Lisa : It’s the 4th of February 2019 and this is an interview with Carol Wootton at her home in Cowes. Carol, could we start by you telling me your full name?
Carol : Ah well, it’s Carol Wootton (laughs), formally Carol Lashmar.
Lisa : And what is your date of birth?
Carol : 1942.
Lisa : And where were you born?
Carol : In Cowes.
Lisa : And were your parents Islanders?
Carol : Yes, both of them.
Lisa : And where were they born?
Carol : In Cowes.
Lisa : Does your family go back quite a few generations on the Island?
Carol : Yes, they do. On my father’s side they do, not so much on my grandma’s side. On my father’s side they do, they go back, back, back ‘cos my father was one of two, but his father was one of eleven and then there was … before that but I haven’t gone in to that history.
Lisa : OK. Now, I’ve come today to talk to you specifically about the work that you did for John Samuel Whites, but I’d like to know a bit more about your father and your grandfather as you mentioned that they worked there to. Could you tell me a bit about that?
Carol : My grandfather, that was Ralph Lashmar was a Test Pilot for John Samuel Whites and he was killed in an aeroplane crash in Ruffins Copse which is down in Cockleton Lane and that was in … now let me tell you, 1916. It was the 7th September 1916 and I can just add onto that; it was just 100 years not very long ago, and my brother took some roses and a note and put it on what is now the Plessey building ‘cos that’s where they flew from. It was 100 years. Also, in connection with that, there’s a ‘Friends of the Northwood Cemetery’ and their actual memorials, which were two big crosses which were dreadful, the money they got, a million pounds to do the Cemetery, it’s beautiful and white, the crosses and that is lovely now, so they actually did it up because it was 100 years since he died. Well, Ralph, which was my grandfather, was obviously married to my grandma, but he was killed when my dad was four, and part and parcel of that, as I understand it, the boys … she was given money which in those days it was £300, I don’t know what that is equivalent to now, but she was given money but also the boys were given apprenticeships and my dad actually stayed there but my uncle, his brother Les, he went into the Army. So, my dad stayed there, and he worked there all his working life and he got an MBE for services to shipbuilding. Anything else? Right, let me think. He obviously went there as an apprentice when he was 14 I think. Actually, he was very clever my dad, but because he didn’t have a father that’s where he went, but anyway, he stayed there. He worked in the FOB which is ‘Fitters On Board’ and then he was obviously a Charge Hand and he ended up being the Shipyard Manager, I think that’s right, ‘cos he then got a parking space for his car (laughs) I know that. Yeas, he ended up as a Shipyard Manager, so he was there from when he was 14 until he retired at 65.
Lisa : And which side did he work on?
Carol : On the west Cowes side.
Lisa : And do you know about the sorts of things that they were building then during your father’s time?
Carol : It would always be Naval things and then they stopped building those and I know he did … they built two, the ‘Sarnia’ and the ‘Caesarea’ which were the boats that went to the Channel Islands. They were very different to what they’d done before. It was always … well the ships were always grey because they were for the Navy, that’s what they did it and then obviously because there was less things being built they sort of diversified and I remember him doing those two for the Channel Islands trip I think, but they were different sort. We sort of changed route then but I’m just thinking, he was born in 1912, so well I can’t work that out, you can work that out (laughs). 1912 he was born and then he retired at 65. I can’t see what else I can tell you about him really.
5 minutes 22 seconds
Lisa : You grew up in Cowes?
Carol : Yes.
Lisa : What are your early childhood memories of the shipyards?
Carol : Well, you could always hear the siren go when it was lunchtime and when then when they came back, and my dad used to … different now ‘cos my dad used to come home to lunch so he walked from there up … and they lived in Parklands Avenue, he walked back and forth every day to lunch, that sort of thing. I mean you wouldn’t see anybody doing that now would you? And it employed a lot of people because if the people were on the Floating Bridge, the entire workforce sort of filled up the Floating Bridge going back and forth to east Cowes. I mean there was a lot of people there, you know a lot of workers there. When I come to think about it really that was the place they worked or Saunders-Roe. That was the industries really and because were talking about … I went there when I was 16, people didn’t have cars like they do now so you were really restricted to your Cowes, Northwood, Gurnard area, you didn’t just sort of nip into Sandown or Ryde, like you do now, you didn’t do that sort of thing so you were around there and of course they always had two weeks off. They didn’t have … they had Cowes Week and either the week before or the week after and the shipyard closed. That was it, you had no choice about when you could go on holiday, and at Christmas time I think they must have shut over the Christmas period but I think we only had three weeks holiday and you were told when you could have it, you couldn’t choose it then. But most people that I knew worked there or their fathers worked there, that’s where they did. Some people worked for the Prison Service but not many. In Cowes, that’s where you worked, there and other places like Ratsey’s that did sails for things but nothing really about it, it was just there, that’s how it was, you know? It was the main hub I suppose of Cowes was the Shipyard.
