Tag Archives: Phil Kelsey

Phil Kelsey: St. James Church 1920s,1930s

St James Church: photo Brenda Garlick

All the kids went to church. If you were a server you had to go to church without any breakfast. You went to church at 8 o’clock in the morning with the parson, and then when it was all over you went along to the rectory for breakfast. You used to do all right there because Vi White, she’d be there, and she used to lash us up with a bloody good breakfast, sausages or something or other, porridge, she always had a good breakfast for you.

In the church when you was in the choir, at Christmas and Easter you got two bob – the parson used to give you two bob. Then a bit later, when you got a bit older and you went on to be a server and had the red cassock, you got half a crown at Easter and Christmas.

from St. James Parish magazine: report of servers outing 1920s to Alum Bay

On Good Friday they used to have a procession around the town. They used to come out of church and went up the High Street and down Ommanney Road. I think we turned left and come back round to the church that way. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Joan Kelsey: WWII Land Army 1940s

Joan was down here on the Island because of the Land Army. I met Joan through her coming into the shop, that was the only way. We used to get talking.Phil Kelsey

I was working out at Wellow on the Chessell estate for Sir Hampton Rowbottom up in the dairy. A typical day would be going up Cowleaze to fetch the cows when the mail train came through to Yarmouth. We milked 120, then we went home for breakfast. Afterwards we came back and washed up all the milking things, and they were all sterilised. We had to scrub the milking parlour down ,and then out on the yard where they came in. The cows were turned out back again till teatime, then we started again, twice a day. We met and got married in 1950. Joan Kelsey

Joan Kelsey, Land Army 1940s

Phil Kelsey: WWII demob 1940s

I never come out until 1946. Funny thing always was, I was called up before a lot of them and demobbed after them all.
I missed any celebrations they had. They had it before I come home. The council had a celebratory dinner and I was still away.
Quite frankly I didn’t know what to do. I messed about for a long time. I took the full length of the leave we were allowed. I didn’t know what to do. I did try to get in the Prison Service. I can remember going in there and interviewed by a bloke and we were talking for some time. Something happened and he had to go off, and I was sat there waiting and waiting and I got fed up and I walked out. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Phil Kelsey c 1990

Phil Kelsey: WWII 1940s

I was called up in1940. I had instructions to go to Newport Station and wait there. I went there and was met by Army people and they said they were waiting for trains to come from other parts of the Island, could we come back in an hour. There was one or two of us there and we went off and had a drink. When we come back they had a lorry there and loaded us in, and where do you think they brought us to – Golden Hill!
I was in the Hampshire Regiment. I was in for just about six years, I travelled about all over the place. I didn’t go overseas until just after D Day.

A few days after D Day we went to Southampton and were transported across to Normandy. We went to where the British went ashore near Caen and it wasn’t long before we were moved up to where the battles were, to Hill 112. It was said whoever had charge of Hill 112 was in charge of Normandy. We had a battering there, constant shelling at night. When we went there I had a section of 6; when we came away there was four of us. We spent some time there defending that, several night skirmishes, attached to the 43^rd division. We then went to a place called Montpinchon. Going up one side a Mortar Shell landed. Next thing I knew I was picking myself out of the ditch on the other side of the road. I staggered around for a bit and then a medical car picked me up and that was the end of the fighting for me, I still have shrapnel in my chest. I was treated for several weeks and then at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, it was decided not to operate to remove the shrapnel.

I went to Chester, a big place for a lot of wounded who were getting better. I managed to get away to a couple of football matches while I was there and then moved down to Colchester where we took out German Prisoners to work on farms. That was a very boring sort of a turn out, just walking out with them and then taking them back. Next place was just outside Worksop, where I was instructor for small arms firing until I was demobbed.
While there I was able to get around. I went to a game of football at Bramall Lane,’’ even managed to get to a cricket match. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Phil Kelsey: WWII food 1940s

