Author Archives: Jill Cowley

Ron Wallis: Thorley, WWII,

We moved over to Thorley, in the event of the army taking over the farm at Lower Hamstead in 1941.
I transferred straight to Thorley School with Miss Kitty Pearce.  There was David Holtom and Ivan Winsor from Wellow, Daniel somebody from Wellow, a girl Welstead who lived in New House, and a couple of Bellman boys who lived up Hill Place Lane. The school closed quite quickly after I got there – I’m sure it wasn’t my fault!  And then we got transferred to Yarmouth in 1944.

Thorley School late 1930 with Miss Kitty Pearce, teacher

Thorley School late 1930 with Miss Kitty Pearce, teacher

Whilst we were at Thorley School there was the occasion when we heard the roar of aircraft outside, and this Hurricane was low on fuel and it had landed in the field opposite the school. It got refuelled and took off again later in the day. Ron Wallis b 1935

Thorley School photo 1932, 1930s

Thorley School 1932

Thorley School 1932

Thorley School pupils c 1932

Back Row: Hazel Trowbridge, ? Robinson, Margery New, Gladys Scovell, Ivy Russell, Vecta Cooper
2nd row down : Reg Cozens,?Welsted, Kath Cozens, Cyril Henderson, ?Robinson, Jack New, ?Eileen Thornton,Margery Henderson, Not Known

3rd row down: ? Welsted, ? Robinson, Phyllis Squibb, Billy Henderson, ? Robinson
Front Row: Not Known, Not Known

Margery New married (1) Andy Cooke d WWII (2) Bill Colenutt
Gladys Scovell married Vic Whittingham, Ivy Russell married ?Stone
Marge Henderson married a Canadian soldier during WWII and went back to Canada as a war bride.

Phyllis Squibb lived in Whitewalls. Her mother Elsie was a teacher, her father Frank worked for Mills.  Vecta Cooper lived at Upper Lee Farm with parents Henry and Fanny, and Aunt May Cooper. The Welsteds lived in New House or Upper Place      ( there were 2 related families, spelling their name either Welstead or Welsted).Cyril and Margery Henderson lived at Acorn Cottage with parents Victor, a Coastguard, and Florence. Cyril married Sue Hillier who lived in one of the pair of Newclose Cottages, eventually living in the newly built Northview. J.C.

Mary Greenen: Thorley, Tattels Lane

Tattels Lane

When I first arrived from Surrey, and met my father-in-law, George Greenen, I couldn’t understand his broad, country accent!
His father, Joseph Greenen, was a shepherd living in Thorley.  George, born in 1879, was the youngest of his 10 children.  His first job was as bird scarer in Thorley. George met Elsie Ash from Gunville at the fair in Yarmouth, and married her in 1913.
Her father, George Ash, worked as a Maltster for Mr. Mew at the Brewery in Newport. When he fell ill, George and Elsie moved from Thorley to look after Elsie’s father, and lived next door to the Malthouse in Holyrood Street, Newport.

George Greenen took over his father-in-law’s job and worked for Mews until he retired, other than when serving as a soldier in WWI.

Elsie and George’s son, Stanley, my husband, born 1930, graduated in Architecture and Planning and worked for IW Council as Planner.   Not bad for the son of a bird scarer!
Mary Greenen

Joseph Greenen, shepherd, of Thorley

Joseph Greenen, shepherd, of Thorley

Joseph Greenen, shepherd, b 1831  d 1911 married Merry Gatree ( or Gatrell) b 1834 d 1922,   buried in Thorley Churchyard

Nick Chandler: Boat Building at Fort Victoria 1960s

The chap in charge of RASC boatbuilding at Fort Vic was Major Wilkey. He used to live in Plevna at one time.  I had been working over there for about a week when Nelson Simmonds turned up, and after that, two old boatbuilders from Whites.  It was a bit short lived 18 months – two years and it all folded up.
Boat at Fort VicS0102087

Old Nelson, he was a boy! He was he was into everything.  He had a harbour launch pulled up over there, had to be re-coppered. We stripped all the old copper off, fitted the new, and Nelson said,
‘We’ll make a bob or two out of this, mate. I’ll bring the van over one evening and spirit this lot away.’
One day we were having a cup of tea when the quartermaster came in,                              ‘ Ah,  Mr Simmonds and Mr Chandler. Do you know where the copper went that you stripped off that harbour launch?’
‘No,’ we said.  Nelson said, ‘Beachcombers, I expect,’
‘Yes, and I think I’m looking at them.’ said the quartermaster, with that he turned round and walked out.
When the fort was shut the stuff that was taken out to sea and dumped was terrible, harbour launches full of it for days, and the diesel from the tanks was pumped into the beach, pumped in to the shingle.
Towards the end of it, I was going to work one morning and I heard this lorry grinding up the hill. It was old Ball, the scrap merchant, and he was loaded with batteries. When I got down to the fort, Bill, the sergeant was there, and I said to him,  ‘Someone has made a bob or two out of that load,’ and he said,
‘Well, you’ve got to, haven’t you.’ When it finally closed I was offered the same job at Gunwharf over Pompey, but I didn’t want to travel. Nick Chandler b 1937

Alec Cokes: Ommaney Road, Boat Building 1970s

Boat Building in Ommanney Road

When I worked for Cecil Doe we built some boats in what had been Bob May’s undertaker’s place there as well.  Amongst them was the harbour launch that was down the harbour for years, the big one.
All his bits and pieces from being an undertaker he put up the end of the shed on a load of shelves and he had some black curtains that covered them all up.  We were happily building boats in there.  Bob used to come in every day and say: ‘How are you getting on nipper?’

