Tag Archives: Shops

Pauline Hatch, Serena Hunt , Shops, High Street 1940s

Minnie Flint’s – I can remember that as a butcher’s shop. It had great big windows and they used to push them up, and there was the meat on a marble slab.  Mr Haward’ s fish shop was  next door. When I was about three, I used to go across and ask for ‘dish for dabbing’ instead of ‘fish for crabbing’.   For years afterwards whenever I went in for fish, he used to say to me, ‘Do you want some dish for dabbing?’
 Pauline Harwood nee Hatch 1930

Pinings Corner, High Street

Pinings Corner, High Street


I called Mr. Haward ‘Uncle Len’.   One of my cats used to go down the road every day at noon and sit on the wall opposite his shop and Len would give him a piece of fish. Len said he could set his watch on the cat’s arrival. Serena Dias de Deus nee Hunt b 1939

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: Shops, High Street, butchers, 1930s

The butcher had a horse and cart for his deliveries. One day when a group of us children were watching, the old horse dropped dead in his traces. It was horrible really but it made the day for us kids. What a thing to see.

Every Friday, the butcher Mr Fryer, would drive one of his steers from his field, which is where the Glen is now, down to his slaughter house down the lane behind the Pinings. That was fun to watch! Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Shops: High Street, Whitewoods, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s

Harry Lee had had what was more or less a department store in the two storey brick building opposite the Police Station.  Godwins, who had a shop in Freshwater, then had it, and were struggling a bit, so my father took over the lease from them in 1951. It was the year of a big Poliomyelitis outbreak and the Daily Mirror carried a headline calling the Island ‘Polio Island’, so no one came for holidays and it nearly finished our business.
Edward Whitewood

High Street, Whitewoods 1970s with Ruth Mills in doorway

High Street, Whitewoods 1970s with Ruth Mills in doorway Photo M. Scott

When I passed the 11 Plus – the scholarship, we bought my uniform from Whitewoods. They stocked our blazers and uniforms for Newport Grammar School.
Diana Broomfield nee Ryall b 1942

Ruth Mills at work at Whitewoods, High Street

Ruth Mills at work at Whitewoods, High Street photo : Ruth Mills

 

 

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

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

 

 

Alec Cokes: Shops, Mills, Sid and Alf Kelleway, 1940s, 1950s

Sid Kelleway did the slaughtering and the game, and he made the brawn in a big copper just inside.  He had a cousin called Alf Kelleway, who drove the British Road Service lorry, In those days of course, there wasn’t Health and Safety, and stuff like barley came in 160 lb sacks, huge great sacks. Alf used to bring these round and of course he couldn’t get his lorry up that little lane, so he had to get them off his lorry down in the Square, put them on his truck, trundle them up.
He went in Mills one day and Sid was doing something, and Alf said ‘You going to give me a hand with this then?’ and Sid said, ‘ No, bugger off.’
They argued a bit – the brawn was cooking away, and as he went out, Alf picked up another handful of spices and chucked it into the brawn. When he came back with the next sack, same thing. He finished up putting about four lots more of spices, herbs or whatever.  Sid went on and made the brawn. It was all sold and people came back and said, Oh that was wonderful, that brawn, it was so tasty.
Alec Cokes b 1945

Brian Pomroy, Alec Cokes: Shops, Mills, 1940s

Mills yard where slaughterhouse and bakehouse were located

Mills yard where slaughterhouse and bakehouse were located Photo. M. Scott

Sid Kelleway had his slaughterhouse up the back of Mills.   I went once to watch him cut the pigs’ throats but it was a bit too much. He kept chickens in his garden there too. One day one of his chickens had flown over the wall. He was chasing it up the High Street and when he caught it, he said ‘That bloody thing wont go nowhere’, and got it and wrung its neck. 
Brian Pomroy b 1937

Sid was a real old rascal.  My granddad and him were old contemporaries. Grandad used to be out with his poaching a bit, so he used to take stuff in and of course Sid used to filter them into the main stream.  Sid used to say, there you are Jim.
When he was preparing pigeons for people he used to take one breast out.  Of course selling them to the visitors, I don’t suppose they knew anyway. They had one breast and wrapped it up that way round.  Alec Cokes b 1945

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

Phil Kelsey: Shops, Mills 1930s

I started work at Mills in 1934, as soon as I left school.
The first job you had, if you went there as a nipper, was as an errand boy. They had a pair of trucks and you went round and collected up the empty beer bottles.  You went round with the empty truck first thing Monday morning to collect up all the empty beer bottles from various people who you knew had bought the beer; that was the first job.  Phil Kelsey b 1920

Advertisement for Mills grocers, 1920s, 1930s

Advertisement for Mills grocers, 1920s, 1930s