Sid Kelleway did the slaughtering and the game, and he made the brawn in a big copper just inside. He had a cousin called Alf Kelleway, who drove the British Road Service lorry, In those days of course, there wasn’t Health and Safety, and stuff like barley came in 160 lb sacks, huge great sacks. Alf used to bring these round and of course he couldn’t get his lorry up that little lane, so he had to get them off his lorry down in the Square, put them on his truck, trundle them up.
He went in Mills one day and Sid was doing something, and Alf said ‘You going to give me a hand with this then?’ and Sid said, ‘ No, bugger off.’
They argued a bit – the brawn was cooking away, and as he went out, Alf picked up another handful of spices and chucked it into the brawn. When he came back with the next sack, same thing. He finished up putting about four lots more of spices, herbs or whatever. Sid went on and made the brawn. It was all sold and people came back and said, Oh that was wonderful, that brawn, it was so tasty.
Alec Cokes b 1945
Tag Archives: High Street
Eileen Smith, Annette Haynes, Pat Burt, Pauline Harwood, Shops: Mills 1930s
On Tuesdays, Yarmouth used to smell of frying onions. It was ‘liver and onions’ day as the pigs had been slaughtered. Mills had a fresh pork carcass twice a week.
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921
Advertisement for Mills grocers,
Harry Mills used to make the most wonderful sausages.
I can remember a lorry backing in there and then they would let the pig out. I can still hear the pigs squealing. Pat Burt nee Adams, Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929
It used to be our treat on Saturdays to buy Mills lovely sausages for Saturday tea. Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1930
Shops: Mills and bakers, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s
Mills had a very dark haired nice- looking boy who used to push the bread round daily on wooden trucks door to door. Also we had bread delivered from Whilliers at Newbridge.
Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929
Athel Henderson worked in a bakehouse in Mills. They used to cook some bread there, when you come to think of it! They had 2 vans on the road, one used to go out with the bread and one with the groceries. Brian Pomroy b 1937
I can remember sitting in our big old pram outside the bakehouse, waiting for my Dad ( Athel) to finish his shift. Terry Henderson b 1947
Richard lawry: Free Time, Cricket 1960s
Several locals played for West Wight – George Kelsey, Fred Cheverton and Chris Cheverton, Ted Lawry, Ted Crooks, Denny Stretton, Stuart Holloway, and before I left to become a Police Cadet in 1963, I joined Dad, (Ted Lawry) so there were two generations of Chevertons and two generations of Lawrys playing.
In the early days when Dad was playing, my mum used to push my sister in her pram with me walking, along the railway line to watch Dad play at Stroud. If we were lucky, there were wild strawberries growing along the railway line to make the walk more tasty.
I remember being told that Dad, who was a ‘Demon Bowler,’ took a lot of wickets at Calbourne in one match. Dad was working in the High Street on the following Monday, and Bill Brett, a staunch Calbourne player and member of a cricketing family, was working in South Street. Dad couldn’t resist the chance to celebrate West Wight’s victory so he made a giant sized bat and sent his apprentice round to deliver it to Bill Brett, with the message that Calbourne might like to use it in the next match.
Richard Lawry b 1947
Barbara Dence: swimming 1920s, 1930s
From a letter to Yarmouth School
Looking back with pleasure over the years, it seems that school in summer revolved round the time of high tide. Our daily swimming lesson took up the latter part of the morning or afternoon. It was not often that we missed. Occasionally we went to the beach by the Pier, but most often it was down the turning up the High Street. We all undressed on the beach – very stony it was too – and we mastered the art of an exceedingly rapid change. There was a small raft beside a breakwater which good swimmers used.
We were encouraged to learn to swim. Mr Stanway would give 6d to anyone who learnt and to the one who taught the swimmer. Many people went on to do the mile and to learn life saving. For this we went to the harbour and were thrown out of a boat fully dressed.
Excerpt from School Log
We had to undress in the water – get ashore – and also “rescue” a drowning person – swim underwater and dive off the boat without capsizing it.
