Vera Farge is 86 and has lived in the village of East Coker, Somerset, for 45 years. Vera told her story to Joan Taylor:

‘I was born in Liverpool in 1920. At fourteen I left school and went to work in the local Co-op office for six years. When World War Two started, I volunteered as a nurse and eventually worked at the Alderhay Children’s Hospital, in Liverpool. During the three years I worked there, Alderhay became a military hospital. Our patients included service men, who had suffered severe frost bite in the Nordic action.

During the 1940 blitz, our family home was bombed – we just made it to the shelter. When we came out, the sewing machine I had just been using was in our neighbour’s garden. We had to live in the shelter for three weeks. A year later father’s jewellery business was bombed – people around us were losing everything. Then came the end of my seven-year romance, I was 21 and at a low ebb, I decided to join the Women’s Royal Navel Service (Wrens).

After training in communications at Mill Hill in London I was posted to Somerset. It was 1941; we lived in half a dozen Nissen huts, near a small military airfield at Henstridge. We were there for over three years. There were no inside toilets or running water; we cooked our meals on a strange little stove called a Coke Bogey.

I married Doug in June 1945, the year I was demobbed; he was an airfield runway controller. We’d met over the radio airways, while we were both on duty; our first date was to the Odeon cinema in Yeovil. I was really nervous but excited. It was a blind date – until then we had only talked on the radio.

Doug went on a special assignment with Air Traffic Control to the Berlin Airlift in 1948. Doug landed relief aircraft every two minutes, with just the aid of radar screens.

Over the next years we moved from post to post. Although I’d left the Wrens, Doug remained in the Fleet Air Arm. We’d taken lodgings in Oxfordshire and by that time our son, Michael was three years old. The conditions were terrible; we had to make do with a chemical loo, and cook Christmas dinner on a one ring oil burner, and our pudding on a little Primus stove, it was certainly a challenge. At that time I was also pregnant with our daughter, Lyn.

As a Forces family we continued to move around. We lived in Scotland, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Portsmouth. We had two postings abroad: Malta and Singapore. It was the 1962 posting which returned us to Somerset. Doug worked as the Senior Air Traffic Controller at HMS Heron, Yeovilton. This had the most lasting impact on our family which had now grown to three. It was here that we bought our first home and forty-five years later I am still happily settled in the same house. It was hard for the family when Doug died but we had celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary.

My two daughters, Lynn and Margaret live nearby, and my son, Michael lives in the New Forest area. I have six grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Taking an interest in what the younger generation are doing helps to keep me going.

I’m still a member of the Wrens Association and have recently been awarded my veterans badge. We meet in Yeovil once a month and this with my other interests of Westland’s Retirement Association, reading, knitting and cooking keep me active.

During my school days I had a wonderful botany teacher, she’d bring back flowers from her holidays in the Scilly Isles. Her enthusiasm sparked off my love of wild flowers. This still inspires me today, to either find expression in the garden or the motivation for walks in the countryside.

I think the secret to good health is lots of laughter and not taking life too seriously. It’s also important to eat well, and enjoy new opportunities as and when they present themselves. At 85, I still enjoy the challenge of new adventures and plan to be off travelling to Germany and Ireland this year.’

Peri Gunn, (née Horne), a former Olympic skater, moved to Bridport six years ago. Peri told her story to Penny Johnstone:

‘This is the first time I’ve lived outside London in my life. It was always my husband’s dream to retire to Dorset, where he spent many happy holidays as a child. People are so friendly and there’s so much to do; I love it here now.

I was born in Kensington and went to Burlington School near Hammersmith. I really enjoyed it, mainly because of the sport, but I knew my mother wouldn’t let me leave until I’d passed my school certificate! My aunt and uncle took me to Queen’s Ice Club when I was ten and after that all I wanted to be was an Olympic skater. I used to rush through my homework so that I could go and skate. My mother even allowed me to go during the war because it was underground and had sandbags all around, so they thought it was quite safe.

When I left school I had to get a job because my parents didn’t have enough money to pay for me to skate full-time. I worked as a librarian in Hammersmith Children’s Library. The flexible hours enabled me to skate when I was free. I had a wonderful coach, Gladys Hogg, and when I was 20, I achieved my ambition when my skating partner, Ray Lockwood, and I were selected for the British team at the 1952 Olympics in Oslo. Up until then the Isle of Wight was abroad to me; can you imagine what it was like to go from wartime Britain to train at the Kulm Hotel in St Moritz? Chocolate and loads of food!

