We met Sue in All Our Own Crafts where she has had her products for sale for the last 10 years. She works there 2½ hours a week.

Moving to the area from Guildford in 1970 when she got married, she has lived here for 54 years.

“My first memory was coming out of the railway station and there being just mud.”

Sue worked in Basing View where from the office you could see Basing Church. 

“I only took the job as a stop gap and ended up staying 31 years. For something that was just a stop gap it wasn’t bad.”

She told us that she used to save up her luncheon vouchers and they would go out for dinner on a Friday.

“Entertainment was in the form of lots of dances at different companies and we socialised with workmates because many people had moved out of London and didn’t have friends here.”

She lives in Deep Lane by Morrisons “where everyone who learned to drive here learned their hill starts.”

She has been a school governor at The Vyne and after she was made redundant from her job she took an Art access course at BCoT before studying a Textile degree. During lockdown she made scrubs. She helps to organise the May Open Studios. She likes to visit the town centre for the Restaurants.

When asked why the area is great, she said it has “excellent communications to London and the south coast. We lived in Headley for eight years and realised how spoilt we’d been in Basingstoke with the trains.”

January 2025