Hildyard Dunnings

I was born in Manchester in 1925. My parents were Fred and Hannah Myers.

I had two sisters called Joan and Barbara and we lived in Goldbourne Avenue in Withington until I was 5, then we moved to 52 Roughey Gardens in Wythenshawe.

I stayed here until I joined the A.T.S in 1942 and that where I met my future husband Charles Dunnings who came from Southampton. Charles was in the Gordon Highlanders a was very brave man.

He was demobbed in August 1946 and we moved to Southampton so he could be near to his family. We then moved in to pre-fab property in Lordwoods and lived there until 1953 when we moved to Porlock Road in Millbrook where I still live today.

We had three sons Leslie, Barry and Tony. I have a total 6 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild (So Far).

Charles and I were married for 56 years but sadly he passed away last year on the 2nd of July 1999. He had said he would never see the 21st century and sadly he was right.


During my working life, I have worked indifferent jobs. But in those days,jobs were few and far between so I had to take washing and ironing to help pay for the food. Also, I used to clean private houses and shops to assist the family income.

My last place of work was with Geestes the banana firm in Southampton were I retired from in 1984 … from being totally bananas 🙂

Since then I have be going to the “All Saints Church” in Millbrook which is one of two CofE churches in the Parish, the other one being St Peters in Maybush.

The Rev Norman Boakes and The Rev Amelia Horsley both extremely good people.
Norman comes to see when he can and Amelia comes and gives me Holy Communion once a month which is much appreciated.

We have a very good church warder -Charlie Marshall and his wife who provide all the flower arrangements for the church, and Flo Taylor is the Deputy Warder.

St Peter church has a choir and it is treat to hear them sing. We have a new curate coming this year with his family, I hope they all enjoy they time with us as I have really enjoyed the years with our church.

We have a beautiful glass stained window and everyone likes to stop and look at it.

We also run the All Saints Senior Citizen Club which meets every Tuesday afternoon where we play bingo and have a good old natter with each other.

Our Chair-lady is Betty Murray and the Treasurer is Vi Stevens and I am the Secretary we have a very good Committee and there are 97 members to our club it is a very enjoyable afternoon.We also do coach outings through out the year.

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