Vienna was still very war-torn when we arrived for the European Championships and armed soldiers had to take us to the ice rink. From there we went on to the Olympics where Jeanette Altwegg won the gold medal. Our uniforms were very austere, but we bought some little caps and boots in Vienna to go with our ARP trousers and some red jackets Lilywhites had managed to find. We felt so proud when we marched through the middle of Oslo and everyone clapped. George VI died while we were there so we had to find black dresses or armbands for the memorial service.

When I met my first husband, I decided it was time to earn some money at skating, so after competing in the Olympics and the World and European Championships, and with two gold medals from the National Skating Association, I decided to turn professional.  I coached Hilary Green and Glyn Watts to become British champions and Olympic skaters.  I also coached the British Junior champions and, with Courtney Jones, invented the Starlight Waltz and Silver Samba for Torvill and Dean. Basil Cudlip Green and I won the British Professional championships, and John Curry and Robin Cousins became dear friends.

Skating has been my whole life – I was still skating at 68! – I just loved it and all the fun we had. Princess Di came in one day with the boys and joined in with the public skating; they had a great time. Sir Francis Chichester, the famous single-handed yachtsman, used to come and was terrified! He was a really charming man and I wondered how he could possibly be terrified after all he had achieved.

Everything has changed since I started. It’s big business now and all geared to television. I’ve got a piece of material from the dress my aunt had to rake around to make for me, and I can still see John Curry helping to sew sequins on Hilary’s dress!  Now they all have choreographers, physios, aerobics teachers and make-up artists and their costumes cost about a thousand pounds. Skating isn’t any less skilled – I couldn’t hold a candle to them now – but I think it’s less enjoyable.

Nowadays children don’t have the opportunities for sport in school that we had.  If I have a remaining ambition, it is to see more ice rinks throughout the country; it’s an all-embracing thing for the whole family and it would keep them fit and off the streets. I really missed children when we came down here, so now I help them with reading in school, which I love.  I shall be 74 in April and I’m hoping to go back to playing golf soon, as I really must keep fit.’

Rose Thirkettle, now 80, still runs her photographic shop in South Street, Axminster. Rose tells her story:

‘I was born near Westminster Cathedral in London in 1925, fifth in a family of eight.  Educated by nuns, I was confirmed by a cardinal!  My mother left home when I was ten and I never saw her again. We went to live near my grandmother in Harrow. I left school at 14, and looked after my father and my two little sisters until I was 18. Then I applied for war-work in a factory. We made enormous blinds for aircraft cameras and that’s where I met my husband Alec, a widower. When we married in 1948 I inherited three lovely stepsons; then we had our daughter Sue.

After the war we rented premises in London’s Soho Square, because Alec’s main job was making and repairing cameras. He used to do work for hospitals and the police and was really well known in the trade. We came down to the West Country to be near our family. We hadn’t been here long before the word got around that there was a camera repairer in the district, and people were knocking on the door.

It got too much doing it all in the spare room, so when the cottage became available in South Street in 1968, we jumped at it. It was mainly somewhere for Alec to repair cameras and binoculars, but then people started asking for films and so on, so we opened the shop. He was really good at binoculars; we used to have a collimator to make sure they were adjusted accurately.  When Alec died in 1975, aged 70, he’d been working with cameras for 55 years. He was unique round here. Even in London it was like a doctor’s waiting room: they used to sit and wait to see him.

When Alec died I couldn’t just sit around at home, so gradually I taught myself to run the shop. People were very helpful and now I do everything, except the VAT returns and accounts.

I’ve been around cameras since I was 18 and I can load a Leica which a lot of people can’t.  Unlike other cameras, you load it from the bottom. I like meeting people, and I go out of my way to help.

At 80, I’m pretty sure I’m the oldest lady in the camera trade in the country; probably unique.  My second partner, Gordon, was a wedding photographer, and a marvellous salesman in the shop. Sadly, Gordon died six years ago. I’m still running the shop by myself – it’s what I know, so here I am.

