Walter Sidney (Sid) Tidridge was born on the 13 ^th of August 1905 in Southampton. His parents were Harry John Tidridge and Emma Louisa Newman of 2 Silverdale Road, Southampton, England. He was the youngest of a family of eleven children.

He started work as a telegraph boy based at the Head Post Office in Southampton. However there was very little chance of promotion and he left to go to sea as a steward on various liners. He served on ships that went to North and South America and to South Africa.
Sid was unfit for war service and spent much of the war repairing Spitfires. He contracted industrial dermatitis during this period and spent time sick away from work.
Eventually Sid found work as a stevedore in Southampton Docks and stayed there until he retired at 64 years of age.

Sid married Frances Ethel Clark at St. John's Church, Hedge End, Hampshire, England on the 6^th July 1933. The wedding was attended by seven bridesmaids, Daisy Tidridge, Amy and Mabel Barfoot, Ella Farmer, Florence Sawyer (a friend), and two small children, Peggy Goodall and Myra Farmer. The Best Man was George Tidridge. The reception for 150 guests was held at St. John's Room. Sid and Ethel spent their honeymoon at Sway, Hampshire. The wedding was reported, with a photograph of the bridal party, in the Southern Evening Echo.

Sid and Ethel had three children, John Walter Francis, Jean Ann and Ivan Charles.

They spent most of their married life at 17 Treeside Avenue, Totton, near Southampton. In their later years they moved to a retirement flat at Locksheath and then to a retirement home, Littlebrook House, 101 Brook Lane, Warsash, Hampshire.

Sid was taken ill with pneumonia in September 1990 and was taken into the St. Mary's Hospital at Portsmouth where he died on the 22 ^nd of September 1990. He was cremated at the Southampton Crematorium at Bassett.

Ethel remained at Littlebrook House but eventually fell ill and was taken into the Cottage Hospital at Ashurst, Hampshire. She died on Christmas Day in 1991, and was also cremated at the Southampton Crematorium

.

Sid and his wife visited Canada... and enjoyed some travel and time with the grandchildren

A gallery of pictures has been composed; to view click here Pictures include copies of certificates and Sid's 'days at sea'. The 'days at sea' reveal a little of the other Sid!

Not too much of Sid's sea life is known by John Tidridge.
By guessing... he was at sea for about 10 years... cast no bets. However, he did leave the service just before the Second World War began. A picture of one of his ships, the Asturias appears elsewhere on this page.

John Tidridge is grateful to his sister, Jean Bathgate and her husband, John, for preserving the photographs (above) of his father Walter Sidney Tidridge. These are unusual photographs of a side of Sid that was not displayed often, although John Tidridge suspects they did not lurk too far beneath his sometimes stern exterior. Christmas games are remembered where Sid and Uncle Ern Dimmick managed to create all kinds of scary scenarios, as we played, what would now be called, archaic games. 'Going to the hospital was one'. As a father of four and grandfather of eleven John Tidridge is well aware of the fact that being Dad does not always allow for too much levity!

When speaking to his son, Steve, many years ago John Tidridge was surprised to discover he was not the democratic dad he thought he was... he certainly believed he had surpassed Sid in this department.

...

The pictures above show a different side of my Dad, not often seen around the house.... but then we Tidridge males seem to major on being curmudgeons, even if we are not! ....and, notices of his death

.

This ship started her career with two funnels. Later these were reduced to one and she continued in service for many years as a troop ship. The photograph to the right shows the dining room of the ship!

John Tidridge return-ed from the Middle East in 1957 in this ship. He arrived at his home port, along with the rest of the battalion, only to find that the dockers (stevedores) were on strike. This meant a further night on board