Lisa : Where did you go to school?
Carol : Cowes High School.
Lisa : Did you have an idea at school about what you wanted to do for a job?
Carol : No idea at all, not a clue. I didn’t have any idea and my dad said, “What are you going to do?” I said, “I’ve got no idea” so he came home the next day and he said, “You can be a Tracer.” I said, “What does a Tracer do?” He said, “Well, it’s the drawings on …” anyway he said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you an interview. You go down there tomorrow you can have an interview.” I know I went down there. Half way down there it started to rain, I was like a drowned rat but never mind, in I go and when I went there I thought ‘Ah yes, I recognise the material’ because my dad used to bring home old bits of linen and that was the linen that we actually drew on and when you wash it it’s linen underneath but it’s got this blue sort of film over it which we would do the tracing on because … for example if you knock your coffee over that was the whole thing ruined because it just took this surface off. Whatever it was on the top I’ve got no idea but it was proper linen underneath and in those days I was doing a lot of dress making and I used to make lots of clothes for the girls in the office and I always lined it with the linen you see because there were old drawings they didn’t want and my mum used to get … my dad use to … when I think about it he used to bring home bits of linen, I suppose my mum would make things with it, I don’t know, which I suppose meant they didn’t have … well we weren’t poor, we were never poor and we lived, dare I say in Parklands Avenue. Well in those days that was the place to live, ‘up there’, you didn’t live down in Cowes. Now the place to live is down in Cowes isn’t it? The cost of the houses like where my grandma lived in Sun Hill, I mean that was where sort of poor people, or down by John Samuel Whites there was a lot of rented places but now those are the places everybody wants ‘cos they’re near the sea and it’s by the Town, but at the time, you know, living in Parklands Avenue was really a good place to live. ‘Cos I know my mum, she used to live in York Street and she told me once, “I was really scared of going up there because there was all these posh people lived up there” which is not true but in that era it was, sort of like that wasn’t it really. But anyway, so I thought, right … he said, “I’ve got the job”, down I go, and I went into the office and I can remember as though it was yesterday. There was 19 ladies in there, only ladies, and it was huge drawing boards, I mean we’re talking about twice this size. I mean I didn’t really know and in I went and there was Miss Hussey and she was in charge and Miss Harwood. Mis Hussey’s bit was sectioned off. Everybody else was all round this big room and we were right up on the top floor then ‘cos funnily at lunch times, we used to look out the windows and look at all the men going in ‘cos that’s what you do when you are 16 isn’t it? All these young men you fancy them, or fancy that whatever. But all the men we could see down there, and I used to stay there to lunch with sandwiches or something like that. I didn’t always go home but it was just fun bartering up and down but anyway, in this office and nobody in there was married. That was the thing at the time, nobody was married, and I thought, ‘crumbs they’re not married in here, I’ll be here for ever, I’m never going to get married’. Now what a stupid thing to think. Absolutely stupid. And when you’re the junior there you have to … ‘cos you’re doing with a scribe pen and you have these rags to wipe the ink off so as juniors we used to go up in the corner behind the screen and soak the linen first and then wash it all out. We had to wash it out. My nails wouldn’t stand it now would they, but wash out the slime off it so these were the rags for the Tracers to use, right? Also there was a little peep hole going down to the Design Office down there and messages I found out afterwards used to go down back and forth to the men because we weren’t with men, we were completely separate but one of the jobs we had to do as the junior was to take the tracings when they were done, down to the Drawing Offices. Well, I mean if you were 16 today you wouldn’t think twice about it , but now you go down there where there is maybe 60 young men in each one and they obviously make remarks and say things and you’ve got to breeze through there somehow but you know that was the sort of thing … it was a bit sort of, I don’t know, it was exciting in a way because I’d never been in that environment. I knew about it because my father had always worked there but I mean … and there was all these young men in the offices and eventually you get used to it and it’s all good fun and there’s banter when you go in and out and things like that. I remember one … where I was I could look down and see the men down there and I was actually going out with a guy I married eventually, and one day this package came up and I opened it and there was a mouse in there. The whole place went bananas. The whole Tracing Office, “Crikey, a mouse!” Anyway, that was fine. It was dead, it wasn’t alive, but you could see then all that lot down there laughing ‘cos that was the sort of … so it was quite good fun between the apprentices, and we were … it was an apprenticeship. I did a two-year apprenticeship, that’s what it’s called.