I wouldn’t advise anyone to go into the business now, as so many small photographic shops have gone to the wall. With the onset of digital photography, the big chains have almost washed their hands of black and white film and chemicals. People come here from as far away as Salisbury for specialist materials and I think film-based photography will run alongside digital for quite some time.  I don’t think you can beat film when it comes to picture quality. You’re just pointing and shooting with a digital camera – you’re not learning photography. It’s not cheap either.

I’m very lucky to have reached 80 and still be working. What’s my secret? Getting up early, I think; getting into a routine. I get up at half past six, do some exercises and am in the shop by quarter past eight. Axminster is a lovely place to live and work, and I’ve got two wonderful grandaughters, Kim and Natalie. I don’t get a lot of spare time, but last year I gained a long service medal for singing in the Operatic Society for 35 years. I can’t imagine ever retiring.’ PJ

‘I was born in Oxford where I lived for four years before moving with my father and brother to Charmouth, Dorset. We lived in a house on the Stonebarrow Estate and I attended Charmouth Primary School under John Broadhurst. I went on to Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis, and then university in 2001.

School days were the usual mix of good times and rubbish bits, not at all like the TV sitcoms. However, I made some great friends who continue to be very important in my life.

Living in Dorset was a mixed blessing as a child. The distance to Exeter and any hope of good shopping was rather a challenge and the drive from our house to civilisation was a little longer than I would have chosen – particularly since I refused to walk or cycle, which left me dependent on my father for lifts. I’ve never learned to drive, but luckily my boyfriend does.

After I left Dorset I took every opportunity to come back, bringing huddles of friends who’d given up on the West Country after a visit to Newquay, but were glad to give it a second go when they saw West Dorset. Most summers I come back to Dorset, visit my family, and work wherever there’s an opportunity. After four years in London, it’s a pleasant change to come home and breathe entire lungs full of air without choking. Dangling my feet in the children’s lido in Clissold Park in London, or sitting in a rather nasty beer garden in a city pub, doesn’t compare with being on the beach with a plastic mug of beer during the open air disco.

In 2001 I moved to London to study Law at King’s College; the following year I saw the light and quit, because it was the most boring thing I have ever done. I then did what I should have done before running up the first £4000 worth of student debt, and studied history. This had always been my favourite subject at school, thanks in no small part to the amazing Woodroffe teachers, but I’d been persuaded that since I didn’t want to be a librarian or a teacher, there was no point continuing my studies. I am still not sure what vocational merit there is in having a history degree, but I’m glad I did one anyway.

I completed my degree this summer, specialising in Holocaust Studies, with a dissertation on Italian Holocaust Historiography. I am enrolled to do an MA in Holocaust Studies in 2006/7 at Royal Holloway College in Egham, and then would ideally like to join the Foreign Office. I am now having a year out in Berlin with my boyfriend, trying to get a job, and learn German in time for next year.

However, as many people have pointed out, my boyfriend is English, so it’s going to be harder to learn the language. Now at last I have a bicycle – called Harold. I cycle to language school and back everyday, the only cyclist in Berlin with a helmet – and I’m finally learning to indicate without falling over.

Most of my immediate family live in Dorset, or are heading back that way, and if the Foreign Office had more postings in Dorset I’d be back like a shot. Some of my friends take issue with Dorset life: my urban boyfriend wanted a newspaper at 8pm in Charmouth, and someone else wanted a cash machine between Stonebarrow and North Chideock on a Saturday evening, but they usually settle down.

For me, having spent the last year travelling from London to Croydon, sometimes taking two hours and three changes, I now have a healthy respect for the Axminster Express. I find that, as long as you arrive a little early and are willing to wait a little, the 31 bus will get you to most places as well as any London bus. In Dorset there are no bus lanes, but there are also no taxis parked in them.’ RF

Kieron Bewes has lived in and around Sidmouth, Devon, all his life. After a short career in the building trade he developed a life-long passion for horticulture. Kieron takes up the story:

‘I was born in the Cottage Hospital, Sidmouth, in 1972. Growing up, I was always excited when we visited my grandparents; they loved gardening and grew nearly everything from seed or cuttings. My sister and I were always given lots of tasks to do in their garden and our reward was to pick the fresh strawberries, tayberries, runner beans or whatever else was in season. This is where my love of gardening started.

