Tag Archives: Nick Chandler

Nick Chandler: Carnivals, Circuses and Jazz band 1940s, 1950s

Curly Jupe, Les Jupe’s grandfather used to play his accordion with the Jazz Band. Curly Jupe, blimey he was a character. Carnival night he used to get down the pub with his accordion and get drunk. One carnival night Les’ mum came up the Rec and found me and Les and said,
‘Come down and help. Dad’s collapsed in the hedge down Alma Place.’
There he was, in the hedge with his accordion.

Jazz band 1930s

Jazz band 1930s Curley Jupe with accordion

The other great thing that came off the tow boats was the Circus, and the kids were allowed to go and watch, because of the animals. Yeah, I remember the Circus up here, up the Rec.  Dave Meaning will remember the Circus up there, he got bit by the monkey. Nick Chandler b1937

Nick Chandler, Serena Dias de Deus: WWII school 1940s

The war was on when I started school, and if the siren went off to signal an air raid we had to pick up a small mat which was on a hook at the side of our infant school tables and then form a line, and quietly file out to the air raid shelter in the boys playground, where we sat and sang songs like “One man went to Mow”. Serena Hunt b 1939

There was a great big air raid shelter in the boys playground next to the houses, by the school garden, that ran from the toilet block, right the way down to the wall. It was a huge air raid shelter.  You used to go to school with your gas mask, and on the edge of your desk there was a little tiny mat hanging there. The siren went, you grabbed your gas mask and mat and marched across to the shelter. Nick Chandler b 1937

Nick Chandler : WWII boys

Although there was a war on, we used to get about all over the place. Out Bouldnor, there were troops out there.   We used to go over Thorley Copse a lot, play down the marsh and up the Rec, on the beaches, anywhere; it was amazing really.
I remember towards the end of the war we went over Sandhard and found an airman’s glove on the beach.  We picked it up and 2 fingers fell out of it.  I remember that ever so well.
One day 2 or 3 of us older boys went up Red Lake where the old sewer pipe was and were walking along it. We got machine gunned by a Messerschmidt and we all leapt off it. We reckoned at the time they thought it was part of Pluto. Nick Chandler b 1937

Nick Chandler: Boat Building at Fort Victoria 1960s

The chap in charge of RASC boatbuilding at Fort Vic was Major Wilkey. He used to live in Plevna at one time.  I had been working over there for about a week when Nelson Simmonds turned up, and after that, two old boatbuilders from Whites.  It was a bit short lived 18 months – two years and it all folded up.
Boat at Fort VicS0102087

Old Nelson, he was a boy! He was he was into everything.  He had a harbour launch pulled up over there, had to be re-coppered. We stripped all the old copper off, fitted the new, and Nelson said,
‘We’ll make a bob or two out of this, mate. I’ll bring the van over one evening and spirit this lot away.’
One day we were having a cup of tea when the quartermaster came in,                              ‘ Ah,  Mr Simmonds and Mr Chandler. Do you know where the copper went that you stripped off that harbour launch?’
‘No,’ we said.  Nelson said, ‘Beachcombers, I expect,’
‘Yes, and I think I’m looking at them.’ said the quartermaster, with that he turned round and walked out.
When the fort was shut the stuff that was taken out to sea and dumped was terrible, harbour launches full of it for days, and the diesel from the tanks was pumped into the beach, pumped in to the shingle.
Towards the end of it, I was going to work one morning and I heard this lorry grinding up the hill. It was old Ball, the scrap merchant, and he was loaded with batteries. When I got down to the fort, Bill, the sergeant was there, and I said to him,  ‘Someone has made a bob or two out of that load,’ and he said,
‘Well, you’ve got to, haven’t you.’ When it finally closed I was offered the same job at Gunwharf over Pompey, but I didn’t want to travel. Nick Chandler b 1937

Nick Chandler: Harbour 1960s, 1970s

We did have a real shocker; the Doctor, Doctor Brydon. He was such a shocker that when the Smith’s boatbuilding business was going, they kept a stock of bow sprits for him . He was always smashing his bow sprit up. I can’t remember the name of the boat, lost in the mists of time, she would have been somewhere in the 3 to 5 tonner size. He sailed her single handed.
When Charlie was working, if he saw Dr Brydon under full sail coming in, he would guide him straight on to the mud bank, so as he came to a stop. He would then be safely manoeuvred on to a mooring.
Harold Hayles went with him to Cowes one day, why I don’t know, but anyway Dr Brydon said to Harold, ‘I have a lobster on board. We’ll have that going to Cowes,’
so off they went with lobster on the boil. When the lobster was done, the water was tipped out of the pot and in the bottom of the pot were two spark plugs.
Harold said, ‘What are they for?’
‘Oh, I ‘m boiling them clean,’ said the Doctor, ‘They’ll do no harm, and I thought I would cook the lobster at the same time.’

