Seaside

What do remember about going to the seaside when you were young?

John Peace (born 1947)

We only went to the sea side once a year and if we were lucky it lasted a week, but more often than not we used to go for days out but we didn’t have cars in those days. Not many people had cars so we used to have to go on a coach which took about three hours to get there from where we lived. It was only about 70 miles but it took about three hours to get there and back of course.

George Lyons (born 1923)

We used to go once a year to the sea side and we used to go with a Working Men’s club and they had … the Working Men’s club hired a train for the member’s children and that’s all we got, once a year to the sea side. It used to be Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire. And that was our seaside holiday.

Ted Busbridge (born 1928)

We loved to go to Combe Bottom and St Boniface down where we would run free playing hide and seek among the bushes Bonchurch pond with all the duck and fish life, Ventnor park and of course the beach. We sometimes had a picnic on the rocks at Castle Cove spent hours paddling in the rock pools seeking crabs and small fish. I once found a pipe fish, it is similar to a seahorse it had a seahorses snout but the tail didn’t turn inwards like a seahorse.

Peggy O’Rourke (born 1920)

The beaches we went to were round here, Ventnor. We didn’t go very far from here really....I don’t think I went off the Island … I was about 10 or 12 I think. We used to go for our holidays out to Freshwater....Aunty always used to take us out to Freshwater, year after year after year. One time I said to her, “What on earth did you take us to Freshwater every time for?” She said, ”You wouldn’t go anywhere else”!

Margaret Groves (born 1925)

We didn’t go on holidays, we couldn’t afford them. We used to go on outings with our Sunday School at St Thomas’s to Sandown. Always Sandown. There was a coach that took us there. A day out on the beach, we really looked forward to it, it was a treat.

John Sandell (born 1929)

We used to come on holiday to the Isle of Wight, to Colwell Bay. Came across from the mainland. We had some help there because my grandfather ran a ship brokers office in Southampton and used the Red Funnel quite a bit to order tugs to go and bring boats in. He organised that sort of thing so when we went on holiday, we had free tickets to take us across.....And on that beach there were still left … oh, what do you call them … the changing room on wheels …bathing machines. They had them but there weren’t people necessarily using them and I used to go and play in them. You’d go up the steps in the dry and out the other side of the bathing machine it was into the water so women could go into these and change politely and come out the other side ready to swim.

Jo Scott (born 1936)

This was taken on Sandown seafront. I think I might have been about 16 and John was 17 and …right near the Pier that was , and it one of these photographers on the seafront where they used to snap your photograph and then give you a ticket and go to the kiosk and get it a day later.

Do you remember Punch and Judy shows?

George Lyons (born 1923)

I remember Punch and Judy shows when we were little you know....and we used to sit at the front and watch the Punch and Judy and then … you know when the War came they seemed to phase out then. You know the Punch and Judys, I never knew them after that.

Did you learn to swim as a child?

Mike Wood (born 1939)

We were taught to swim by the longshoremen at Ventnor. We walked from school down Albert Street and on to the beach. A lot of children learnt to swim in the sea then.

Sandra Wood (born 1942)

At school we went to the Blue Lagoon on the esplanade at Sandown for swimming lessons but they were very strict and we were too nervous to learn. Holiday times I went to my Grandparent’s in Sandown. They had visitors to stay who would take me out to the beach and I learned to swim in sea during the holidays.

Peggy O’Rourke (born 1920)

Mainly I learnt to swim because I went in the sea. There was nobody there to show me, I just … you know sat on the brink and then we got a more braver and then one went in a bit further until suddenly you find yourself out of your depth, then you scream, and nobody comes to help you ‘cos well you’re perfectly alright. In a couple of splots, splots, splots, you’re in your own bit again, so I did learn when I was quite small. I should think I must have been about five.

What were your swimming costumes like?

Alan Smith (born 1943)

Our swimming costumes used to made from wool, knitted costumes and they felt very heavy when they were full of water!

John Sandell (born 1929)

I had a knitted costume and my brother had one the same. It was knitted by my mother and when you went in the water, it obviously got wet and then when you came out it was hanging round you!.

What was the ferry like to come to the Island when you were young?

John Sandell (born 1929)

Well it was a paddle boat!. And there was one time when there was a display of boats down the Solent and around and there were trips to go down and see all these boats from across the world.....There were a whole lot of ships lined out opposite Cowes and down opposite from Portsmouth.....The paddle boat took you down the centre, there were two lines and they took you down the centre so that you could see the boats and there was the Captain of the boat with his megaphone up there and shouting down, “Will you stand in the middle of the boat”, because being a paddleboat everybody went to one side, the boat tipped and only one paddle went and so we were going to go round in a circle.

What do you remember about the carnivals?

Ted Busbridge (born 1928)

The carnival was a wonderful thing to be involved in. When I worked at St Catherine’s School there was never a shortage of children to get involved with the carnival. We made a different float each year and those I remember well were ‘There was an old Woman who lived in a shoe’ and the ‘Raggle Taggle Gypsies’. The following year a large, almost full size American style Choo choo train, complete with cow catcher and conical chimney and called it : "wheezy Anna." One year we made a giraffe which was a wooden frame on a metal chassis covered with papier mache. The children got themselves in such a mess making it but they were happy. Another one that sticks in my mind was a big ship we made the ‘Hispaniola’ which had 30 broomsticks to make the masts, we sailed all around Ventnor in that! We enjoyed all these things winning prizes In various carnival parades. Real fun time. We all got ourselves in an awful mess with the paste, paint etc, but who cared? We were very happy.

Janice Whittle (born 1945)

I was always involved with the carnivals when I was young. The first was in 1949 and my Dad helped to build the floats. Carnival is wonderful. We had horses and horse brasses the marshals were on horseback, the trailers were pulled by shire horses with their tails plaited and wearing horse brasses, it was a lovely atmosphere. We used to put together anything, make paper flowers, there was no television then so you’d sit and make the decorations. The first carnival I was in was the Upper Ventnor Queen’s float and I was a little princess. After that I was in Swan Lake in 1950, then Roses for the Way when every cupboard in our house was filled with paper flowers. When I was 16 we did a Charleston float and the Girl Guides did Highland Games and we all wore tartan skirts. The most memorable floats were Henry VIII and his wives and Pieces of Dresden China where they had real pieces of Dresden china on trays, they were made by Ray Burnett and his wife Dorcus, they were just perfect and you knew when they entered you wouldn’t stand a chance of winning!’

Ted Busbridge (born 1928)

One day I was browsing the shops in Ventnor, when I saw a mysterious looking box of junk. In a second hand shop, in pier street. It was priced at five shillings. Twenty five pence in today's money. I bought it and then discovered that it was the remains of a Ventriloquist's dummy. This was gold as far as I was concerned. I set to work refurbishing him and after about a week the result was very successful. I repainted his face, made him several wigs to wear and made him various outfits too. Much to the delight of the children, he began talking to me and to the children, laughing and joking. We named him " Cuthbert," and he became quite a popular member of St Catherine's School. I have tried to trace Cuthbert's history: He apparently belonged to a man who used to entertain holiday makers on Ventnor esplanade in late Victorian times, so he must be about one hundred and fifty years old, possibly older.