The highlight of the swimming season was the Cowes Regatta, and a great honour to be picked for the team, for which we received a medal. Also if you were good there was the chance of winning some pocket money at the various regattas.
Barbara Dence b 1920
Barbara Dence’s 1929 swimming certificate
Pat Burt : swimming at school, 1930s
The lane leading to Loveshore
Our headteacher, Miss Martin she was then, would take us swimming at Love shore, the whole class. She had a roller towel to help you to learn to swim. You lay in the water through the towel, with it round your middle and she held you up while you paddled. It was a good method!
It was wonderful living in the High Street, just opposite the lane down to Loveshore. On a hot day, you’d change, then run over the road and down to Love Shore. If we went for a picnic tho’, we’d go over the bridge to Sandhard.
Pat Burt nee Adams 1929 Photo
John Caulcutt: Early Years 1950s
The Towers had no heating – there were those ‘Cozy Stoves’ and it was my job to carry the coal in scuttles to which ever room we were using.
I remember going to buy chews – Black Jack and Fruit salad- from Higginbothams in the High Street.
In the early days I went to Freshwater to school, to Miss Gloyn’s with Graeme Dillon – still my friend. Beryl Kearns used to drive us. I had to sit in the front with Beryl; she said it was just not possible to drive us if we were sitting together in the back of the car.
Early Days: John Caulcutt with Charlie Attrill, boatman
Do you remember Charlie Attrill, the boatman here at the Yacht Club?
I used to spend all day with him in his launch. He’d normally have a few lobster pots off here so we’d go potting at 6, and I’d spend all day with him, taking people out. He taught me a lot about small boat handling. It was a happy upbringing if you like small boats, which by God, I did. If you get salt water in your veins at an early age it’s a dangerous thing. I loved every minute of it; just couldn’t fault it.
John Caulcutt. b 1947
Serena Dias de Deus: Early Years
I was born in South Street in 1939 in an old house, Grove Cottage, next to Grove House. We had no bathroom so it was washing in a bowl daily and a bath in a large tin bath dragged into the warm kitchen on Saturday night.
Those were the days when we knew all our neighbours and helped each other out in hard times. I remember many a delicious chocolate cake being passed over the wall of Grove House by Mrs Ablitt, – the Ablitts owned the butchers shop in the High Street and were Mollie Mallett’s parents.
One of my very early memories was of Mrs Lansdowne on the other side making me a cardboard Snowman covered in cotton wool full of tiny little gifts all individually wrapped.
Serena nee Hunt b 1939
South St. 2013
Carol Corbett: Early Days
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
Pat Burt :Early Days living in ‘Kevack’
When we lived in Kevack in the High Street, we had an outdoor loo. You went across a small yard, and there were 2 loos side by side. One belonged to our next door neighbour, Mr King, the head gardener at The Mount, and he had to walk through the bottom of our yard to get to his loo. They could be sat in theirs, right next to us, – but they were flush, those loos.
My mother was cook to the Hamiltons in the Wight/White House for some years until she was taken very ill. When I was very small, I used to have to go with my mother when she went to work while she was cooking in the kitchen. I always remember the smell of the lovely rubbery green staircase they had. Instead of carpet the stairs were covered in this lovely pale green rubber and it smelt beautiful.
I was knocked down by a car, when I was 7 and there were very few cars about. I was running home from school for lunch. It was a very rough day and I could see the sea blowing up at the end of Pier Shore Lane down between the Yacht Club and The Towers. I was coming along South Street and I ran straight across the High Street. Of course the High Street was a main road then, and there was a car coming, driven by one of the Miss Creagh Osbornes and it hit me. Luckily it didn’t hurt me much, just my ankle. It was my own fault , I was so excited, I wanted to see the rough sea. I didn’t go back to school that day, and later Miss Creagh Osborne knocked on the door and brought me a black and white china dog as a present. Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929