Surbiton Charter Day Medallion 1936 (Obverse)

This morning, I woke from a dream which featured a computer and I checked the time on the computer as I woke – 2.20. When I woke properly , I realised this was an imprecise way of checking the time so I looked at my phone. It was 2.21. It looked, at that moment, as if I had finally discovered a super-power. At one time I was able to wake at a specified time (varied by about five minutes) but as I grew older and bought better alarm clocks I neglected to use it. Had I rediscovered it?

I toddled off to the bathroom, went back to bed, set myself a target of waking at 5.20 (no point in being over-ambitious – 3 hours would do nicely) and woke up at 3.40. Clearly I had not rediscovered my old super-power. Nor had i found a way of improving my sleep. It looks like my ragged sleep patterns are here to stay.

Rising some hours later, full of energy, I set to checking emails and comments, then moved on to completing an article about Surbiton Charter Day in 1936. It was a day full of good cheer, civic pride and hope for the future. The newspaper said that hordes of eager schoolchildren listened to speeches from civic dignitaries, though I fear they may have erred on this point. The children were given packed lunches and small bronze medallions before setting off for a day of sports.

Surbiton Charter Day Medallion 1936 (Reverse)

That, I always find, is the problem with medallions from this period. A way of life was about to end, and a number of lives would be changed forever. The writer of this short memoire found that his life changed direction abruptly in 1939. For those of you not familiar with the term, here is a link to the Bevin Boys.

The war memorial at Surbiton holds 469 names. It is unusual, because that is more than were lost in the Great War, but it can be explained by he expansion of the Borough between the two World Wars. There are, as far as I can see, no names of civilians who were killed in the bombing. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission listed, but I know from various sources that 32 High Explosive bombs were dropped in the early part of the war and that 22 V! bombs hit the Borough in the latter part of the war. At least 12 people were killed in one attack, including four members of one family, the Scriveners, the youngest being 2, and the  two Gale sisters. They are listed on the Commonwealth War Graves site but not on the War Memorial.

St Mark’s Church was bombed in 1940 and not rebuilt until 1960 – stones from the bombing were used to make a cairn at the War memorial outside the library. There is a picture of the memorials here – WW1, WW2, Civilians of WW2 (no names) and the St Mark’s cairn. The CWGC gives 52 names from the Borough, including a variety of couples, family members and siblings.

I will add a link when my article on the medallion is published on Facebook. Sorry it’s a bit of a depressing post, but after finishing the original one about Charter Day, it seemed incomplete to leave it in 1936.

With a penny for size comparison