Tag Archives: Kizzy Butler

Brian Pomroy, Michael Lewis: Funfair 1950s – 1970s

The fair used to come every year until their lorries got so big that they couldn’t come up by the vet’s where Mr Lewis used to be. When the Harbour Commissioners built the bit down by the new car park they went down there, on that bit of green down there, but everyone remembers it up the Rec.

I remember an old chap, Sid Butler, who lived  in the house next to the Rec.,  Kezzie Butler’s brother. He used to ride these chairplanes all evening, from the time it started at 6 o’clock until 10 when it finished. He used to sit there with his old pipe, and he would sit there for hours.  Brian Pomroy b 1937

Westport,home of Michael Lewis, vet. and family

Westport,home of Michael Lewis, vet. and family; photo M. Scott

 

The lorries and trailers for the fair were so big, they couldn’t turn the corner into the lane by Westport. They had a long heavy crowbar with a hook on the end which they would put under the rear axle and lever the wheels round.

On the last evening they used to say to the children, ‘If you come back tomorrow, we’ll give some money for helping us.’  Of course, they were gone the next morning.
After the fair had left, the children used to go over the field picking up the loose change that had been dropped in the grass. Michael Lewis b 1923 Yarmouth Vet. from 1956

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