Yarmouth marsh panorama with Mill and stream on right
We lived in the last house down Station Road just before the station, St Kilda it was called then, Mill Stream Cottage it’s called now. Beautiful views. I used to spend my time off over the marsh there, into the copses, Thorley Copse or Mill Copse. I don’t think you can get into Thorley Copse now, that was the one I particularly liked. We used to go birds nesting and things like that. Not that I should be proud of that now. Colin Smith b1921
Yarmouth Station, Mill Stream and marsh from platform 2013
When we were kids and the marsh froze over, we used to go skating on it and if any of us fell in and got wet, we would go into the station. They always had a big fire going in the waiting room, so we used to be able to dry off. The stationmaster was Peter, and didn’t mind us drying off. I can see his face.
Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929
From a letter to Yarmouth School
Looking back with pleasure over the years, it seems that school in summer revolved round the time of high tide. Our daily swimming lesson took up the latter part of the morning or afternoon. It was not often that we missed. Occasionally we went to the beach by the Pier, but most often it was down the turning up the High Street. We all undressed on the beach – very stony it was too – and we mastered the art of an exceedingly rapid change. There was a small raft beside a breakwater which good swimmers used.
We were encouraged to learn to swim. Mr Stanway would give 6d to anyone who learnt and to the one who taught the swimmer. Many people went on to do the mile and to learn life saving. For this we went to the harbour and were thrown out of a boat fully dressed.
Excerpt from School Log
We had to undress in the water – get ashore – and also “rescue” a drowning person – swim underwater and dive off the boat without capsizing it.
The highlight of the swimming season was the Cowes Regatta, and a great honour to be picked for the team, for which we received a medal. Also if you were good there was the chance of winning some pocket money at the various regattas.
Barbara Dence b 1920
Barbara Dence’s 1929 swimming certificate
The lane leading to Loveshore
Our headteacher, Miss Martin she was then, would take us swimming at Love shore, the whole class. She had a roller towel to help you to learn to swim. You lay in the water through the towel, with it round your middle and she held you up while you paddled. It was a good method!
It was wonderful living in the High Street, just opposite the lane down to Loveshore. On a hot day, you’d change, then run over the road and down to Love Shore. If we went for a picnic tho’, we’d go over the bridge to Sandhard.
Pat Burt nee Adams 1929 Photo
There were sometimes dolphins in the Solent when you were swimming along off Yarmouth.
I do remember one occasion when we had been practising our mile swim, a thin little girl who was a good swimmer set off for the pier before us. As I got near to the pier the current was getting stronger and it was harder work. Florrie Knee called out to me to come and help her. She wasn’t in trouble but the little girl was, under the pier, and Florrie was trying to help her. Although she was a good swimmer, the tide was pulling her and she was tired. Florrie and I managed to help her ashore, and she ran home. Nobody ever knew what had happened, or what nearly happened.
Gerry Sheldon nee Haward b1924
I loved our visits to Love Shore once or twice a week.
I cant imagine how from a safety point of view that could happen today.
I learned to swim quite quickly (no armbands etc) and ended up with a silver medal in 1934 for swimming a mile, from Eastmore, Bouldnor, to the Pier at Yarmouth accompanied by a rowing boat.
Florrie Sloper nee Knee b 1922
Yarmouth School Mile Swimming Medal, other side engraved with name Eileen Lansdowne 1932
All of us children learnt to swim at Love Shore or Pier Shore, down the lane opposite Basketts Lane. The boys swam off Love Shore; the girls swam nearer the pier.
We went swimming twice a week in the summer, from the end of May, supervised by Mr. Stanway and Miss White ( who was later Mrs. H Hayles). According to tides, we went swimming at 11.30 in the morning or 3.30 in the afternoon. We used to nip back home to change and run down to Love Shore with a towel round us. No one taught us proper strokes, we just learnt to swim. In September we swam for our certificates – 20 yards, 40 yards, and 100 yards. In 1933 some of us swam a mile from Eastmore to the pier for which we received a medal – I’ve still got mine.
I only swam once in the competition against other schools. I hated it. The private schools had all been taught proper strokes – crawl – and we’d just learnt to swim along.
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921
Swimming Medal awarded for One Mile
The vicar, Revd. Woodin, had a bit of a temper. I remember once when he thought there weren’t enough people in church, he leaned forward and banged and banged on the pulpit. Gerry Sheldon nee Haward b1924
When we lived in Kevack in the High Street, we had an outdoor loo. You went across a small yard, and there were 2 loos side by side. One belonged to our next door neighbour, Mr King, the head gardener at The Mount, and he had to walk through the bottom of our yard to get to his loo. They could be sat in theirs, right next to us, – but they were flush, those loos.
My mother was cook to the Hamiltons in the Wight/White House for some years until she was taken very ill. When I was very small, I used to have to go with my mother when she went to work while she was cooking in the kitchen. I always remember the smell of the lovely rubbery green staircase they had. Instead of carpet the stairs were covered in this lovely pale green rubber and it smelt beautiful.
I was knocked down by a car, when I was 7 and there were very few cars about. I was running home from school for lunch. It was a very rough day and I could see the sea blowing up at the end of Pier Shore Lane down between the Yacht Club and The Towers. I was coming along South Street and I ran straight across the High Street. Of course the High Street was a main road then, and there was a car coming, driven by one of the Miss Creagh Osbornes and it hit me. Luckily it didn’t hurt me much, just my ankle. It was my own fault , I was so excited, I wanted to see the rough sea. I didn’t go back to school that day, and later Miss Creagh Osborne knocked on the door and brought me a black and white china dog as a present. Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929
Alma Place 2013
Pat and I both started off in Alma Place . We’ve known each other since we were three. My parents brought me to the Island because my brother and I were both so poorly the doctor said we had to live by the sea. For a year or so my dad used to cycle to Havenstreet to visit my brother in the hospital, but then my mother said, ‘If he’s going to die, bring him home’. He’s still going strong, nearly 90.
From Alma Place we moved to Coastguard Cottages. I remember we had an outside pump for water there. We moved once from Coastguard Cottages to a bigger house in South Street. We moved in one day and moved out the next because my mother saw mice and she wouldn’t stay there, so we moved back to our old house. Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929
Coastguard cottages 2013