Tag Archives: Love Shore

Joan Cokes: Swimming 1920s, 1930s

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Yarmouth shores High Tide

Yarmouth shores High Tide

When we were at school we went to Love Shore to learn to swim – the boys one side of the jetty, the girls the other side.  I won a cup for swimming a mile. We had to walk from school to Port La Salle (where Johnny Walker, the whisky magnet, had his summer home), then swim to the pier.

Families spent a lot of time at Love Shore in the afternoons.   There was a swimming raft with steps to dive off. We didn’t swim so much at Pier Shore because the tide could sweep you away under the pier.
There were swimming races off the Common with Mr Doe there in his rowing boat for safety.
Joan Cokes nee Cooper b 1918

Pat Burt: Swimming 1930s

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Sandhard with huts and Bridge House

Sandhard with huts and Bridge House

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 Love Shore. 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

Eileen Smith: Swimming at Love Shore 1920s, 1930s

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The lane leading to Loveshore

The lane leading to Loveshore

All of us children learnt to swim at Love Shore or Pier Shore, down the lane opposite Basketts Lane. The boys swam off Love Shore; the girls swam nearer the pier.

We went swimming twice a week in the summer, from the end of May, supervised by Mrs Stanway and Miss White (who was later Mrs. H Hayles). According to tides, we went swimming at 11.30 in the morning or 3.30 in the afternoon. We used to nip back home to change and run down to Love Shore with a towel round us. No one taught us proper strokes, we just learnt to swim. In September we swam for our certificates – 20 yards, 40 yards, and 100 yards. In 1931 some of us swam a mile from Eastmore to the pier for which we received a medal – I’ve still got mine.

Eileen Smith's medal for swimming one mile in 1931 whilst at yarmouth School

Eileen Smith’s medal for swimming one mile in 1931 whilst at Yarmouth School

Reverse inscribed ‘Eileen Lansdowne   1931’

Eileen Smith's medal for swimming one mile in 1931. (She was then Eileen Lansdowne)

Eileen Smith’s medal for swimming one mile in 1931. (She was then Eileen Lansdowne)

I only swam once in the competition against other schools. I hated it. The private schools had all been taught proper strokes – crawl – and we’d just learnt to swim along.
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Eileen Smith: Free Time at Love Shore 1950s

The only problem you had on the beach was the guns going off above you from the sailing.  The West Wight Scows were anchored off Love Shore and Dr Drummond’s, his was white with a red band round it, and was called Pillbox.  They used to race every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon and they had their gun in their little shed at the bottom of the Deacons’  garden. Sometimes they’d never fire the gun, they’d say:  Bang!
They didn’t like us down there because we were shouting and laughing and goodness knows what.  They couldn’t stop us because the lane going down to the shore was a public right of way. We used to walk right through to the next lane, along the stones from Fryer’s Lane right up to the Common. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

 

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

Carol Corbett : Yarmouth shores

Carol Cottont at Love Shore

Carol Cotton at Love Shore

Love Shore was where we went to swim, Pier Shore was where we went for the rock pools.
I used to go there with my father, Bun Cotton, to collect winkles. He’d bring them home and boil them up and eat them, but not me. I liked collecting them but not eating them.

Your parents would let you go to Love Shore and say, you’re not to swim unless there’s an adult around, and we didn’t, we just played on the beach and in the water.

Carol Corbett b 1946

Pat Burt : swimming at school, 1930s

The lane leading to Loveshore

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

 

Florrie Sloper: Swimming at school

I loved our visits to Love Shore once or twice a week.
I cant imagine how from a safety point of view that could happen today.
I learned to swim quite quickly (no armbands etc) and ended up with a silver medal in 1934 for swimming a mile, from Eastmore, Bouldnor, to the Pier at Yarmouth accompanied by a rowing boat.

Florrie Sloper nee Knee b 1922