Tag Archives: Free time

Eileen Smith: Free Time at Love Shore 1940s

Joy Cotton, Cynthia Lansdowne and Barbara Hayden at Love Shore

Joy Cotton, Cynthia Lansdowne and Barbara Hayden at Love Shore

 In the summer holidays there’d be maybe half a dozen mums with families, my mum, and Mrs Eames, she was the police constable’s wife at Yarmouth, and the Robinsons, down Love Shore, just down the road. We’d pack up picnics and spend all day there. The mums would be down there with their knitting and we’d be down there all the afternoon.  It was a safe beach because you had the jetties there. If you got swept down you went against the jetties. 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

Les Turner, Alec Cokes: Free Time with Go Karts 1950s

Alec and I would go out after school with one of our karts across to Sandhard or down to Fort Vic. to collect the wood off the beach.   At weekends we sawed it up for firewood.
I remember we used to take turns to ride the Kart down over Fort Vic hill.  The Fort was still manned by the Army then.
It was my turn this particular time.  I went hurtling down over the hill.  All of a sudden this dispatch rider appeared coming  the other way up the hill.  He went in one hedge and I went in the other. Les Turner b 1944

I can remember going over to Fort Vic; it particularly sticks in my mind as I think we brought back a carton of those 7 pound tins of cocoa.  We had about four of them in a box, and we had chocolate cakes for a long time after that, and chocolate puds.  Yeah I can remember doing that one.  Alec Cokes  b1945

Les Turner: Free Time 1950s

As lads we all made ourselves a go-kart with pram wheels from down on the Dump, timber as well. For making the body we would go down and see Mr Harwood and ask him for some large staples to fix the pram wheel axles to the timber body.  A lot of the time he would give them to us or he would charge us a penny for half a dozen.
In the light evenings a gang of us with our go karts would go up to the fire station, go down over the hill to the old railway sta

Yarmouth Station

Yarmouth Station 1950s

tion, through the gate, and if you didn’t steer properly, you’d end up going over the edge of the platform. We’d see how far we could get along the platform, along the old railway bed.  Great fun –  some of the karts had steering wheels.

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

Nick Chandler : Free Time 1940s,

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

Ron Wallis: 1940s Free Time

My out of school hours were all taken up with helping Dad with the farm, playing around the farm buildings, so I never did mix with those Yarmouth chaps.  I knew them well enough.  I had some very good friends.  The radio specialist down at Yarmouth – Westons – Reggie Weston, the son, was probably my best friend at Yarmouth School, and the other one who was a very good friend is Roger Smith, Bill Smith was his dad and he was a Yarmouth postman and lived in a little cottage just off St James’s Street.

 I was needed  back at home helping with the milking, and in summer I spent quite a lot of hours driving the tractor.  It took me back last weekend when I went to watch the ploughing match.  From the age of nine I was driving a tractor.  To start it, you had to wind it up, make sure you didn’t have your hand round the back.  Ron Wallis b 1935

Nick Chandler: Free Time 1940s,

Work at the Mill by River Board 1950s

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

Phil Kelsey: Free Time 1930s

When I was young, Dad had his boat down the Mill and when I was about ten I used to take it out all day long in the summer. I was up and down the river, I reckon I’d propelled the boat in every little inlet.  Once when I was quite small, Dad had taken us over to Sandhard. Coming back, we got alongside to get out and I was just getting out. George was supposed to be helping Dad get me out and there was some swans there suddenly started fighting. They let go of me and dropped me down into the water!  Didn’t Mother create when I got home!  Phil Kelsey b 1920

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