Post-war Prefab back garden - Ringwood c.1950

Image: © Ronald Searle Taken: 1 Jan 1950

My parents like many, were allocated a prefab council building in 1946 after my father was demobbed from his wartime service with the RAF. The strange structure framing my brother and I are the tripod legs of a war surplus tactical signals radio mast, on which was mounted a television aerial about 60 ft up. My father had built our own television set from war surplus components, and the aerial system for it was designed to receive the VHF 405 line television signal from the transmitter on the Isle of Wight about 22 miles away. In the immediate post-war period with most commodities subject to rationing, large gardens were provided with the prefabs to encourage people to grow their own fruit and veg. Seen in the background is our back garden complete with a hen house and run that accommodated several hens. The garden area at the front was about half the size of the back garden, in which altogether I can recall we grew potatoes, cabbage, runner beans, strawberries, and raspberries the like of which I've never tasted since. I would be most interested to learn more about this ex-WD transportable tactical signals mast. It was a sectional mast, each component being identical sections of hollow tubular preformed plywood, and the mast was erected via a standard tilt-over derrick system. I have never come across anything quite like it anywhere, but it must have served some signals purpose during WW2. Turnbuckles can be seen that tensioned the tripod legs, whilst guy ropes gave the mast section stability. The assembly was firmly anchored to the ground by three chains attached to each leg. It ended its days during a March gale, when it blew down, ending up horizontal straddling our neighbour's fence with the aerial poised just 6ft away from their bedroom window!

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