13 minutes 5 seconds
Lisa : So, what year would that have been when you started there?
Carol : Well if I’m 16, can I work that out? ’58, ‘cos I married Graham in ’63 but by then he had left, and I left when we got married and I went to work at Plessey, because the shipbuilding industry was then, you know, dying out really so …
Lisa : Can I ask you a few questions about when you started? Would you mind telling me what your pay was?
Carol : I can’t remember. I’ve been asked that before and I can’t remember, not a lot, maybe a pound and something?
Lisa : And where was the actual building that you worked in?
Carol : It’s the building that’s still there now and it’s on the Ferry Road … let me just think about it. The chain Ferry is there right and it’s the big building with the archway and we were right up the top in the front on the third floor. The top floor at the front of this building. The next building along was Ratsey Lapthorn, do you know where that is? That’s still sailmakers there I think, that was the next one. We were right on the corner of the Ferry Road and road that goes up, Bridge Road is it that’s up there? We were up on the corner there. But I mean that was the only place, well it wasn’t the only place to work … I know I wanted to leave, and I went for an interview in London to be a Tracer there. Oh, I probably thought I was in love, so I didn’t go but I went for the interview and I wasn’t that enamoured with it, so I came back. My brother left. He went into the Police Force. He left when he was 16. He was there for a short time actually, well it must have been while he was waiting to be 18 when you are a Police Cadet, so my dad got him a job there and he worked there for not very long though ‘cos that’s what he always wanted to do. Me, I never had a clue as I said.
15 minutes 13 seconds
Lisa : Can you just talk me through … you said it was a two-year apprenticeship. Exactly what sort of things were you learning in those two years?
Carol : You learnt how to use a pen. I’ve still got the ridge on here because it was a quill pen. When we first went there, ‘cos it was all done by hand, you know the writing on it, and I haven’t got anything anywhere, I chucked it away, but you had to do the letters and the numbers. You were just practicing, basically writing, with a pen and ink ‘cos that’s what it was, and then we had … see I chucked all the stuff away … that was the quill pen and then we had pens like that you screwed up to get the different width of it, to get the ink lines to … the Draughtsmen drew it and then we put the paper on our linen on the top and coloured it basically, covered it with ink and then you did your writing or whatever you were doing, if it was electrical there was a lot of writing ‘cos it was … otherwise it was the curves of the ship, boats, and not so much writing on there. But then latterly we had … no we didn’t have like the ball point pen that you get now which is a fine line but you do it in different thickness depending on what you were doing and you had curves to go … to do the curves like that you had a curve round it like [shuffles papers] if that was that, you had plastic curves that you went round that and then you took your pen around the outside of that to draw the shape so you could see it and we had various curves, various bits and bobs like … so that’s what we did. You did a lot of that like just learning to do it obviously and then the more … I mean some of them that had been there yonks just did it and it was never messed up but you couldn’t really mess it up and you certainly couldn’t get any water on it because the ink took … but if you took the water on it you know you end up with these sort of bare patches and if you knocked a coffee over it ‘Oh my God’ then you should start again which is not good ‘cos it took quite a long time to do it. See, it’s such a long time ago.
Lisa : How long would it take you to complete one drawing?
Carol : Depends on how big it was. If it filled up the whole of the thing, I’ve got no idea.
Lisa : So they ranged in size then?
Carol : Yes they did, depending whether it was the … what part of the thing. There was the Electrical Drawing Office which … that was different. That was smaller bits but a lot of writing on it, and then there was the Design Office and then there was another one. Now, what was that called then? There was four offices that we did tracings for. Maybe it would be the Interior would be in one and the others would just like the outline of it. Then you might have a slice across which you’d do ‘cos you’d have the end of it and a front of it. It’s a long time ago I can’t remember you see.
Lisa : And what kind of ships were they then in the late ‘50’s, early ‘60’s?
