Tag Archives: 1930s

Jean Maitland: Harbour breakwater construction, 1930s

Piling crew who rebuilt the pier and harbour

Piling crew who rebuilt the pier and harbour in 1930s: photo Jean Maitland

Bob Cook’s grandfather, Bob Buckett, and Jack Payne, Fred Wadham and my Dad, Bill Levey, they put in all the piles for the harbour breakwater by hand. You wouldn’t have had a pier or breakwater if it wasn’t for them. You can see their piling rig in the photo, the crab winch in the background was part of it. See the length of pipe in his hand?
They would push it on the winch brake handle so you could hold the brake on – the handles on them were never long enough. Winching that weight up time and time again, to knock the piles in, that was hard work wasn’t it eh? The times they went in the tide under the pier when they were rebuilding it! Look at the clothes they wore in those days, didn’t have overalls and if it rained they got wet. My Dad fell in, sea boots and all. Good job he was a good swimmer.

I can always remember how the old men used to get down the Spit and Lean on the Quay,  spinning yarns.  You know how these old boys like to yarn.
Jean Maitland nee Levey

Colin Smith: Harbour, Theo Osborne Smith’s boatyard 1930s

Father had the boatyard that, at that time, came straight on to the water when the tide was up.  There was a lot of sedge and so on, but there was a channel along the

Smith's Boatshed 1970s

Smith’s Boatshed 1970s

first of all, and up to the back of the Institute, the Liberal Club I believe they called it in those days.  Just beyond, the stream ran along to what was the Dump, the beginning of where they used to bring the lorries in and dump off rubbish. Now they’ve covered the whole lot of course.

My grandfather started the yard there as I understand it.   Grandfather’s name was Theo Osborne Smith.  He used to have the name on the sign. His first shed was an old ex army canteen. He bought it and had it re-erected there, and there was another little arched type of building behind as well.  He originally started up at Oxford on the Upper Thames and then moved down, first to Fawley, over at Ashlett Creek. He had a little business there, and then for some reason, I haven’t got a clue why, moved over to Yarmouth.  He specialised in mostly little centre-board type of sailing boats, twenty foot or twenty two thereabouts and so on.  He built one of them, the ‘Menomopote’ it was called, Child of the Ocean. I don’t know where they got that name from.  A very unusual boat, very easy underwater shape and the top sides were paired off and came round into a kind of chine and at midship it came right up to the gunwale (or gunnel) . He was a very advanced designer.  I don’t think my father took it to the same extent.  Colin Smith b 1921

Eileen Smith: Harbour, Storm 1930s

There was that September, a terrific gale. There was water over the Quay and almost up to the Square.  Boats in the harbour were sending out distress calls and drifting their moorings. It was so rough, Walt Cotton wouldn’t let them launch the boarding boat to go across. There was water over Bridge Road so they floated her round, put her over the rails. Three men went out with ropes attached and brought the Lifeboat alongside.
There was one man drowned that night, in the harbour. That was a night!
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne  b 1921

Funeral of storm victim,September 1935

Funeral of storm victim,September 1935

Revd. Stanley Woodin leading the procession, followed by Robert May, verger and undertaker. Lifeboat crew members Charlie Lansdowne front right in cap, Walter Cotton cox following

Eileen Smith, Charlie Lansdowne: Harbour, Lifeboat, 1920, 1930s

My father was signalman on the lifeboat – there was no radio, they had to rely on signals, semaphore and morse. His boots were kept just inside the door so if the maroon went he could be gone straight away. On one occasion when the lifeboat went out, I can remember my mother asking Mrs Cotton, the Coxswain’s wife where they’d gone, but they never knew, of course, when they’d be back. Walter Cotton, the Coxswain had come from Brighstone. My father said if Walter was moved, he’d go with him, he was such a good coxswain. Eileen Smith b 1921

Lifeboat crew 1920s

Lifeboat crew 1920s

Back row from left: Harry White, Jim Hobbs, Charlie Lansdowne,( signalman) Harold Hayles. Capt. Cottrell,
Front row: Fred Wadham, Albert Hayward( engineer) , Walter Cotton ( coxswain), Stan Smith (2nd cox)

 

 

 

Pauline Harwood: Harbour, old quay 1930s

old bullnosed quay with crane 1930s

old bullnosed quay with crane 1930s

I was left on the Quay with my Grandmother from London, – I wasn’t very old,- in a pram under the Spit and Lean. That was taken down when the coalyard was knocked into the Quay.  Blakes Coalyard was handy for the blacksmith’s shop across the road.

