A PETERSFIELD woman who lived through “momentous” times has died aged 91.
Ivy Small was born in South West London and she and her husband Don and son Martin moved to Petersfield in the early 1960s.
Martin, a former Churcher’s College pupil and now a television producer, said: “She was born the year of the General Strike, 1926, and like many children of that era, she was stricken with polio, but she cycled, drove and walked for as long as she could without complaint.
“She vividly recalled how wartime bombs blasted in doors and windows of her London home, blowing clouds of glittering glass into the sky, and how the burning oil refineries of Dunkirk turned the rain black.
“She described herself as an ordinary woman, but she had an extraordinary personality and lived through momentous times.”
When the family moved to Petersfield, Ivy and Don managed the off licence next to the Red Lion, now a Wetherspoons pub.
During the height of the Cold War in 1962, when the Cuban missile crisis threatened to set Russia and America on a collision course, they converted its cellar into a makeshift nuclear bunker.
And during the bitter winter of 1963, deep snow rose higher than the ground floor windows of the off licence.
The family lived in a flat overlooking the war memorial in Petersfield High Street, owned by Kathleen Money-Chapelle, who taught drama on the ground floor.
They later lived in Grange Road, and then Cranfield Road. While living in the flat, Ivy was dismayed by the demolition of the Dolphin Hotel, and neighbouring Georgian houses and Tudor shops, as part of a 1960s town centre redevelopment.
She also worked in the manual telephone exchange above the Post Office in The Square, and was active in St Peter’s Church and the Mother’s Union.
Father of four Martin said: “Cheerful and optimistic to the last, her final outing was to Petersfield Physic Garden, which she adored.
“She had known Major John Bowen, the flamboyant soldier and Persian scholar who donated it.
“‘Look at that flower’, she told me. ‘It’s got a colour you can see with your eyes closed’.”
Ivy spent her last years at Eastfield Nursing Home in Liss, and died on July 21, in Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham. She is survived by a sister, son Martin, and grandchildren Oliver, Hattie, Georgia and Natalie. and great grand daughter Lola.