Carol : They were still doing Naval ships. As I say those last ones that I remember they did when the Naval people, well didn’t pay for it … there were these two for the Channel Islands and then of course it went … the work was getting less and less because my husband then, he left and he actually … his father was an Undertaker and he joined him in the business so he left. I left in ’63 when I got married and I went to Plessey to work because they were obviously thinning down the people you know, I went to Plessey and I was a Tracer there and then I did printed circuit boards after that, but I left and some other people left as well. People got married down there. I made lots of wedding dresses, lots of things but they did get married. Everybody got married (laughs). I still think, when I think … somebody said to me, “It’s no good working down there” somebody that I went to school with “because they’re all single, nobody gets married down there” (laughs) but then they did. Actually, they all got married probably. When I went in there, there was nobody that was married so …
Lisa : Is there a social aspect to work?
Carol : Yeah there was I suppose. I’m just trying to think. I’m still friendly with Joy, I’ve seen others around but Joy, who I met … she’d probably be able to tell you more than I can, Joy Brewin or Joy Pike as she is now. We still give one another Christmas presents and Birthday presents, even now, and she’s the only one but I do see others that I worked with. I see … people have died, and you know Cynthia Morey had her first baby and I crocheted her a big shawl and that sort of thing, but I used to make clothes. I used to make a lot of clothes for the girls down there ‘cos I could do it really without thinking about it. But that’s nothing to do with being a Tracer is it (laughs)? It’s nothing really, it’s quite sort of … when I think about it was something like five years I suppose I was there.
20 minutes 51 seconds
Lisa : What did you wear to work?
Carol : Never wore trousers that’s for sure. Nobody wore trousers I can tell you that, nobody wore trousers. Skirt, probably up to here because I just had a photograph come on Messenger and there’s a picture of me in that and that must have been … no that was at Plessey. That was after I left but my skirt’s up here and I had long dark hair and all that, you know. I used to wear dresses, yeah, you never wore trousers at all.
Lisa : So you wore your own clothes rather than any uniform?
Carol : No we didn’t wear a uniform, probably because it messed up with … did some of them wear aprons? Some of them might have worn aprons, I don’t think so. I can remember Athley and she would always sleep for 15 minutes after lunch and she did it every time. She just sat there; she’d gone again. Like a power nap, funny it’s that particular person and another lady who was chubby … she wasn’t chubby but when she walked along everything rustled. It would have been stockings then wouldn’t it? A funny sort of … she was a bit … another lady I won’t mention her … they’re dead anyway, Athley’s not but another lady, she got married, I shouldn’t say it but she got married anyway but she was a bit naive about everything. Well, I don’t think I was naïve, but she came back from her honeymoon and she still had confetti in her vest so all us youngsters of course thought it was really funny ‘cos “What do you mean, you kept your vest on.” It was just silly things like that which is … she unfortunately died. She wasn’t a well person, but she got married and she had children which was … you know, “I’ve seen a Postman I like.” I remember her saying it. Anyway, that’s irrelevant, you don’t want to say anything about that, but that was the sort of thing that you … you went to weddings, we used to go out … we’d go to like the Gurnard Hotel, there’s not one there now, up there for drinks and Christmas time we all went out together with the boys as well. To me that just seemed normal, I wouldn’t know what any other person did. I can see now but I should never have done it. I should have gone and done something different, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do and my dad, because of who he was, he said, “Oh, I’ll get you a job. Just go down there for an interview, see Charlie Taylor.” Alright, so I went in there and there was this huge long … I thought who are all these men in here and I went in there and I was like a drowned rat and he said, “Could you start week” or something or other. I said, “Oh, alright then” (laughs) and went, but you know …
Lisa : So, all the Tracers were women.
Carol : Yes.
Lisa : Were there other Departments where women worked?
Carol : Yes, in Accounts there were because they along the corridor from us. Not many others actually, only Accounts. There were Secretaries wasn’t there? There was obviously Secretaries to like the … that was Sir James Milne, he was the Managing Director of the whole thing and he had a secretary. There must have been Secretaries around and there was two women who worked in the Print Room opposite and that was funny because she had a boyfriend and we used to watch them running round there (laughs) … yes, the Print Room was opposite because Sheila was friendly with the girl over there but we were in this building because we were back and front the windows were either side and they were like over … that was a well, they were over there and then underneath that was the Ship Drawing Office which you could see the boys down there. They worked in there. I’m just trying to think … ‘cos there was a Canteen there but I didn’t really use that, but I can’t think of where else … there was no women working in the actual shipyard itself. Not like it would be now, they would be there, engineers and all sorts but no there wasn’t any there, they were all office jobs basically. I can’t think of anywhere else they’d do it.
