Tag Archives: Basketts Lane

Eileen Smith: Swimming at Love Shore 1920s, 1930s

Leave a Reply

The lane leading to Loveshore

The lane leading to Loveshore

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 Mrs 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 1931 some of us swam a mile from Eastmore to the pier for which we received a medal – I’ve still got mine.

Eileen Smith's medal for swimming one mile in 1931 whilst at yarmouth School

Eileen Smith’s medal for swimming one mile in 1931 whilst at Yarmouth School

Reverse inscribed ‘Eileen Lansdowne   1931’

Eileen Smith's medal for swimming one mile in 1931. (She was then Eileen Lansdowne)

Eileen Smith’s medal for swimming one mile in 1931. (She was then Eileen Lansdowne)

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

Pat Burt, Nick Chandler, Blanche Kennard: Buses

Square 1950s with bus stop outside Town Hall.

Square 1950s with bus stop outside Town Hall.

My father used to work for Southern Vectis; he used to drive the school bus sometimes.
If he drove my school bus home would drop me off by Basketts Lane. I’d get off and make a cup of tea because they always stopped in Yarmouth for half an hour or more. The bus was always parked by the side of the church where that tree is in St James Street, and Dad would bring his conductress up with him for tea.  I would have it ready by the time he got up there. Pat Burt nee Adams b1929

I went by bus to work at Whites in Cowes and caught the bus in the Square, outside Jireh House, and the bus went up the High Street.   It cost 7/9 ( 7 shillings and 9 pence) for a weekly ticket which was a lot out of your pay when you were only on  £2 or £3  a week.  I was there from 1953 to 59.  Nick Chandler b 1937

The bus stop was outside the Town Hall, and it cost me 2/6 to go to see my parents in Ryde. Blanche Kennard nee Dore b 1923

Eileen Smith: Free Time: swimming

Yarmouth School Mile Swimming Medal

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

Swimming Medal awarded for One Mile

Carol Corbett: Early Days

Ommanney Road, looking towards South Street, decorated for Coronation of King George VI in 1937

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