Lifelong Studland resident Sally Wright has published a book of her memories of growing up in the Dorset village through the wartime years – which has become a storming success.
A reprint has already been ordered of Growing Up In Studland and Sally has already had a few requests for her autograph!
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SALLY WRIGHT
Sally Wright, right, with friends Patsy Upshall (left) and Ann Guppy, the last three of Studland’s wartime generation still living in the village
No running water or electricity
Now in her late 80s, Sally’s memories of childhood in a traditional thatched cottage, with no running water, electricity or inside toilet have entranced modern day readers and are still looked back on by Sally herself as happy days.
Sally’s mother, Ruth Boniface, owned a Box Brownie camera and took many pictures of family life in the 1930s and 40s which Sally has kept, using some of them to illustrate her book.
As a child, Sally and her family moved from the thatched cottage called Woodhouse to one of the Council Cottages in August 1947 when Wareham and Purbeck Rural District Council built homes for local villagers.
Amazingly, the house had two flushing toilets, electricity, water plumbed directly to the home, hot water provided by a back boiler and a bathroom – no more baths in a large bowl in front of the range, no more meals cooked on paraffin burners and no more candles to light the way to bed!
Woodhouse, Sally’s childhood home, as it is today
SALLY WRIGHT
Sally’s grandad, a farm worker, tending sheep in Woodhouse field
“I remember some things so vividly”
But Sally Wright said:
“I had a very happy childhood, and my kids said I ought to write down my memories. Then my carer, Nico Johnson, said how interesting my story was, copied out my notes and put it into the correct order.
“I remember some things so vividly – a German plane that came over the village when mum and I were walking through the garden, another crashing in West Field behind our house, and having my very first ice cream outside Studland Stores, a block of Walls vanilla wrapped in blue and white paper. Delicious!
“We grew up in a thatched cottage called Woodhouse, which was rented from the Bankes estate and divided into two with granny and grandad living in half.
“My childhood was so happy – granny and grandad were lovely people, kind and patient who worked so hard to bring an income into the household, and we had so many cousins who would come down to the cottage every summer.”
SALLY WRIGHT
Sally with her doll outside Woodhouse during the wartime years
SALLY WRIGHT
Sally and her grandad, who worked their Studland garden to help feed the family
“We fed the chickens and they fed us”
Sally added:
“There was no running water, the water tap we used was in the field and the water supply came directly off the heath, so that when the weather got too hot or there were too many day trippers in Studland the water turned brown – but we still drank it, it was lovely and soft!
“We had two gardens, one for us down the side of the house and one for granny and grandad at the back, and they grew everything you can imagine, including strawberries which we had to net to stop the birds stealing them.
“Grandad kept chickens and we would pick up corn which had dropped from the harvesting to feed them. But corn shards were sharp, cutting into our ankles as we collected the corn, so we had bloody socks.
“We fed the chickens and they fed us, I remember grandad wringing their necks. During the war he also used to snare rabbits to feed us, after I saw the skins I was horrified and refused to eat bunnies any more – but I think my parents pretended that the meat wasn’t rabbit so I would eat it.
“We made our own bread and ate seasonal products and what we’d grown, Because this was before the days of refrigerators and household electricity, we kept food stuff in the safe outside, a box with a perforated metal door to keep flies and animals out.”
SALLY WRIGHT
All the children of Studland Village School, pictured in 1947 / 48
SALLY WRIGHT
Sally as a toddler with a rocking horse she remembers disliking
Village school had air raid shelters
Sally was born to Ruth and George Boniface in the summer of 1938, so began school days in Studland during the war and when she started the village school had air raid shelters in the banks at the side of the sandy playground.
While all children in the village were issued with gas masks, Sally can’t remember ever having to use them, nor having to go into any air raid shelter, although she does recall hiding under the kitchen table with her gran when air raid sirens went off.
On one occasion, in the spring of 1944, Sally recalls hanging off a five bar gate in the fields when she saw a large black car driving past, which she watched until it went out of sight, later learning that it had been carrying King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Fort Henry to see Operation Smash, a practice run for the D-Day invasion.
Studland villagers were left in no doubt over their important role in the war – quite apart from frequent sightings of German bombers on their way to military targets inland, or after bombing raids on Poole, much of the village was out of bounds to them.
BOVINGTON TANK MUSEUM
An archive photograph from Operation Smash shows a Valentine tank with skirt around it being lowered into Studland Bay
SALLY WRIGHT
Sally’s mum, Ruth Boniface, and her Aunt Olive had served with Studland WAAC (above) during World War One and joined the village fire watchers in World War Two
Studland was full of soldiers
Sally Wright said:
“As a child I couldn’t go beachcombing as the whole of the beach, cliffs and heathland between Ferry Road and the beach was used for training for D-Day, with live ammunition. I don’t remember going down to the beach until the war was over.
“None of the Studland villagers, as far as I know, had any idea what our beach looked like or what equipment was on there as we were not allowed to go anywhere close to it.
“It was also said in the village that there was an oil pipeline laid from the top of the cliffs down to the sea, for the oil to be ignited and set the sea on fire to protect our coastline, should the need occur.
“The village was full of soldiers from 1943, I presume that all the big houses in Studland had been taken over by the War Office, and mum and dad befriended two American or Canadian soldiers who used to come up for afternoon tea.
“I don’t know why the whole of Studland wasn’t evacuated like Tyneham was, I expect we might have been too big a village to do that. I think Greenlands and the hamlets around Poole Harbour may have been, and families living further out on the heathland were moved into the village as the area became a militarised zone.”
SALLY WRIGHT
Sally’s father, George Boniface, was an attendant at the Studland ferry toll box after playing his part in the war effort
SALLY WRIGHT
Studland’s annual village pantomime would feature all of the children on stage
A chalk pigeon on Ballard Down
Sally’s father, George, became involved in the war effort, cycling up to Worth Matravers where she thinks he worked at the site developing radar, and was later transferred to a chemical factory in Aylesbury.
Sally’s mother joined the fire watchers patrols in Studland, having served in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps during World War One.
One of her uncles, Walter, a famous racing car manager and mechanic, supplied homing pigeons to the government during World War Two, and on one family visit to Woodhouse, persuaded the children to help him create a large chalk figure of a pigeon on Ballard Down!
Sally Wright
Once the war was over and families were allowed back on the beach, boating and swimming became a favourite pastime for Sally
Sally Wright
A postwar picture of Studland Regatta shows how much villagers missed their beach
First job for two shillings a day
Sally’s memoirs take her story into her teenage years, and tales of cycling into Swanage to listen to Purbeck’s first juke box in the seafront amusement arcade and the world of work.
Her first employment, for two shillings (10 pence) a day at the age of 12 was at the Knoll House Hotel, pushing guest’s children out in a pram.
After attempting to break into the world of modelling clothes for London department stores – but deemed too tall at 5 feet and 11 inches – she instead became a nanny and later a children’s nurse.
SALLY WRIGHT
Sally became an under nanny in the 1950s for the family which owned Sizergh Castle in Cumbria
Sally Wright
A lifetime loved living in Studland – Sally, pictured right, at the Middle Beach Cafe
Further informationGrowing Up In Studland by Sally Wright is available to buy at Studland Village Stores and costs £5To learn more about the role of Studland Bay in World War Two, join a free Heritage Day walk organised by the National Trust on Sunday 14th September 2025