oceanside California. I have secured my burial site at St Mary’s Church which is to the left of the porch shown in one of the photographs.
Under a separate message I attach a group photo of me in Mrs Williams’ class about 1939 time.
I was in the first bunch of kids to attend the now named Castledown School (now the Wellington Academy Ed.)  
Many thanks again .
Olive (Broadway) Bishop

Olive identifies all but two of the scholars in the class photo. Can anyone put names to them or indeed any of the ones in the whole school? Don’t they look happy. L.McG. Editor.

Betty Perry, Brenda Parsons, Dot Smith, Winnie Ward, Joyce Orchard, Connie Pyle, Josie Kent, Grace North, Rosemary Lewis, Florence Eliot

Reg or Lenny Black, ???, ???, David Broadway,