Tag Archives: Carol Cotton

Carol Corbett: The Fair, 1950s

Each year the Fair would come to the Rec.  Very exciting.  Half a crown went a long way.  I can remember watching, not riding, the Wall of Death.  There was a man jumping through a hoop of fire into a water tank and my favourite was the flea circus – little fleas in a glass case with pink skirts on pushing prams and wheelbarrows along.  No, I hadn’t been drinking!   I thought it was wonderful – we had to pay extra to go in to watch it but I remember going in with my mother, and then I think my grandmother took me as well. Carol Corbett nee Cotton b 19

Fair 1950s

Fun Fair on the Rec. 1950s:In photo, Jean Maitland, Fay (Faith) Hopkins, photo: Janet Hopkins

 

 

 

Carol Corbett: Harbour, houseboats 1950s

Aerial of harbour showing houseboats 1950s

Aerial of harbour showing houseboats 1950s

A childhood friend, Kay Green, lived on a houseboat moored off Bridge Road. I loved to go there to play  –  it was so wonderfully different. We’d play around the rocks, painting faces on them and using the seaweed for their hair, and being hairdressers.

There was another houseboat moored the other side of the bridge. An old man lived there,maybe Colonel Mitchell, and Kay and I used to take meals to him from Mrs. Green. His boat had boots hanging from the ceiling. Extraordinary!

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 

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