25 minutes 30 seconds
Lisa : What were your working hours?
Carol : Oh, I presume they were 9 to 5. I’ve got no idea.
Lisa : Did you work on Saturdays?
Carol : No we didn’t. Men did and I think my dad might have done. No, we didn’t work on Saturdays. We only worked Monday to Friday.
Lisa : And were the holidays the same then as they were for your father? You had two specific weeks in the year.
Carol : That’s right. Two, and it was always Cowes Week, the week before and Cowes Week. It was always those two weeks in the summer. You didn’t have any choice. I’ll tell you what we did have, I never took it up, you had the opportunity to have free tickets to go to Wimbledon and you could apply for those and I think that was Sir James Milne got those but I never took them up because I wasn’t interested. I mean I only went to Wimbledon like two years ago for the first time (laughs). One of my ‘bucket list’ whereas I think a lot of the girls, I know Joy went several times to Wimbledon, so don’t know. Can’t think of anything else really. Every time a boat was launched, it was a Tracer that presented the bouquet to the wife of the person that was launching it. Now by the time … ‘cos it went down you know it was a hierarchy, but by the time I was … it was like me to do it, we weren’t launching any ships so that’s why we left. That’s why people left ‘cos they’d stopped building ships. They did other stuff and then they did … was it ‘Cementation’ or somebody bought it. It was just, you know, just dying really ‘cos the boats were launched at East Cowes and then were fitted out at West Cowes, so you know they just weren’t building then anymore so that’s how it worked. All these big chains, you could go and watch the launch but that’s the only other thing I can think they did. There was one girl … ah, there was a girl who worked in the Ship Drawing Office and she was doing like admin there, that was Janet I think, can’t remember.
Lisa : So, you stayed until 1963 and then you moved to Plessey’s. And what were Plessey’s manufacturing?
Carol : What they do now, radar. It was radar. I worked in the Drawing Office. I went to be in the Drawing Office and then I suppose I got sort of promoted, not just doing tracing, I then did printed circuit boards which is … you know what I’m talking about? A printed circuit board, what used to be the boards on the back of like a radio with all the things they used. I had to draw a printed circuit board. You get the drawing plan and you have to fit all the different parts onto the back, and you draw that out. I can’t explain it any better than that because we don’t have printed circuit boards anymore, but it was a better job and I got a bit more money, but I stayed there until … I did 10 years there until ’73 and then we bought a hotel but that was with a different … I got divorced, then I got married and then I got divorced again and I’m on my third husband. I’ve been married three times. Two of them are dead but one is still alive and now John and I live together.
Lisa : When you were first married, what were sort of attitudes towards women working then once they were married?
Carol : Oh, they just did unless they had children. If they had children they would have stopped but otherwise no they didn’t. [It’s my nephew delivering the post]. Thank you Richard. When they had children, they stopped working but there was quite a lot in there and they didn’t have any children and weren’t married but when you got married you stayed working. I stayed working, I worked all my life actually. I adopted two girls but that was when we were at the Hotel, so it was a long time ago, but yes, you only stopped working if you had children, otherwise you kept working. That was fine I suppose. You just did it didn’t you? Got the money, spent it. I wish I could remember some of these things. I should be able to remember the long-term bits shouldn’t I?
30 minutes 19 seconds
Lisa : So, looking back then, how much has Cowes changed do you think from those days when those big naval ships were being built?
