RAOC Gazette - page 125
Image details
| Corps | RAOC |
|---|---|
| Material type | Journals |
| Book page | |
| Chapter head | |
| Chapter key | |
| Chapter number | |
| Full title | RAOC Gazette |
| Page number | |
| Publication date | 1978 |
| Real page | |
| Colour | No |
| Grey | No |
| Early date | 1978 |
| Late date | 1978 |
| Transcription |
tteea &ebt£iteb ftp jWajor «E. 3f. Sforttose MANY who have served in Portsmouth before the war, must have wondered what has happened to Hiisea Barracks since it was vacated by the RAOC after the Depot and Training Establishment moved to Deepcut. Several times over the years I have passed along the adjacent London Road, promising myself a look around. Recently I did just that—but found few traces of the Depot as we knew it, Small recruiting posters remain high up on the old barrack wait which still flanks the road, and the gates, chained but without the RAOC badge of course, are still there. In addition to the wall, the whole of the perimeter fence, from the front, round to the old officers mess in Copnor Road, still stands, and gives an air of privacy to the small estate which has been built on the main barrack area, The estate, comprising the usual modern houses and fiats, was built by private enterprise and the gardens are now well established. Two names at least are perpetuated—' St Barbara Way* and ' Egan Close,' the latter I should think is roughly where the adjutant's quarter once stood. I strolled first of all along the Officers Mess drive. On the right hand corner adjoining London Road is a single floor old people's home known as * Hiisea Lodge,' and next door towards the old Mess is a home especially designed for dis- abled people called 'Russets.' The architecture of the build- ings is unusual in that they have what I can only describe as 1 dished roofs' in the oriental style. Quarters further along the road, which were built since the war, still stand but I did not think to enquire if they are now privately owned or still quarters. I remember visiting the late Freddie Barley and Bill Whiting there during the 1950s. Gatcombe House Officers Mess, is now a merchant sea- men's hostel. The tennis courts, minus the netting, and the gardens, are a shadow of their former glory when cared for so expertly by old Tom Deadman, I remember Brigadier (as he then was) Charles Denniston, when DOS 21 Army Group, telling me he had called there in 1944, and Tom, in a rather emotional gesture, gave him a bunch of roses for Mrs Denniston, so pleased was he to see an old friend and member of the pre-war mess. {Tom was there until he died—in the mid '50s.—Editor.) Of the barrack complex, very few buildings remain. The Sergeants Mess is now the Headquarters Hiisea (Portsmouth District) Scout Council. As I looked at it, my mind went back to the evening when as a recruit I was on fatigues in the kitchen for some Mess function, when through the window, taking a short cut from the Church Drive after the Sergeants Mess gates had been closed, came the never to be forgotten RSM Bill Cook. What a great character he was! I was told by the custodian that there is a preservation order on the Riding School—later known as the drill shed. The Portsmouth Corporation are using it as a temporary over- flow store until they have sufficient funds to build a central municipal museum, I noticed an old steam roller, fire engine, printing press and a small cannon amongst the heterogeneous collection on the crowded floor. On the site of the old cook- house and dining hall, ( which replaced the earlier wooden structures, there is now Gatcombe Park First School,* a typical modern primary school with playground etc, The guard room and barrack blocks, families hospital and Ml room, School of Instruction with its verandah, garages, quartermasters compound, gymnasium, NAAFI canteen and recreation rooms, barrack store, fire shed, band room, Wally the barber's shop, Records and Pay Offices, St Barbara's Garrison Church and hall, the RC Hut, RSMs quarter, * Blossom Alley' and even the Colonel's residence on the Church Drive, Hiisea links Copnor Road and London Road behind the block which includes the 'Coach and Horses' public house and Sparshatts Garage) is a stone commemorating a sermon given by Charles Wesley under an elm tree (now long gone), in replacement of the bronze plaque stolen a few years ago. Rugby camp, built for the Militia in 1938, alongside the Copnor Road at the entrance of the sports field, has been demolished and the area appears to be derelict. There is a notice stating that it is MOD property, but with another saying 1 Portsmouth Rugby Football Ground.' I understand that the old pavilion, built by self help, was burned down by vandals. A barrack block (built to accommodate WRAC I believe) between the sports field entrance and the old farm still stands, but I could not see how it was being used. I cannot remember having seen the building in my days at Hiisea. On the corner of Rat Lane (now named Norway Road), Green Farm still stands. But what was a narrow lane flanked by high hedges, is now a metalled road, on the left side of which is an industrial estate. One road off this leads to a part of what used to be Hiisea Ordnance Depot, but which is now much reduced in size, and accommodates minor units including Detachment 43 Command Workshop RE ME. Opposite this road on the right hand side of Norway Road, is a large block of offices used by the Inspector of Taxes. The entrance to the Ordnance Depot in the old days was through gates on the Copnor Road, almost opposite the Church Drive. This entrance has now been pushed back to alongside ( what I think was Ordnance House,' but which, according to the MOD policeman on duty, is now two soldiers' quarters, I walked back past t i e old rampart storehouses which bore a notice to the effect that they are the property of the Portsmouth Corporation and are now in a dangerous condition. Some repairs—or destruction was in hand. To my surprise I then found myself in Military Road, followed by Peronne and Bapaume Roads, where on Fridays in the old days, as grubby recruits, scruffy in our ill fitting canvas fatigue dress, we would shovel coal into bunces from a GS wagon (hand picked for those wives considerate enough to produce hot tea on miserable wet and cold days) and deliver to each quarter. The GS wagon was pulled round by hand and the fatigue was not the most popular. Alongside the Copnor Road between the Ordnance Depot entrance as we knew it and Rat Lane, there is now a block of Navy flats, occupying what was once part of the Ordnance Depot. There is still a high security fence around the shrunken Ordnance Depot area but which I believe, will not remain in Service hands for much longer. Apart from those Corpsmen who were employed on the permanent staff of the Regimental Depot and in the Ordnance Depot offices, storehouses and workshops, thousands of ap- prentice armourers and fitters and hundreds of saddlers and harness makers from other arms were trained in the workshops, and thousands of ex-servicemen from the Portsmouth area were employed there on retirement. When we meet on RAOC Association occasions, no wonder that our memories turn to the old Hiisea days. There never could have been a better UK station, combining as it did facilities for sport and social activities between all Services, and with access by bus or tram to the sea and fine countryside, for a matter of three old pence from outside the barrack gates. t am sure that hundreds of us still retain the happiest memories of the old place—alas now gone for ever. THE House, have all gone. Between the Sergeants Mess tennis courts (on which now stands a block of flats so far as I could judge) there used to be an area flanking the Church Drive on which were ' soldier's gardens' or allotments and an open space with trees. This is now a safe children's grassed play ground with swings. In that area adjacent to the Old London Road (that is the road-which COVER PHOTOGRAPH THE Apprentices College rugby team during a coaching session at Deepcut Photograph by Captain M. E. Parsons, RAOC. 341 — |
| Book number | R0246a |