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The early 1960s heralded the first combined self-storage facility and Church in England, this was built in the luxurious St. Mary's area of Southampton, remembered by many for its attractive ladies who would pepper the streets each evening. Self-storage was still a very new concept to the British public and it would still take many years to catch on, mainly because the contents of most British people's homes around this time was just a lot of old crap.
Part of the self-storage area was leased out to the Royal South Hants Hospital as a lucrative emergency mortuary, they had 582 chilled units reserved in case of disaster, the remaining 58 being for the Tenpasenta funeral service itself.
In 1979 all 640 slots became used solely by our funeral service, this was during Britain's Winter of Discontent 1978-1979 when many of the countries gravediggers went on strike, and council cemeteries closed their gates, this meant many bodies were left unburied and lounging in mortuary freezers like ours.
At this time the Tenpasenta Church had no burial land of its own and having used up the central reservations at Hockley Lights in Winchester, and with woodland being guarded by Police, a Tenpasenta burial site was urgently required.
Finding enough land for both a Church and funeral requirements was going to be a tall order, but with "God" on his side and a new E-type Jaguar donated to the local Church of England Bishop, things would soon change.
The St. Mary's building continued to be used until 1984, but not for its original purpose, it became a beautiful basement swimming pool for the elderly and disabled, to be honest this was due to a design fault with the prefabrication used in its construction, the building had become overly damp causing the basement to flood, but from this disaster came the pool, and with it swimming clubs, like our own Tenpasenta Old Society Swimming Association, and the Tenpasenta Water Association Team Swimmers, great memories, in fact football fans from neighbouring Portsmouth often mention the tossers and twats from St Mary's in their banter. |
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