Tag Archives: 1940s

Mary Henderson: Thorley, 1930s, 1940s

My mum lived all her life here, going to school in Thorley. She took the Scholarship, but didn’t hear anything and went to West Wight Secondary School. After she’d been there about 3 months, a man turned up in the classroom and asked what she was doing there:
getting on with her work she said. Apparently, she’d passed the Scholarship but no one had told her, so then her parents had to find the money to pay for her uniform and she had to travel to Newport to school on her own, leaving all her friends.

Sue Henderson nee Hillier

One day when she was at home ill with tonsillitis, Mr. Biddlecombe from Wellow appeared on a ladder painting her bedroom window frame. She politely asked him how he was and was surprised when he told her that he’d had a chill. His wife hadn’t aired the waistband of his underpants properly, he told her.

In WWII, Kath and Marge, my mum’s older sisters both joined up, the WAAFs I think. Because Marge wasn’t very old, they had to share a billet. Mum was only 10. Dad was 9 years older and went straight into the R.A.F. when he left school, ending up in Singapore.
Mary Henderson b 1954

Cyril Henderson in RAF uniform

Mary Henderson, Sue Henderson nee Hillier, Thorley

My Mum, Sue Henderson nee Hillier, was born in Blacksmiths Cottage in 1929 but moved to Newclose Cottages, the east side, when she was one. She was christened ‘Eileen Amy’ but her grandmother said she was such a little dumpling, a ‘suet dumpling’ that she was nicknamed ‘Sue’ and known by that name from childhood!

Newclose Cottages 2013

My Grandad, Frederick, was known as ‘Shep’ Hillier, – he was shepherd for Newclose Farm. We think his prize sheep were Dorset Horns ; he certainly showed them in Dorset. Although ‘Shep’ followed his father, who was also a shepherd, he had served as a police constable in the Plymouth dockyards, at a time when policemen always went out in twos. He was a Special Constable in WWII
(Yarmouth School Log book 1944 Sept.8^th : Police Reserve Hillier gave children a ‘Safety First’ talk this afternoon)

Shep Hillier earthing up potataotes 1940s photo Jean Storie

My grandmother Amy Rose nee Barton had originally come from Shalfleet but was working in service in Dorset when she met and married my granddad.
She was wife of a shepherd so she had ‘cade’ or orphan lambs to look after in her kitchen at lambing time, masses of washing to do with only a boiler but I remember how it was always neat and tidy. Mary Henderson b 1954

Kitty Pearce: Thorley, St Swithin’s Church, 1920s -1990s

Kitty Pearce with her choir used to and put on nativity plays every year which packed the church out. She played the organ in Thorley for 50 years, right from when my mum was at school. I think she was one of the oldest organists ever; over 90.
Mary Henderson b 1954

Miss Kitty Pearce BEM was organist at St Swithin’s for 50 years. She retired in 1994 at 91, and died in 1998

Mary Henderson: Thorley, Newclose Farm horses, 1950s, 1940s

Picking up sheaves with working horses

They had horses down at Newclose – Ernest Heal was the last one to have working horses.

They kept them next to the church and you’d walk up by, and they’d come thundering up. My Gran Hillier said when she lived at Newclose Cottages, she used to go with a bucket and dig up the old mole hill earth for the garden. She was down across by the stream, before the bungalows were built.

You never rattled the bucket, but this time she tripped and the bucket rattled, and these two cart horses came charging up because they thought she had the feed bucket. Instead of leaving the bucket, she just managed to dive over the stile into her garden and these two great heads appeared looking for food. Mary Henderson b 1954

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 6^th 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

Brian Pomroy: Harbour, Smith’s boatshed 1940s

Yarmouth harbour Panorama 1950s

The tide used to come up to where Stan Smith used to come out of his yard to launch his boats. Where the old coastguard houses are now, the water used to come up to their back walls. Jack Harwood had an old RAF boat there that he used to live on. Brian Pomroy b1937

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

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

Annette Haynes: Free Time, Concerts and pantomimes, 1940s,1950s

Annette Holloway as Demon Glum in Pantomime at Con Club

Our pantomimes were always very well supported. So many people were in them and others came to watch. We used to go to Mrs Hans Hamilton’s house sometimes rehearsing for the pantomimes. I always remember this fire in the middle of the room.
Annette Haynes nee Holloway

Harbour: Jim Cooper 1920s – 1960s

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

Services: Laundry 1930s ,1940s, 1950s

At the end of Heytesbury Road was the Solent Steam Laundry. A very loud whistle was sounded there to mark the start and end of work shifts at 8.00, 12 noon, 1.00pm and 4.30 Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

There were forty or fifty people who worked there, they were big employers. Alec
Cokes b 1945

My Mum used to send her sheets to the Laundry when she was first married. She didn’t have a washing machine. Ruth Mills nee Kelleway b 1945

My Grandad worked up the Laundry, and wanted me to go and work there but I didn’t fancy it. Brian Pomroy b 1937

Yarmouth and Thorley Voices

Learn about the history of Yarmouth and Thorley from the people who have lived it