Birds nesting was a favourite in the spring; terrible to think about it now, taking birds eggs. Another favourite was after the swan had had her young there was always a couple of addled eggs left in the nest and we used to put them on the railway line. Can you imagine the stench when they took the train back to the shed to clean it at night! Nick Chandler b 1937
Tag Archives: 1940s
Nick Chandler: Free Time 1940s,
Work at the Mill by River Board 1950s
Harry Jackman was my great uncle. I remember him having 5 or 7 cows. He rented the Mill off Ball, the builder from Cowes, and also he looked after the Copse for Ball for shooting. Him and old Angell, who was the game keeper for Ball, hated anybody going over the copse disturbing anything. To us, it was a game to get over there, but he walked with a terrible limp so he could never catch you, unless he caught you up a tree. He caught me and Mick Morton up a tree one day and it was about an hour before we could get down. He could be pretty firey, he was cantankerous. Nick Chandler b 1937
Brian Pomroy: Free Time 1940s
Poor old Harry Jackman! He didn’t like us cutting through his fields. We used to wait for him to milk his cows, and when we knew he was milking, we used to whip through and up to the copse. One day we came out the copse, all laughing and joking, Mick Morton, Les Jupe, Barry Mcdonald and me. We said, he never caught us today. When we got down to the big gate by the railway he was stood just there.
‘Got you!’ he said, ‘got you, all of you.’
‘Hello Mr Jackman,’ I said.
‘You can go home. I know where you live.’ Brian Pomroy b 1938
Pat Burt: Free Time and Leisure
Aerial showing Yarmouth 1923 with tennis courts and green spaces
There were tennis courts where the 8 council houses are that were built in 1949. Before they were built, it was allotments during the war. I remember Mick’s aunt used to play. We used to play tennis didn’t we, on Mrs Hamilton’s courts where the Glen is, next to the Sports Club? The tennis court was Tennyson Road end and opposite her place, ( The Wight House) so she had to cross the road. Annette Haynes and Pat Burt b 1929
Annette Haynes: Free Time 1930s and 1940s
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
Serena Hunt : Swimming 1940s, 1950s
In the summer we could get into a bathing costume at home, and run down the road and down the lane between Len Haward’s fish shop and The Towers and go to Pier Shore to swim.
Yarmouth shores High Tide
We would jump off the Royal Solent Yacht Club’s stone jetty, which did not add to our popularity at that time ! Serena Dias de Deus nee Hunt
Brian Pomroy: swimming
Mill at Yarmouth with Gasworks Cottages beyond
Swimming lessons? Learnt to swim on my own at the Mill. We were in and out of the water all summer.
I just learnt to swim in the river. I’d nip over the wall, and into the water if the tide was right. Yes, I spent more time in the river than I did on the beach.
We used to get big oil drums and planks and make rafts and set off paddling. You’d get half way up the river and look round, and one drum’s gone floating off that way and the other one’s gone the other way, and there you were in the water, not on the raft anymore. Yes, it was good down there. Brian Pomroy b1937
Carol Corbett: Early Days
Ommanney Road, looking towards South Street, decorated for Coronation of King George VI in 1937
Ommanney Road then was permanent housing and everybody knew everybody else. As a small child, there seemed to me to be a lot of ‘old salts’, who wore sailor type caps, living in the road. Bern Haward had a huge workshop as a boat store, I guess he repaired boats as well, on one side, and Mr May, the undertaker, was on the other side of the road. Bern was always very nice to me. He had a brother, Gerry, who lived up the road and always wore a sailor’s cap, and there was Nip Chambers, he wore a cap too. There was an elderly gentleman, a small man with a big beard, he wore a flat white cap. He was Nip’s father, a real old salt who had been a sea captain.
Mr Feaver and Mr Hopkins both had taxi businesses in opposition. Mr Feaver had a garage up the road for his taxis.
We constantly played ball games, in the middle of the road and wore the pavements out roller skating. George Warder, the milkman, delivered the milk with a pull along float up and down the road. I can remember ‘Johnny Onions’ from Brittany peddling his strings of onions. My dad always bought a string, always invited him in for a cup of tea. I don’t know how my mother got on because she wasn’t such an adventurous person. We had numerous stews and lots of rabbit stew in those days.
I can remember the man with his barrel organ and a monkey on his shoulder. Why did he come – was he sharpening knives?
The High Street was busier as all the traffic, buses included, went up the street, and both ways at the top of the High Street. We used to sit on the wall at Basketts Lane with pen and paper, taking down number plates as a hobby. Carol Corbett nee Cotton b 1946
Brian Pomry: Early Days, 1940s, 1950s
Simmonds built boats up Ommanney Road. They built a boat that was too big to get out. Bloody hell it came down that ramp, it was going! I thought it was going in the old funeral parlour, but Jim managed to hold it and Ray, John and Harry put blocks of wood under the wheels to stop it. They went down the High Street with it, and couldn’t turn at the Town Hall. Brian Pomroy b 1937
High Street to Town Hall
Rod Corbett: A short first day at school
My first day at school didn’t last very long. There was an old Nissen hut in the playground, probably left over from where the Army had had a gun on the refuse tip next door. There was a table in it, so I climbed on with another boy who was starting school with me. I gave him a shove and knocked him off, and he howled – he was always a bit of a ‘boohoo’. Anyway, I thought, ‘I’d better not stay here’, so I ran home to Gran ( my great grandmother who lived in Field Cottages).
Rod Corbett b 1943