Round  the corner where the pigsties were and the steps used to go down to the sea my sister Audrey who was 7 years older than me used to take me and John down the steps and anybody dinghy that was there, we used to get in it and  row somewhere.  We used to do that then.

Pauline Harwood nee Hatch  b1930

 

Harbour: Jim Cooper 1920s – 1960s

Coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

Jim Cooper coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

It was a basic dinghy shape.  They called it a ‘lanch’ the old boys, so that differentiated it from a rowing boat.  It was bigger and it had a net board in the back.  In the transom, six inches below, there was a net board about two foot wide which we used to lay the net on when we were shooting nets out the back of the transom.  It was a very wide boat and the oars he used were about ten foot long, huge big ash oars, they weighed a ton, I couldn’t lift them.

In those days he made a little bit of a living on pout which these days is much maligned.  ‘Sweet little pout’; my mum still says now, ‘Why can’t you get me a sweet little pout?’
It’s like a mini cod, the same flesh, same family.  He used to catch those.

When we used to go out we used to row down to Fort Vic., go out in the tide. You remember those old iron wheelbarrow wheels with a spike in the middle? He used to have one of those, that was his anchor and a big bit of grass rope and he used to chuck that over and he used to have the oars ready. They’d get to where they wanted to go and drift back, and let a bit more rope out;  so they stopped and then they fished, and all they used was line, about three or four hooks on the bottom and garden worms.  They’d catch a few pout and then they’d run out, or they hadn’t caught one, then they’d trip the killock [small anchor]. Pull the anchor up a little bit, let it go, give it a shear with the oar now and again, and drift in the right direction to another bit of ground.  And they’d do that all the way to Bouldnor. There was about three or four places where they stopped.  And of course by the time you got to Bouldnor inshore, the ebb was down again, so you had the tide back the other way.  Alec Cokes b 1945

Pat Burt, Shops: High Street 1930s

Haward’s fish shop was on the corner – Pinings.  Because there were no fridges, the ice for the fish shop was brought by horse and cart and delivered in the back entrance. One day the horse dropped dead, don’t you remember? In the entrance to the lane, the horse died.  It was a shock.
The butcher’s next door was Minnie Flint’s.  Flint and Fryer were the same butcher.  Ablitts was further down the High Street. Pat B

Kellys Directory Yarmouth 39 listing residents, shops and services A -M

Kellys Directory Yarmouth 39  Minnie Flint: Butcher

 

urt nee Adams b 1929

Eileen Smith: Shops, High Street, butchers, 1930s

The butcher had a horse and cart for his deliveries. One day when a group of us children were watching, the old horse dropped dead in his traces. It was horrible really but it made the day for us kids. What a thing to see.

Every Friday, the butcher Mr Fryer, would drive one of his steers from his field, which is where the Glen is now, down to his slaughter house down the lane behind the Pinings. That was fun to watch! Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Eileen Smith, Annette Haynes, Pat Burt, Pauline Harwood, Shops: Mills 1930s

On Tuesdays, Yarmouth used to smell of frying onions. It was ‘liver and onions’ day as the pigs had been slaughtered. Mills had a fresh pork carcass twice a week.
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Advertisement for Mills grocers, 1920s, 1930s

Advertisement for Mills grocers,

 

Harry Mills used to make the most wonderful sausages.
I can remember a lorry backing in there and then they would let the pig out.  I can still hear the pigs squealing.  Pat Burt nee Adams, Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

It used to be our treat on Saturdays to buy Mills lovely sausages for Saturday tea. Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1930

Palma Ault: Shops, Mills 1930s, 1940s

The main door to Mills, now bricked up, was in the High Street, with a little door on the corner which we use now as the main entrance. The Mills family lived in what is now ‘St James’, next to the Church – the rector lived opposite in what we know as the ‘Old Rectory’. The Mills family owned all of where St James Close is now and it was a market garden, with a tennis court for Nora Mills, daughter of the house.

The wine at Mills was kept in a dark place before you got to the bakehouse.

Old entrance to Mills on High Street

Old entrance to Mills on High Street

Palma Ault nee Holloway b 1927