School was a bit of a survival game but I eventually came out unscathed, leaving at fifteen with just one GCSE in rural science. I followed my father into the building trade and started a City&Guilds course in bricklaying. I got a job with East Devon District Council’s repair team. I passed my driving test at eighteen and was given my own canary yellow Bedford Rascal van. I was sent out alone to fix anything from a leaky gutter to fitting lead trays above windows. I went to Plymouth to take my advanced brickwork exam; unfortunately we were all made redundant two weeks after I found out that I had passed.

When my mother told me about a gardening job at the local hotel where she worked, I applied. After an interview and a walk around the four and a half acre site, I got the job. I finished with the District Council on Friday and started my new career as a gardener the following Monday. I was like a fish out of water. It was the start of the bedding season and in the glasshouses were hundreds of trays of seedlings, which all looked the same to me. The Head Gardener, Maurice, was just fantastic; he told me that they might all look the same to me now, but over time I would begin to recognise them and learn more. We struck up a great friendship which still stands to this day, although with my busy life I don’t see him as much as I would like to.

Maurice told me I should get some qualifications, so I enrolled part-time at Bicton College. After five years I finally had qualifications under my belt. Maurice retired shortly after, and I stepped in to fill his boots as Head Gardener. But it wasn’t the same without him and with management changes it became a real uphill struggle. Every year our budget was cut and it was harder to find reliable staff. I stayed on as Head Gardener for about five years, then, one day, I got a phone call from my current boss, Ian Barlow. He had just bought Sidmouth Garden Centre and asked me if I would like to help run it with him. I jumped at the chance and it’s been full steam ahead ever since.

We knocked down the old shop and rebuilt a new one ourselves. We went on to build a restaurant and new car park, and have worked hard over the last four years to gain a really good reputation for customer care, high quality plants, and food.

Working at the garden centre has led on to many different things for me. I was asked to judge the East Devon District Council’s garden competition, and was driven around for two days by this most lovely lady. We hit it off straight away and one year later she became my wife. I also help with judging at Sidmouth in Bloom and at local horticultural shows. I teach horticulture and environmental studies at local schools, and I give talks and demonstrations on all aspects of gardening. I really enjoy writing about the subject that means so much to me, with my gardening columns for local newspapers and magazines.

I don’t have much spare time these days, but what time I do have I enjoy spending with my wife and daughter, walking our dogs in the beautiful East Devon countryside.’ PP

‘My photograph was taken by Gordon Hall as a result of a silent auction to raise money for the church in the village where I live with my parents. My mother was the successful bidder.

I am 15 years old and currently a pupil at an independent  school for girls. I am in the upper 5th studying for my GCSEs this year, so I am having to work hard, but I try to find time to do lots of sport as I am very keen on lacrosse, tennis, swimming and gymnastics.

My favourite subject at school is art and I like photography and design. I was given a digital camera for my birthday which I use all the time. I like to be able to edit my photographs using a computer. I am hoping that one day I might be able to go to art school or university in London to study for a career in photography, perhaps in the fashion world, but I realise I have a long way to go yet.

I am very fortunate in that I come from an artistic background with several relatives, both past and present, who were or are artists. My mother is very keen on painting and my father makes pottery. The Tangye family, who are my relatives, were all very artistic and inventive and Derek Tangye is a well-known author who has written  many books.

My grandfather was also an author and my great uncle was the film director David Lean, who produced such epics as Bridge Over the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and Lawrence of Arabia to name just a few. I hope that I have inherited some of their creative talents.

My parents and I moved to Somerset in 2001 with my dog, a Dandie Dinmont terrier called Hamish.  My half brothers and sisters are older and live in London and Cornwall and I like to visit them whenever I can. We came from West Sussex where we had lived since I was born and, at first, I found Somerset very quiet by comparison, but now I am used to it and I find the village where we live very friendly, and an interesting village too.

Before I went to my present school I was at Perrott Hill School in North Perrott which was the Manor House and previous home of the Hoskyns family, who still live in North Perrott and whose family have owned the manor since 1790. One of the stewards of the manor lived in my house during the Second World War, when the kitchen was used as the village hall because the real one was taken over by the army. W.I. Meetings were held in the house and unrationed meat pies were sold from a large sash window, with the villagers coming through the garden to buy them. The practice was stopped after several of them were taken ill with food poisoning!’ GH