Carol : How has it changed? Well, we’ve just gone forward haven’t we? John Samuel Whites is now different small businesses in John Samuel Whites now but how has it changed? Well, it’s just different isn’t it? So different. You don’t have lots of people working in one shipyard anymore, it’s all small things isn’t it and I expect the employment … well I should think Cowes now has got a lot of old people living in Cowes. You know, me for example (laughs). Has it changed? There is not as many Pubs as there used to be, I can tell you that, nor Butchers, nor little shops. There’re no small shops anymore. Like when I’d walk from Parklands Avenue down, I’d go down the road Warne’s on the right, Katy Scott’s was only about from here to the end of the next one, and then down over the hill there was one on the left, one on the right, the shoe man on the corner because by then the trains were running then of course and so there’s the Mill Hill Station and by Mill Hill Station was the Shoe Repairer and wearing high heels back and forth, back and forth, used to nip in there and he’d put you new heels on … when I think I used to … initially I went back and forth to lunch and I was wearing heels like that, like they do now, but they were those screw-ons that you wouldn’t know, screw-on ones that came out so you nipped into him, and usually if I was running up and down I’d have another pair of shoes and he’d repair them and then on the way back I’d pick them up from him so that was … what was his name? Medley, Mr Medley I think that was, but his Shoe Shop was right on the top of the tunnel as it came out of Cowes where the Mill Hill … do you know where Mill Hill Station is or was? It was there, that’s where it was on that corner. But you see you’ve still got the Paper Shop there, there was a Pub on the other side and you go down over Bridge Road, that’s where Graham’s Undertaker, that’s the Undertakers, then there was a shop down there on the corner, another shop exactly the same opposite. Lots of shops, lots of little shops and there aren’t any of them now are there, they’re all gone. We’ve gone supermarket mad haven’t we? I mean no shops were open on a Sunday at all. I mean my mum had an order that used to come on a Monday just in a box this size, right. Well, you look at the people now. They’ve got trolleys full haven’t they (laughs) every day but she would go to the Butcher wouldn’t she you see to buy the meat. She wouldn’t get it from the local shop so that’s the way it was I suppose. I know my dad got his first car when I was 18 and that was quite exciting and then he got promoted and he was given a parking space down there on the outside on the Bridge Road bit. It’s funny isn’t it? Silly thing really but yeah. ‘Cos I passed my test when I was 18. I was delighted the first time. “You can’t have passed it.” I said, “I’ve just passed it” (laughs) and Graham at the time said, “Well you can’t” and I said, “Well you failed, and I didn’t, I passed it.” At any rate, silly thing isn’t it really. We used to go on holiday I suppose. Went a lot of the time locally wouldn’t you because the group of us would be like at Gurnard at Thorness and with the Drawing Office guys and whoever their girlfriends were and things like that, but it was all local because very few people had a car. I mean I know we used to go to Ventnor because a chap … yes he must have worked at … Ted [inaudible] and we went in this great big pink sort of Cresta thing but we went out to a Coffee Bar because there wasn’t … we didn’t have coffee did we, we went to Ventnor to get a cup of coffee in the ‘Holl in the Wall’ it was called, ‘cos then you see there weren’t Coffee Shops like there are now. It wasn’t social. You didn’t say, “Oh, come in for a coffee”, that didn’t happen did it ‘cos we didn’t have coffee? We had tea, didn’t we? Or we had that bottled Campers, Camp coffee thing. No, it’s got to be different. There’s certainly no where near as many Pubs. Used to be a Pub everywhere, all up round the old Hairdressers or Fruit Shops.
35 minutes 15 seconds
Lisa : Was it a lot of the workers from the shipyards that went to the Pubs?
Carol : Yes, everybody did I suppose. My dad didn’t, my dad wasn’t … he didn’t go to the Pub, but a lot of people did and a lot of people that lived ‘down Cowes’ as they say, down in that area (coughs) but I mean I don’t know ‘cos my dad didn’t. They only had a drink at Christmas time so … but everybody seemed to know everybody so …different now because now of course they’re walking everywhere. Now we’re in a car, we don’t know our neighbours do we like we used to know I suppose. I mean I know the people round here, but you don’t do you. But where we lived in Parklands, everybody knew everybody and we all played outside, they always did that but no, I can’t think of anything else really. Sounds pretty boring doesn’t it?
Lisa : So, when you left Plessey’s then, you said that you bought a hotel.
