Although there was a war on, we used to get about all over the place. Out Bouldnor, there were troops out there. We used to go over Thorley Copse a lot, play down the marsh and up the Rec, on the beaches, anywhere; it was amazing really.
I remember towards the end of the war we went over Sandhard and found an airman’s glove on the beach. We picked it up and 2 fingers fell out of it. I remember that ever so well.
One day 2 or 3 of us older boys went up Red Lake where the old sewer pipe was and were walking along it. We got machine gunned by a Messerschmidt and we all leapt off it. We reckoned at the time they thought it was part of Pluto. Nick Chandler b 1937
Tag Archives: Bouldnor
Haigh brothers: Thorley 1920s, 1930s
Mig grew up at The Retreat, just across the fields from us, where our fathers had spent time as boys. They used to go off in the donkey trap (known as the dog cart) to Bouldnor to catch butterflies and swim.
Haigh Brothers at Lee: Stanley, Paddy and Frank: Photo Sue Langford
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
Phil Kelsey: Free Time and Leisure
Stone Pier with Bun Cotton, Eric Doe, Jim Ryall, George Kelsey and Jack Noyce
Before the Rec. was done, we used to go down and kick about in what now is all brambles, down the Mill. Old Harry Jackman had cows down there then , and he also used to have them out around the copse. Providing they weren’t there for milking, we used to go down there and kick about. It was cut a bit like a field, it was nothing much, it was very rough.
Other than that we used to get messing about in Mill Copse and Thorley Copse, we were always out there.
In those days you couldn’t go over the bridge because you had to pay so we always went towards Bouldnor. We used to try and scrabble along the front – Nicholson’s path – down by what is now Port La Salle. It’s still there now. To save having to come up and go right round there, we used to try and scrabble along there and keep out of sight of the gamekeeper with his dogs. It wasn’t too bad if the tide was out, we used to get by. We used to go right along then as far as the old Stone Pier usually. Of course that’s mostly disappeared, during the war most of it. It’s a pity really that went. Phil Kelsey b1920
Joan Cokes: Early Days
My father was employed as a gardener and worked in several different places. He worked for The Pier Hotel (now the George Hotel), in the garden opposite the school. In Ommanney Road, there was a garden owned by the Bugle where he also worked. That was next to a vegetable garden for The Towers. He grew the vegetables for his own family in an allotment at the top of Victoria Road.
The bridge was a toll bridge and regular users got a weekly ticket. Dad worked for the Tophams over in Norton as a gardener, and so had a weekly ticket. We children used to sneak behind a charabanc to get over the bridge without paying.
I can remember getting winkles from Pier Shore and the Common up to Bouldnor as far as Stone Pier, and prawning off the Common – I remember seeing seahorses there.
Joan Cokes nee Cooper b1918