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Palma Ault: Shops, Mills 1930s, 1940s

The main door to Mills, now bricked up, was in the High Street, with a little door on the corner which we use now as the main entrance. The Mills family lived in what is now ‘St James’, next to the Church – the rector lived opposite in what we know as the ‘Old Rectory’. The Mills family owned all of where St James Close is now and it was a market garden, with a tennis court for Nora Mills, daughter of the house.

The wine at Mills was kept in a dark place before you got to the bakehouse.

Old entrance to Mills on High Street

Old entrance to Mills on High Street

Palma Ault nee Holloway b 1927

John Caulcutt: Harbour, Delphie and Robin Lakeman

Delphie ran the garage and subsequently took over the pumps on the quay; that place was pretty well open twenty four hours a day.  People would come to Yarmouth to buy fuel because of Delphie. Her whole wall was a mass of postcards from people like the Hiscock family [who endowed the present-day lifeboat] who would send from every port that they were in because they were enamoured with Delphi like we all were, because she was such a magnetic character. Humble origins, humble in her lifestyle and everything she did, but a really good down to earth solid, gutsy, go-getting person.

She was such an encourager of everything. You had some weird project and she’d absolutely get right behind it. She used to wait up for us when we came across from Lymington on a Friday night.  We all had our own mugs. Robin would have been out fishing in that old naval pinnace – he had crab pots, lobster pots, and prawn pots just round from Fort Albert going into Colwell Bay. There were always tons of prawns in the fridge, so we’d have a pile of prawns when we got back.

Fishing boat 'Kit' moored by fuel station 1970s

Fishing boat ‘Kit’ moored by the Lakemans fuel station 1970s Photo: A. Cokes

And Robin, you could hardly get two words out of him, but a finer mechanic I don’t think any of us will ever see.  Sea going and apprentice to start with; all his life he’d been with engines, just incredible. We used to go out fishing with him and he was a canny fisherman, particularly for shellfish.  He knew just where and when they’d be feeding and when those pots would be full.  An amazing guy.  So great to have the opportunity when you’re kids to grow up with this enormous local knowledge that the Lakemans were able to pass on.

She was the most amazingly generous person, not only with her time but with her energy and her money and that manifested itself in the end, in the Abbeyfield.
The Delphie Lakeman Trust has given away over two hundred thousand pounds to a hundred and forty different causes all in her name, principally Yarmouth and West Wight based, to things that she would have approved of because she did like to push the envelope out.

John Caulcutt ( who established and manages The Delphie Lakeman Memorial Trust, which has grown from an allotment in Yarmouth which Delphie left to him.)

 

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Shops: High Street, Maison Biddlecombe 1930s

 

 

While my Mum was still at school, her Mother wouldn’t let her have her plaits cut off so after she left school and started working in Ablitts, the first thing she saved up for was a haircut in Maison Biddlecombe next door. She was really happy when Anna Burton cut her plaits off. M.S. daughter of Joy Lawry nee Cotton)

Shops: Mills and bakers, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

Mills had a very dark haired nice- looking boy who used to push the bread round daily on wooden trucks door to door. Also we had bread delivered from Whilliers at Newbridge.
Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929

Athel Henderson worked in a bakehouse in Mills. They used to cook some bread there, when you come to think of it!  They had 2 vans on the road, one used to go out with the bread and one with the groceries. Brian Pomroy b 1937

I can remember sitting in our big old pram outside the bakehouse, waiting for my Dad ( Athel)  to finish his shift. Terry Henderson b 1947

Eileen Smith: Shops, Mills 1930s

Mills' staff c 1936

Mills’ staff c 1936

I started work in Mills two weeks after I left school. Mr. Mills himself taught me how to weigh out tea, sugar, raisins and currants, into paper bags, and then turn the top down. The weighing had to be done really accurately, with balance scales and weights, because you never knew when the Weights and Measures man would call in to check. Brown sugar was difficult because it used to dry out and the weight would change.

New Zealand butter came in large tins and had to be weighed out into blocks of 4oz. You had to be quick otherwise it went squidgy, ugh! We had marble counters to keep it cool.

Some customers would call in at quarter to eight, just before we shut, and want all their groceries delivered before we closed, even if they lived just opposite. Some of them had lists, others used to lean over the counter and whisper ‘2 oz of tea’ so no one knew they weren’t ordering much.