Robert May, carpenter and undertaker outside his workshop

Robert May, carpenter and undertaker outside his workshop

We said: ‘Oh, we’re just doing so and so Mr May.’  And he’d say ‘ Ooh, look at that.’  Anyway, we built this one boat, it was what was called strip planning. It was built upside down and just sort of nailed together, and then we turned it the right way up.  We did that one night because we had to cut braces that held the roof up so we had enough room to swing this thing round – put them all back in afterwards.
He came in the next day and he said: ‘ Where’s she gone?’ And we said, ‘Well this is her, she’s the other way up.’  ‘Well,’ he said,’ so she is.’
Once you’d done all this, you’ve got to clean the outside of the boat up. I sharpened up a load of planes and started work. I was down there underneath this boat and trying to reach up . When you’re laying on the floor trying to reach up, you need something to push under your head.  I thought, I know, there’s those little stools that Bob used to put under the heads in the coffins, – perfect –  they went from about two inches high to four inches high.  I went along and opened the curtains and there they were – ah, just right.  So I’m under there working away, and I hear the door open and in he came.
‘ Alec, are you there?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m underneath, Mr May, I’m just scarfing her off.’
That moustache came gradually down over this boat and he made this noise, and I thought he was having a heart attack.  I said ‘Are you alright Mr May?’
I got out from underneath, and he was by this time, down on one knee, and – I don’t know how old he was – it was quite an event for him to get down that far, and he said to me, ‘Do you know what you got your head on, Alec?’
I said, ‘Yes, it’s one of your little coffin stools, Mr May.’    And he said, ‘Well as long as you know.’ Alec Cokes b 1945

Les Turner: Harbour, 1970s

I shall never forget the day we had to deal with a fifty foot sort of Edwardian steam yacht.  Apparently they’d gone out the harbour and something had fallen off – I think it was a clock or the barometer. The husband and wife were having a bloody good old argument about it and they hit the Admiralty buoy out there, and so they comes in screaming and shouting.
We managed to get a line. They got the bow to about here, and of course the tide was  going out and I managed to put a line on there on to the quay.  People with pumps came from everywhere. They even got the Fire Brigade down here.   Poor old Bob Woodford went and got this pump off Vic. He went running down this little slip. Course he forgot the bloody thing ended, and the people on the boat just managed to grab hold the pump before Bob disappeared off the end.

Yarmouth Harbour 1960s

Yarmouth Harbour 1960s

That’s where Cecil Doe, George Weston and Jack Harwood used to keep their sailing dinghies, their Enterprises, GP14s and stuff. We used to go down there lots of times, find a dinghy with an oar, scull up to the top of the quay or up the top of the harbour if there was westerly wind blowing, and either Al or myself would stand up with our jackets wide open, and one of us would steer with the oar while the other one stood with their jacket and sail down the harbour.  Les Turner  b 1944

 

Carol Corbett: Harbour, houseboats 1950s

Aerial of harbour showing houseboats 1950s

Aerial of harbour showing houseboats 1950s

A childhood friend, Kay Green, lived on a houseboat moored off Bridge Road. I loved to go there to play  –  it was so wonderfully different. We’d play around the rocks, painting faces on them and using the seaweed for their hair, and being hairdressers.

There was another houseboat moored the other side of the bridge. An old man lived there,maybe Colonel Mitchell, and Kay and I used to take meals to him from Mrs. Green. His boat had boots hanging from the ceiling. Extraordinary!

Les Turner: Harbour, Smiths welcomed back 1949

I remember my dad taking me and my sister Pauline (now Woodford), down on to the Quay to see the celebrations for the Smith brothers, Stanley and Colin Smith, who had just sailed across the Atlantic.  They sailed from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia on 6th July 1949 to Dartmouth, England in 43 days.  This yacht, they had constructed it in Nova Scotia.  It was a twenty foot open yacht, clinker built, and as a cabin they used an up-turned dinghy.  What a feat for those days!  No wireless, no dehydrated food, no electronic instruments to guide them across the ocean. Photo

 

Yarmouth Quay,:elcoming the return of the Smith Brothers 1949

Yarmouth Quay,welcoming the return of the Smith Brothers 1949

The quay was covered in hundreds of people.  Stanley Smith senior went on to build a class of yachts:  Siani.  There are still a few around.  Some carvel, some clinker, based on the design of the Nova Espero.
They built these yachts in a shed next to the Institute, in a building that was between the bungalow ‘Seascape’ and the club extension.  Before the mid fifties, there was a creek from the bridge right round to ‘Seascape’ and Smiths yard.  When the tide was in, you couldn’t walk along in front of the wall that’s the back of the coastguard cottages. Les Turner b 1944

Crowds on the Quay to greet the Smith brothers on their return from Dartmouth after crossing the Atlaantic in 1949

Crowds on the Quay to greet the Smith brothers on their return from Dartmouth after crossing the Atlaantic in 1949

 

Les Turner: Harbour, antifouling, 1950s, 1960s

Harbour at low tide

Harbour at low tide

Wally Feaver had this,-  about, what?-  fifty foot type motor cruiser and he’d say to us lads,  “Can you come and give us a hand, nipper?  We want to do the underside of the boat  – anti fouling.’  We laid on the mud, absolutely covered in stuff.  Cor, what a job!  Because there were these huge great bilge keels on it, and you had to slide up in between them.  Les Turner b1944