We managed and that was it. I think we had always been a pretty careful family. Of course Dad always had the garden going; he never wasted any bits of garden. He used to grow everything. His favourite was growing onions. He still had his little boat and eventually you could use it up the river, but first of all you couldn’t. The RASC had one of these boats anchored – just for living in – he used to go up round there and got in with them, and take them up onions and if he had any other veg. He got well in with them and eventually I think they let him go just out off the pier fishing. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Phil Kelsey: Garages and coaches 1920s,1930s

I can remember the garage being built on the corner of Mill Road, it was about ’26. I wasn’t very old. I can remember them building that. Royal Blue from Bournemouth had it built and they used to keep their Royal Blue coaches to go round the island. There was another coach company in Yarmouth, Saunders – yellow coaches. They used to keep one down there on the corner where the Harbour Commissioners have got their yard. They used it during the war, the people on fire duty had a hut down there. I know Newt and George, before they were called up, they used to take turn at nights down there. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Royal Blue charabanc

Blanche Kennard, Phil Kelsey, Eileen Smith: Trains 1940s

To get from the ferry to the station, people had to walk through the town, but there were porters to push their luggage from the Pier to the station. It’s not very far really. (A) It is on a wet day!(P.) Annette Haynes and Pat Burt b 1929

It used to cost 6d to catch the train to Freshwater to go to the Pictures at The Palace, then we’d walk back afterwards. Blanche Kennard nee Dore,b 1923 stationed at The Pier Hotel ( now The George) as a WRN in WWII from 1942.

The station master used to live in the house next door here. I can remember a Mr Dennett, because his daughter was very friendly with my sister Kate. They used to get about a bit together. Of course he never used to do a lot down here at the station, he was always down the pier. Phil Kelsey b 1920

A porter from the Pier met the trains and collected luggage on a hand truck which he pushed to and from the Pier. Mr. Orchard had a big old fashioned car – open at the front where the chauffeur sat – and he used to meet the trains to drive people round to the ferry. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b1921

Jean Maitland, Phil Kelsey: Allotments 1930s

When we were living down the Square my Dad had an allotment up “Pigs Alley”
OOH I mustn’t say “Pigs Alley” because people these days get cross. “Pigs Alley” is the lane behind Victoria Road, that people now call Garage Alley. Yes, its proper name always was “Pigs Alley” because pigs were kept up there, but that was before my time. Jean Maitland nee Levey b 1928

Of course all that was allotments right through there. Before the war they were all well cultivated too. I remember like on a Good Friday there would be everybody up there if the weather was right, digging away. When they built the council houses there was a bit left where the flats are now. Dad had that until I took it over after him until they built the council houses. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Phil Kelsey, Palma Ault, Shops: St James Street. 1940s

Mrs Brown’s was next to the chapel; she was a little old lady. She had this little front room and she sold all sorts of things, from buttons, to needles, to thread, to postcards, a proper little haberdashery turn out.
She used to shuffle through. You went in, she was never there. Of course, some of them…, one nipper in particular, he used to get in there. He got caught in the end, rifling. She never had much money there ever, but there was always a bit of change in the till. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Mrs Brown’s shop opposite the Church in St. James Street, sold cotton, tape and dolls with a china head and soft body. She was always dressed in black and sold apples from her garden in the autumn. Palma Ault nee Holloway 1927

Shops: Mr. Urry, the baker 1930s

Yarmouth had 2 bakehouses, Harry Mills and Urry’s.
Mr. Urry’s was right up at the end of the lane off Tennyson Road. His bread was the best brown bread in the West Wight. He used to deliver it himself – walk round with a big basket with a cloth over it. There were cockroaches in the bakehouse, but they were everywhere you had food, in those days. You sprinkled Keatings Powder on the floor every night, and there they were dead, next morning. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

We used to call it ‘beetle bread’.Jack Harwood b1918

I used to walk up from Mill Terrace past the allotments to Urry’s bakehouse. It was nice bread but Mr. Urry sometimes had a drip on the end of his nose. Effie Pitman b 1921

Mr.Harry Urry, of Belmont, Victoria Rd. baker. Photo : Patrick Hall, great grandson

He was a nice old chap, Mr Urry. You could always call in for a chat with him. Phil Kelsey b 1920

Yarmouth and Thorley Voices

Learn about the history of Yarmouth and Thorley from the people who have lived it