I learnt to drive the delivery van in 1940 – had to drive all round Cranmore Avenue and Hamstead. The first day I went out on my own, I had a puncture after I’d delivered up the lane at Lee Farm. By the time I’d changed the wheel, my hands were filthy and black, so I knocked on the door and asked Mrs. Stallard if I could wash my hands.
‘No you cant!’ she said, so I had to drive all the way back to Yarmouth to wash my hands.
 Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Shops: The Square, Mills, 1920s, 1930s

Mills, it was a lovely shop! Inside there were counters all round with marble tops. They used to grind their own coffee, and we children used to stand and sniff the smell….umm it was good.

There were wires around the shop with a bag that they used to put the chit in for what you had to pay. That ran to the glass cashier’s cubicle. Ruby Meaning nee Mussell b 1915

Pubs: The Square, Bugle 1930s

The Square, with Bugle Hotel left.

The Square, with Bugle Hotel left.

Go in a pub before you was about 20? Blimey no!  If they didn’t like the look of you, especially some of the old ones in the Bugle, they’d say, ‘What you doing in ‘ere?’
I suppose the Bugle was the one that was used most by just the local drinkers.
George Cleary’s father was there since the First World War.  I don’t know whether young George was born there or where he was born. The old chap had it for years.
Phil Kelsey b 1920

Shops: The Square, Mr. Burts, 1950s

Sometimes we used to collect our milk in jugs from Mr Burt who had a shop where ‘On The Rocks’ is. He ladled it out from the churn of milk. And he also did home deliveries in a cart. He sold home-made ice cream, a real treat.
Sue Russell nee Hayles b 1940

The Square, Burt's ice cream parlour and green grocers

The Square, Burt’s ice cream parlour and green grocers : Photo Pat Burt

In the summer you got your ice creams from Mr Burt on the corner, Pat’s father in law. They were lovely ice creams , strawberry, vanilla or chocolate, made in the back of the
shop.

His shop was called Shalfleet Manor Dairy because he collected the milk from Shalfleet Farm every morning and delivered it round Yarmouth from the churns into people’s jugs.    That must have been in the 30’s, up to the war, because then he was in the Navy, he was called up.
The bit at the back was the ice cream parlour in the summer, a greengrocer’s in the front. He used to grow a lot of vegetables. He had a piece of ground on the lane leading up to the recreation ground, on the left hand side, where there’s a bungalow now.  He grew vegetables, kept a few pigs and he bought a lot of veg. from Mrs Crozier’s estate at Westhill.  He used to go over there and buy it off the gardener because there was just the one big house there to supply, with gardens where there‘s bungalows now. Burt’s carried on into the 1950s when Mrs Burt was running it.
Pat Burt nee Adams and Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

Mum used to bribe us by offering us an ice cream from Burts when she wanted us to leave the beach without making a fuss. M.S.

Jack Burt used to come round with the milk in churns. Ash from that damn pipe was always falling in it. Nick Chandler b 1937


Alec Cokes: Shops, The Square, Harwoods, 1960s,

Mr. Harwood outside Harwoods in the Square 1960s

Mr. Harwood outside Harwoods in the Square 1960s

John and I, we wanted twenty fathom of rope so we went to see Mr Harwood.
In those days you went through the same door as now, and the counter was on the left as you went in and Mr. Harwood was just looking through a gap, with stuff all round him, all hung up, pots and pans and whatever.
The well, that was in the back yard.  It’s inside now so that shows you how small the shop was. So we said, ‘Mr Harwood, can we have some rope?’
He said, ‘Yes, of course you can.  What do you want that for nipper?’
We said, for an anchor rope.  So he says, there’s the coil, take it outside. The pavement is all marked in fathoms, roll out what you like, cut it off and bring the bit back in.
So we said all right.  So we unrolled this coil, and of course he’s not looking out the door or anything, so we thought …. we’ll not stretch it too tight.
We coiled it all back up again and said, ‘There we are Mr Harwood, that reached almost to the public bar in the Bugle.’
He said, ‘ Oh, did it? That’s alright then’.
He said, ‘Give it here’, and we thought he was going to measure it, but he weighed it.
Alec Cokes b 1945

Ron Wallis: Shops, 1940s

Lower Hamstead was where I was born and brought up for the first six years.  Twice a week, two vans used to come through from Yarmouth – one was with the groceries from Harry Mills, the Grocers, and the other one was with paraffin and candles from Harwoods the ironmongers and hardware store.  The driver of Harwoods van, as far as I remember was a tall, slimmish man and a flat cap and brown smock, a man called Ted Elderfield. Ron Wallis b 1941