Tag Archives: 1950s

Brian Pomroy: Free Time, Yarmouth Football 1930s – 1950s

:Yarmouth Football Team, with Bill Pomroy in goal 1936

:Yarmouth Football Team, with Bill Pomroy in goal 1936

The best team Yarmouth had was in 1947 when they played in the final of the Hampshire Cup over at Fratton Park. They had George Cleary from the pub, George Kelsey, two masters from the school at Eastmore and two lads from there. One of them, Charlesworth, he was really good, he went on to play for Wolverhampton. Mr. Holding from the shop, he was Chairman, and helped with money. You might get two or three hundred watching.

You should have seen Bun Cotton! He would really get stuck in. The ball would be at the other end and you’d look round and there was Bun, having a real go at someone. Yes, he used to get sent off.

Ted Levey used to referee, but every time he refereed when Yarmouth was playing he got into trouble. He’d be blowing the whistle and getting really queer with people.

My family played; Dad played in goal for Yarmouth and my brothers Derek and Peter. Derek was the best player of the family. I went with him when he had a trial for Southampton when he was 18 or 19, but when he came on the pitch at The Dell and saw the crowd, it was just too much for him. When I was 14, I had to go and see the Headmaster at Freshwater to get permission to play for Yarmouth First Team. My Mum used to have to do all that washing, kit for 3 of us, heavy shirts and all.  Brian Pomroy b 1937

Carol Corbett: Free Time, Concerts and Plays 1950s and 1960s

The ‘Con Club’, Sports and Social Club was used as an entertainment venue for concerts, plays  and pantomimes. ‘Winter Wonderland’ was one when I would have been 7. My mother was in the show, I wanted to go all the time to watch it.
I went with my grandmother one night and couldn’t understand why my dad wasn’t there, and apparently he took one of the women’s places because they were ill.

Watching the entertainment at the 'Con' Club 1950s

Watching the entertainment at the ‘Con’ Club 1950s

Carol Corbett nee Cotton b 1946 

Pete Smith: Yarmouth School 1950s

Mr Hector was a mixed bag.  He was a real scary teacher because he would throw a slipper across the classroom at you.  I can see him pick up Roger Sheldon and Nibbo Kellaway by their ears.  He was a really strange bloke.  But do you know, he was sort of fiery but he had a lot of interesting things to say.  If you tuned in to what was going on in the lesson he was fine but soon as you drifted off, well, look out or he’d throw the chalk at you or the blackboard rubber. You had to really watch out for him. You didn’t quite know when he was going to go over the edge.

Mr. Hector's class, Yarmouth Primary School, 1950s

Mr. Hector’s class, Yarmouth Primary School, 1950s

  PeterSmith b 1946

Alec Cokes: Free Time 1950s 1960s

One time there was a big classic football match going on up the Rec. Jim Ryall then was the Fire Chief – and he was up there watching the football .

All of a sudden two figures came up across the back of the Rec, right across the middle of the playing field and disappeared.  It was Dicky Hatch and Dook Henderson.  They’d only managed to set fire to the rushes down the marsh.  There was a big cloud of smoke.
Somebody said, Jim, Jim, the marsh is burning.  He said, let it burn.  No point in getting down there with the fire engine, what was the point of that, it wouldn’t do any harm.

I can remember Rodney with his touchwood tin – he used to have a Golden Syrup tin, punched some holes in it with a bit of wire for a handle, get the old rotten wood out the middle of the trees and put something in to start it burning and of course you had a flame and if you wanted to light the marshes or something you just let go!  Nothing ever blew up.

Mick, he was a bugger, he’s a bit older than us – and he was very good with these bows and arrow he used to make.  We used to get in the middle of the Rec. a whole gang of us, about twenty of us, and he would fire this thing up in the air.  He’d have reeds for arrows with a bit of elder for the tip and a feather and a nail stuck in it, and he’d fire it straight up in the air – a game of chicken, watching this thing to see which way it was going to go.  Alec Cokes b 1945

Alec Cokes: Free Time 1950s

‘ Brimmo’  –  he was one of the gang leaders and his sort of base was in this builder’s yard just down the bottom of the garden.  We had our Dinky toys and all the rest of it in the yard.  There were several of those little cannons about – they were yacht race cannons really for starting races. They used to take them on their boats and fire them off. They weren’t very big, only about nine inches or a foot long. There was no gun carriage, it didn’t look like a little gun, it was just a brass pipe basically.  It wasn’t a miniature cannon but it made a bang when you fired it.  In those days everybody used to load their own shot gun cartridges, so everybody had shot and wadding, it was in every back garden shed.

