In the summer we could get into a bathing costume at home, and run down the road and down the lane between Len Haward’s fish shop and The Towers and go to Pier Shore to swim.
Yarmouth shores High Tide
We would jump off the Royal Solent Yacht Club’s stone jetty, which did not add to our popularity at that time ! Serena Dias de Deus nee Hunt
The Towers had no heating – there were those ‘Cozy Stoves’ and it was my job to carry the coal in scuttles to which ever room we were using.
I remember going to buy chews – Black Jack and Fruit salad- from Higginbothams in the High Street.
In the early days I went to Freshwater to school, to Miss Gloyn’s with Graeme Dillon – still my friend. Beryl Kearns used to drive us. I had to sit in the front with Beryl; she said it was just not possible to drive us if we were sitting together in the back of the car.
Early Days: John Caulcutt with Charlie Attrill, boatman
Do you remember Charlie Attrill, the boatman here at the Yacht Club?
I used to spend all day with him in his launch. He’d normally have a few lobster pots off here so we’d go potting at 6, and I’d spend all day with him, taking people out. He taught me a lot about small boat handling. It was a happy upbringing if you like small boats, which by God, I did. If you get salt water in your veins at an early age it’s a dangerous thing. I loved every minute of it; just couldn’t fault it.
John Caulcutt. b 1947
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