Noel Spreadbury thought readers might be interested in this picture of a children's fancy dress tea party in Wareham 70 years ago.

Noel is the boy dressed as a Troubadour sitting at the table on the right, two places to the left of the vase of flowers. Can anyone identify any of the other children?

He thinks the party followed a parade through the streets of Wareham and was held at the Fire Station Garage which was then the 'Saw Pits', where St John's Hill is today, just off South Street.

Noel was living at Wareham Police Station in South Street as his father Francis John 'Jack' Spreadbury was a police constable. The building still exists today and is known as 'Copper's Mite'.

He has memories of meeting American GIs who ended up in the cells for minor offences and also German airmen who had been detained after crashing or having been shot down. Because of his father's occupation they knew when important visitors to the various military camps were taking place. He saw Winston Churchill and also the queen, then Princess Elizabeth, in uniform at Bovington Camp.

Noel remembers the Gas Works in Wareham being bombed and the practise parachute dropping over the Purbeck hills in preparation for D Day. Many planes and hundreds of troops could be seen floating down in the distance from Binnegar Hall where his grandfather was head gardener.

His brother who was 16 years older than Noel, was a 'sapper' and was killed a month after D Day in July 1944.