Fareham Revisited

Book excerpt: Fareham Revisited started out as a poem, which Michael Stephenson was inspired to write when he was reflecting on how much his home town had changed since the 1950s and 1960s. The poem and its sentiments struck a chord with so many people that he decided to write a book about Fareham that would evoke more of these memories. The book was privately published in 2004. This new revised and expanded edition will delight anyone who remembers the town in its heyday - and will also intrigue newcomers. Part-memoir and part-history, Fareham Revisited perfectly captures the allure of the shops and cafés along the ‘Golden Mile', the alleyways or ‘drokes', the old cottages, the market with its livestock, the coal barges at the Quay and the well-known characters, including dairy boss Tom Parker who drove around Fareham in a four-horse-power carriage, though his milkmen still used the horse-and-cart. For bus and railway enthusiasts this, too, is the perfect book, as the author casts an expert eye on the bus companies that plied their trade in Fareham, with their distinctive livery, and remembers the last days of steam trains, of which he had a privileged view, as the house in which his family lived was next to the railway line.