Tag Archives: Pat Burt nee Adams

WWII Brownies War Effort: Delia Whitehead

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During the war, I was in the Brownies and we joined in with the War Effort. Our Brown Owl had a car with an old wooden trailer at the back. We had to go to each house in turn in Yarmouth to collect waste paper. Sometimes there were a few comics that we used to “borrow” when Brown Owl wasn’t looking, and bring them back at the next collection. They were tucked up our Brownie dresses and the belts tied tightly. One day, somebody’s fell out and Brown Owl was not pleased! We never borrowed any comics again.

Brownies 1940s

Brownies outside the White House, Yarmouth Common 1940s Pat Burt nee Adams extreme left
Photo: Pat Burt


Delia Whitehead nee Hunt b 1934

Pat Burt, Annette Haynes: WWII air raid sirens

Kevack across to North House

Kevack across to North House

I remember hearing war had broken out on the radio. We lived in the stone cottage ‘Kevack’ in the High Street. During the early part of the war when the air raid sirens went, we used to rush over and down into the cellars of North House, but that was only for a short while until we had the Morrison table shelter delivered  –  I think we had that by 1942.    Pat Burt

I was away in Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham, when war broke out. I was staying with a friend of my mother’s, I called her my aunt – she wanted to adopt me.  I was so worried because my mother couldn’t get me a gas mask because I wasn’t at home, and my ‘aunt’ couldn’t get a gas mask for me.  I had to come back home of course.
We had an Anderson shelter in the garden.  I remember my brother saying, ‘If I’m going to be killed, I’ll be killed in my bed. I’m not going down to the shelter.’
Annette Haynes

Pat Burt, Annette Haynes, Shops, Higginbothams 1950s

Higginbotham's now Marlborough House, dentists.

Higginbotham’s now Marlborough House, dentist’s.

Then there was Higginbothams shop; half was a drapers and half was a grocers.  He had a wooden leg, Mr Higginbotham the draper, Tim’s grandfather.  I used to go in there and buy cotton. You could buy material, all sorts, it was amazing what they kept in there.   Higginbothams was up the top where the dentist is now, in Marlborough House.
Pat Burt nee Adams and Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

 

Pat Burt, Shops: High Street 1930s

Haward’s fish shop was on the corner – Pinings.  Because there were no fridges, the ice for the fish shop was brought by horse and cart and delivered in the back entrance. One day the horse dropped dead, don’t you remember? In the entrance to the lane, the horse died.  It was a shock.
The butcher’s next door was Minnie Flint’s.  Flint and Fryer were the same butcher.  Ablitts was further down the High Street. Pat B

Kellys Directory Yarmouth 39 listing residents, shops and services A -M

Kellys Directory Yarmouth 39  Minnie Flint: Butcher

 

urt nee Adams b 1929

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, 1920s, 1930s

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

Pat Burt: Free Time, Yarmouth WI 1930s

Yarmouth and Ningwood WI meeting at Ningwood

Yarmouth and Ningwood WI meeting at Ningwood

Yarmouth W.I. used to meet at Ningwood – Yarmouth didn’t have a place of its own you see, so they used to go to Ningwood’s hall.  I remember going out there with my mother with some veg. she had grown and I had to stay with it when she went home.  I  got into trouble for starting to collect all the carrots up before it was time, then I had to bring them back on the bus.  Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929

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

Annette Haynes: Early Days 1930s

 

Alma Place 2013

Alma Place 2013

Pat and I both started off in Alma Place . We’ve known each other since we were three.  My parents brought me to the Island because my brother and I were both so poorly the doctor said we had to live by the sea. For a year or so my dad used to cycle to Havenstreet to visit my brother in the hospital, but then my mother said, ‘If he’s going to die, bring him home’. He’s still going strong, nearly 90.

From Alma Place we moved to Coastguard Cottages. I remember we had an outside pump for water there.  We moved once from Coastguard Cottages to a bigger house in South Street. We moved in one day and moved out the next because my mother saw mice and she wouldn’t stay there, so we moved back to our old house. Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

Coastguard cottages 2013

Coastguard cottages 2013