Tag Archives: the Common

Eileen Smith: Free Time at Love Shore 1950s

The only problem you had on the beach was the guns going off above you from the sailing.  The West Wight Scows were anchored off Love Shore and Dr Drummond’s, his was white with a red band round it, and was called Pillbox.  They used to race every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon and they had their gun in their little shed at the bottom of the Deacons’  garden. Sometimes they’d never fire the gun, they’d say:  Bang!
They didn’t like us down there because we were shouting and laughing and goodness knows what.  They couldn’t stop us because the lane going down to the shore was a public right of way. We used to walk right through to the next lane, along the stones from Fryer’s Lane right up to the Common. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921