Tag Archives: Rodney Corbett

Rod Corbett: Free Time 1950s

An old lady called Kizzy Butler, who lived at the house that juts out into the Rec. had died, and the Jackman family bought it. She didn’t seem to have had any family so all her stuff was turned out. She had a big collection of stuffed birds all under glass Victorian domes. Nobody wanted things like that then, they were too unfashionable, so they were just thrown out.  A group of us boys, aged about 8 or 9 went and rescued these birds – there were lots of penguins and Arctic birds, and we put them up in the trees in the lane, which must have made people look twice. Eventually when we got bored, we shot the old birds down.

Rod Corbett b 1943

Rodney Corbett: Early days

Before the new road was built, Tennyson Road,led to 'back lane' not a thoroughfare.

Before the new road was built, Tennyson Road, led to ‘Back Lane’ which was not a thoroughfare.

War brought my father here, Royal Corps of Signal.  My grandfather came here as a Royal Engineer in the first war – so I’ve got some fresh blood.  At the end of WWI he married my grandmother. She was a soldier – I’ve got a picture of her in uniform – I think she was quite a radical actually, a typical Methodist radical.  They then moved away from Yarmouth because he was in the Army and my mother, being the eldest, was sent back to live with her grandmother, my great grandmother. My great grandma to me was like my grandma, and she was born in 1866. I called her ‘Gran’.
My father was away at war, so we all lived with, ‘Gran’ in Field Cottages on Tennyson Road. They were pretty cramped and small – two up, two down, with no hot and cold running water. The toilets were at the end of the garden. Of course the road didn’t go anywhere then, just up to Back Lane so it was much quieter, we could play in the road. Rod Corbett b 1943