Tag Archives: Mr. Burt

Mary Lord: WWII, school, rations 1940s

Mr. Burt, outside Burts Station Rd

Mr. Burt, outside Burts Station Rd

I remember having to take the gas mask to school every day, and hang it on the back of my chair.
My best friends at that time were evacuees, but we weren’t especially aware of the war, even though my dad was working in a shipyard in Cowes.
We were always hungry, we used to eat the acorns from the trees in the playground. We didn’t eat very many because they took so long to peel. We were sent out to pick blackberries, and rosehips for vitamin c to supplement the food.  It must have been along the railway line, and there were still trains, but I don’t remember any warnings or worries. The boys didn’t do much picking, just opened up the rosehips and put the seeds down people’s necks as itching powder.
I remember getting occasional packets of chocolate powder which was supposed to be for making hot chocolate, but my mother used to let me sit on the doorstep and dip my finger in the powder, the nearest we got to sweets, although later we did have a 2oz ration from Mr. Burt’s shop.  Mr Burt’s shop 
Mary Lord b 1936 

Shops: The Square, Mr. Burts, 1950s

Sometimes we used to collect our milk in jugs from Mr Burt who had a shop where ‘On The Rocks’ is. He ladled it out from the churn of milk. And he also did home deliveries in a cart. He sold home-made ice cream, a real treat.
Sue Russell nee Hayles b 1940

The Square, Burt's ice cream parlour and green grocers

The Square, Burt’s ice cream parlour and green grocers : Photo Pat Burt

In the summer you got your ice creams from Mr Burt on the corner, Pat’s father in law. They were lovely ice creams , strawberry, vanilla or chocolate, made in the back of the
shop.

His shop was called Shalfleet Manor Dairy because he collected the milk from Shalfleet Farm every morning and delivered it round Yarmouth from the churns into people’s jugs.    That must have been in the 30’s, up to the war, because then he was in the Navy, he was called up.
The bit at the back was the ice cream parlour in the summer, a greengrocer’s in the front. He used to grow a lot of vegetables. He had a piece of ground on the lane leading up to the recreation ground, on the left hand side, where there’s a bungalow now.  He grew vegetables, kept a few pigs and he bought a lot of veg. from Mrs Crozier’s estate at Westhill.  He used to go over there and buy it off the gardener because there was just the one big house there to supply, with gardens where there‘s bungalows now. Burt’s carried on into the 1950s when Mrs Burt was running it.
Pat Burt nee Adams and Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

Mum used to bribe us by offering us an ice cream from Burts when she wanted us to leave the beach without making a fuss. M.S.

Jack Burt used to come round with the milk in churns. Ash from that damn pipe was always falling in it. Nick Chandler b 1937