The last I ever heard of Doctor Brydon was when I was working at Fort Vic. Nelson and I were sent down to inspect some damage to one of our boats (RASC). The Doctor had sailed into the harbour and driven his bowsprit straight through one of our boats, through a port hole, through the toilet door trapping someone in the toilet.
It was definitely an army boat, it was either the Foil or the Erme. I remember going to the store to draw a new port hole. You could draw a new port hole, but ask for sheet of glass paper and you were asking for the world. Nick Chandler b 1937

Nick Chandler: Harbour, River Yar boatyard, 1950s, 1960s

View from above Harold Hayles' Boatyard of gasometer, old bridge, and Sandhouse

View from above Harold Hayles’ Boatyard of gasometer, old bridge, and Sandhouse

One day I saw the Thames Barge moored up to the bank over Gas Works. I thought, I must have a look at that, so I went over there, stood on the quay looking at it. The old Admiral popped up, ‘Hello.  Can I help you?’
‘Just interested. Having a look,’
‘Come aboard!’  so on I went. We were talking and I told him I was a boatbuilder.
He said, ‘Just the chap I’m looking for!  There’s lot of work needs to be done on this barge.’
I thought, I’m not a barge builder. This is different; great spikes and dumps. He said would I go and work for him, so I was shared between him and Stan Smith for a bit.

I never did go to sea with Admiral Larkin on the barge. He was asking me but we never got round to it. When the barge was under way it seemed to me it was,‘ Full ahead and trust in the Lord,’ sort of thing.  In the winter of ‘63 she was froze in solid up there for weeks. The ice was thick enough to walk down the creek to the river.

Some friends of the Admiral’s came down from London with their Atlanta which they wanted painting up, so I said,
‘I can build a little dock over there,’ which I did, and that was the first job in what became River Yar Boatyard. Yes, it all went well, until the old Admiral shot himself.
The new management and me did not get on, until one day I demanded my cards and walked off, went back next day and collected my toolbox.

I saw Barry McDonald that day and he told me they wanted someone down here (the Harbour).
‘Go and see Major Sheppard,’  which I did, got the job in 1966 and was there for 30 odd years. Nick Chandler

Harbour staff photographed by Malcolm Mallett c1990

Harbour staff photographed by Malcolm Mallett c1990

Trains: sugar beet 1950s

Train in station 1950s

Train in station 1950s

We used to watch the trains shunt down the station and we used to watch them load up the sugarbeet from Thorley Manor when Caulcutts had it. Brian Pomroy b 1937
Prisoners of war used to get down the station, loading up the Sugar Beet Train. Nick Chandler b1937
There was little tiny place – you couldn’t call it a siding – where they used to shunt the old truck. That used to get loaded up with sugar beet up there.  When the train came back from Freshwater somebody used to get out there and push the truck on the railway line, and the train would push it through to Yarmouth, and then about four of them would push it up on the railways siding to join all the others. All that trouble for sugar beet.   Alec Cokes 1945.

Train in Yarmouth Station 1950s

Train in Yarmouth Station 1950s Photo Nick Chandler

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


Nick Chandler: Yarmouth School 1940s

I remember Miss Chambers who lived down by the Mill. If you swore she used to wash your mouth with soap and water.  She used to grab hold of you with a cup of soap and water, and put it in your mouth. She kept her handkerchief tucked in her knickers, the old long bloomers.   She was a good old gal though.  She made sure that what she taught, you knew; taught you to read.
Then there was Mrs Barton, she could be a bit severe at times. I remember once Mick and Barry got the cane , which they didn’t  like. Come lunchtime, in the classroom was this fish tank that had tadpoles and stuff in it. What did they do? They both peed in it and killed all the tadpoles, we saw them do it. Nick Chandler b 1937

Miss Chambers retires from Yarmouth School after 26 years service

Miss Chambers retires from Yarmouth School after 26 years service