 This toad hopped out of the water butt – somebody fired at it with a catapult and missed it.  The suggestion came up that we get this cannon and trig it up, and we’ll get this toad.  We went indoors, got the cannon set up on a couple of bricks with a couple of bricks holding it down, rammed it and all the rest of it, lit the touch hole and all retired round the next pile of bricks.  We were all cowering behind the bricks and  –  nothing.
Everybody said, ‘ Well, what are we going to do then?’
Dicky in the end went out round and kicked it, and it went off.  Of course, it fell off the bricks and he got one of the pellets lodged in his eye. He went home because he only lived in Ommanney Road, and didn’t tell his mum.  The next day at breakfast, she said, ‘What’s wrong with your eye, Nipper?’   And he said, ‘I’ve got something in it.’
I think it was the lead poisoning that caused him to lose his eye rather than the impact. Alec Cokes b 1945

Mary Lord: Free Time 1950s

Bluebells in Mill Copse 2013

Bluebells in Mill Copse 2013

If we went anywhere, we went by bus  –  train was too expensive  –  but we didn’t go far. Yarmouth was our world. I loved Mill Copse and spent hours there. The bluebells, primroses … I hated it when it was all planted up with conifers. I was a great presser of flowers, had a collection of pressed wild flowers. One year in Mill Copse I found butterfly orchids to press for my collection. In later years I went back to look but never found them again!  Mary Lord nee Hayles b 1936

Alec Cokes: Free Time at the Dump 1950s

The Dump was quite a big thing in our little lives and the dump was always alight.
Do you remember those Kiora bottles with the big clamp?  We used to get those and half fill them with water then put them in the fire and stand around watching – eventually they would just blow to bits because the top wouldn’t come off, and that was another chicken game.  If you were close enough to see it properly you could see it boil and you’d have steam and water but immediately the water disappeared and it became steam, you were out of there, and this glass used to go everywhere!

Yarmouth Quay with the Dump seen burning in background

Yarmouth Quay with the Dump seen burning in background

Alec Cokes b 1945

Eileen Smith: Free Time at Love Shore 1950s

The only problem you had on the beach was the guns going off above you from the sailing.  The West Wight Scows were anchored off Love Shore and Dr Drummond’s, his was white with a red band round it, and was called Pillbox.  They used to race every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon and they had their gun in their little shed at the bottom of the Deacons’  garden. Sometimes they’d never fire the gun, they’d say:  Bang!
They didn’t like us down there because we were shouting and laughing and goodness knows what.  They couldn’t stop us because the lane going down to the shore was a public right of way. We used to walk right through to the next lane, along the stones from Fryer’s Lane right up to the Common. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

 

Margaret Scott: Free Time 1950s

When we lived in Ommanney Road, I had  pair of rollerskates for Christmas.  I loved my skates and spent many happy hours going up and down the road with my friends.  Mr Egan’s garage on one side of the road had a nice slope in front of it, and towards the top on the other side was Bern Haward’s shed with an even bigger slope. I remember Lou Pitman coming out of her front door one day, shouting at me that if I went past her house again she would throw a bucket of water over me.  I expect I stayed on my side of the road for a while after that.

Me and My Bike

Me and My Bike

 b 1949

Rod Corbett: Free Time 1950s

An old lady called Kizzy Butler, who lived at the house that juts out into the Rec. had died, and the Jackman family bought it. She didn’t seem to have had any family so all her stuff was turned out. She had a big collection of stuffed birds all under glass Victorian domes. Nobody wanted things like that then, they were too unfashionable, so they were just thrown out.  A group of us boys, aged about 8 or 9 went and rescued these birds – there were lots of penguins and Arctic birds, and we put them up in the trees in the lane, which must have made people look twice. Eventually when we got bored, we shot the old birds down.

Rod Corbett b 1943