Tag Archives: 1940s

Blanche Kennard, Phil Kelsey, Eileen Smith: Trains 1940s

To get from the ferry to the station, people had to walk through the town, but there were porters to push their luggage from the Pier to the station. It’s not very far really. (A) It is on a wet day!(P.) Annette Haynes and Pat Burt b 1929

It used to cost 6d to catch the train to Freshwater to go to the Pictures at The Palace, then we’d walk back afterwards. Blanche Kennard nee Dore,b 1923 stationed at The Pier Hotel ( now The George) as a WRN in WWII from 1942.

The station master used to live in the house next door here. I can remember a Mr Dennett, because his daughter was very friendly with my sister Kate. They used to get about a bit together. Of course he never used to do a lot down here at the station, he was always down the pier. Phil Kelsey b 1920

A porter from the Pier met the trains and collected luggage on a hand truck which he pushed to and from the Pier. Mr. Orchard had a big old fashioned car – open at the front where the chauffeur sat – and he used to meet the trains to drive people round to the ferry. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b1921

Pauline Harwood, Shops, High Street, Higginbothams 1940s

Mr Higginbotham the draper, he had a wooden leg. If my grandmother was coming to tea, my Mum used to say, ‘I haven’t got a clean tablecloth. Go up Higgies and get one’, because they weren’t much. We used to buy underwear up there and all sorts of things. We used to go in the left to the drapery part, and there would be nobody there. Suddenly you would hear thump, thump, thump as he walked across. Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1930

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Pat Burt, Annette Haynes, Shops, Higginbothams 1950s

Higginbotham’s now Marlborough House, dentist’s.

Then there was Higginbothams shop; half was a drapers and half was a grocers. He had a wooden leg, Mr Higginbotham the draper, Tim’s grandfather. I used to go in there and buy cotton. You could buy material, all sorts, it was amazing what they kept in there. Higginbothams was up the top where the dentist is now, in Marlborough House.
Pat Burt nee Adams and Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

Pauline Hatch, Serena Hunt , Shops, High Street 1940s

Minnie Flint’s – I can remember that as a butcher’s shop. It had great big windows and they used to push them up, and there was the meat on a marble slab. Mr Haward’ s fish shop was next door. When I was about three, I used to go across and ask for ‘dish for dabbing’ instead of ‘fish for crabbing’. For years afterwards whenever I went in for fish, he used to say to me, ‘Do you want some dish for dabbing?’
Pauline Harwood nee Hatch 1930

Pinings Corner, High Street

I called Mr. Haward ‘Uncle Len’. One of my cats used to go down the road every day at noon and sit on the wall opposite his shop and Len would give him a piece of fish. Len said he could set his watch on the cat’s arrival. Serena Dias de Deus nee Hunt b 1939

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

Alec Cokes: Shops, Mills, Sid and Alf Kelleway, 1940s, 1950s

Sid Kelleway did the slaughtering and the game, and he made the brawn in a big copper just inside. He had a cousin called Alf Kelleway, who drove the British Road Service lorry, In those days of course, there wasn’t Health and Safety, and stuff like barley came in 160 lb sacks, huge great sacks. Alf used to bring these round and of course he couldn’t get his lorry up that little lane, so he had to get them off his lorry down in the Square, put them on his truck, trundle them up.
He went in Mills one day and Sid was doing something, and Alf said ‘You going to give me a hand with this then?’ and Sid said, ‘ No, bugger off.’
They argued a bit – the brawn was cooking away, and as he went out, Alf picked up another handful of spices and chucked it into the brawn. When he came back with the next sack, same thing. He finished up putting about four lots more of spices, herbs or whatever. Sid went on and made the brawn. It was all sold and people came back and said, Oh that was wonderful, that brawn, it was so tasty.
Alec Cokes b 1945

Brian Pomroy, Alec Cokes: Shops, Mills, 1940s

Mills yard where slaughterhouse and bakehouse were located Photo. M. Scott

Sid Kelleway had his slaughterhouse up the back of Mills. I went once to watch him cut the pigs’ throats but it was a bit too much. He kept chickens in his garden there too. One day one of his chickens had flown over the wall. He was chasing it up the High Street and when he caught it, he said ‘That bloody thing wont go nowhere’, and got it and wrung its neck.
Brian Pomroy b 1937

Sid was a real old rascal. My granddad and him were old contemporaries. Grandad used to be out with his poaching a bit, so he used to take stuff in and of course Sid used to filter them into the main stream. Sid used to say, there you are Jim.
When he was preparing pigeons for people he used to take one breast out. Of course selling them to the visitors, I don’t suppose they knew anyway. They had one breast and wrapped it up that way round. Alec Cokes b 1945

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

Palma Ault nee Holloway b 1927

Shops: Mills and bakers, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

Mills had a very dark haired nice- looking boy who used to push the bread round daily on wooden trucks door to door. Also we had bread delivered from Whilliers at Newbridge.
Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929

Athel Henderson worked in a bakehouse in Mills. They used to cook some bread there, when you come to think of it! They had 2 vans on the road, one used to go out with the bread and one with the groceries. Brian Pomroy b 1937

I can remember sitting in our big old pram outside the bakehouse, waiting for my Dad ( Athel) to finish his shift. Terry Henderson b 1947

Ron Wallis: Shops, 1940s

Lower Hamstead was where I was born and brought up for the first six years. Twice a week, two vans used to come through from Yarmouth – one was with the groceries from Harry Mills, the Grocers, and the other one was with paraffin and candles from Harwoods the ironmongers and hardware store. The driver of Harwoods van, as far as I remember was a tall, slimmish man and a flat cap and brown smock, a man called Ted Elderfield. Ron Wallis b 1941

Yarmouth and Thorley Voices

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