Carol : Yeah. In between I have to say, I left Plessey and I went to train to be a Bookmaker ‘cos I was fed up with Plessey and a friend of mine, Margaret, we decided we’d go and train as a Bookmaker so we did a … you know if you were into Bookmaking then it was half plus a half plus a quarter and all that. You’d learn it all and I did my eight weeks course with her and I’d just done that, and I was going to be … and then Al came home, and he said, “How about … I’ve seen a Hotel. What about we buy a Hotel?” He said, “You could cook” because I won the Radio Solent Super Cook Competition which I did, and I had a fitted kitchen for that. He said, “What about doing that?” I thought yeah, OK, so I actually didn’t do the Bookmaking thing, we bought a hotel. It was in Shanklin. It only took 28 people and I did the cooking and I employed a lady to do the cleaning and somebody to help me with the waiting and then on Sunday, Al would do the waiting ‘cos I had a day off. I had that, he still worked at Plessey, I stayed, I did that, so it started off really not knowing what I was doing I suppose. I mean I could cook so that was fine. I mean it seemed to be big to me and my mum and dad came out to help and they said, “Oh, you’ll have to do the pensioners because they start you off in the beginning of the season and you keep your staff.” You keep the staff and you hang on to them, so you didn’t make a lot of money from pensioners because they wanted breakfast, lunch, dinner, hot drinks, everything. They wanted everything for really not very much, so I said to my mum and dad, “Come up, we’ve got to do …” I said, “There’s how many people we are doing.” I don’t know, say we had 20 in at a time. I said, “We’ve got 20 people.” Well, I’d made these mince pies and he just divided it by 20 so us four, I said, “Where’s ours?” He said, ““Well, you said 20.” So, they had huge portions, right? Huge portions of everything so I soon learnt that that didn’t happen, so I got with it, I was fine, I knew what I was going to cook and in those days they had … I mean as for a Vegan or a Vegetarian, nobody had ever heard of that, and I know once I said, “I’ll think we’ll have curry.” “Curry! With rice? We only have rice pudding; we don’t have it savoury.” So, we did the normal thing. On Sundays they had Sunday Lunch and not Sunday evening so it would give me half a day off and it was always a turkey, it was that sort of roast meal, but they basically had roast meals and pies and that sort of thing. They would have a starter of soup or fruit juice and then they’d have their main course and a pudding and then they’d have … they might have had a cup of tea afterwards; I don’t know but I don’t remember doing coffee. Interesting, I don’t remember offering them … like now you offered coffee and tea they might do it for you. If I would have done anything it would have only been tea. It wouldn’t have been coffee, so that have all of that, so you were there all the time. When they were gone, we only basically did bed and breakfast and evening meal, so I did have a day off in the middle, but we had to go shopping in between and then when we were there, it was when they didn’t have any sugar and bread. There was a time when we couldn’t get bread. You’d have to try and get there at the crack of dawn. Well, it was difficult when you’re serving people. I queued for sugar and I queued for bread to get it. It must have been … were they doing a three-day week? I don’t know. Anyway, that sort of thing and of course funny things happened in it. Obviously I didn’t have any children then, so they used to come and then there are certain weeks like the Potteries close for two weeks in whatever it was, the first two weeks in July and there was certain lots of people that came. There was people … you go into some rooms, you think about it, and you could not see across the room for smoke, puffing away, cor blimey. Anyway, a very good friend, Joy and Ken, they used to come every year and they came every year while I was there and even when I had left, they’d come here to visit me and always send Christmas cards. They both have died now but they were very nice and very good ‘cos eventually I had Tracey. She was four when she came and that was quite busy, and they were very good with her. Took her out sometimes for me, so we had that there, so we did that. Because I was on the Main Road from the Railway Station to the beach, we used to get callers. I soon got wise that you take the money when they come in if they are only staying one night ‘cos otherwise they’d come in, use the bedroom for whatever they’d want and go. Bit naughty really but anyway, so I soon got wise to that. We did alright in the summer, and we made money. I also learnt that kids wet the bed a lot so there was plastic sheets on everything and they’d say, “Oh, we don’t understand it, we don’t do …” I said, “Yeah, but you’re out, they’re sitting outside the Pub having a Coke. They don’t do that at home.” You know, I had one adult that ruined a mattress. Any rate, I made him pay for it. The wife was distraught. I thought why only come to breakfast. Eventually she said, “Well I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” I said, “Well don’t worry. I’ll tell you what the cost of the mattress is,” and they paid, and they went. Another funny thing. I used to have yellow and orange. It sounds ghastly now but that was the colour scheme in some of the bedrooms. There was lilac in some and pink in others. White sheets all the time and we had this couple and the lady said, “Sorry dear, have you got different coloured towels?” I said, “Well, what do you want?” She said, “Have you got dark towels?” I said, “No.” She said, “Well, I’m sorry about this” and she showed me … he was a Miner and he’d washed his hands and the towel was black because it had come out of his pores and the sheets were … I really had to change the sheets quite often because you know, I didn’t know anything about that. I was quite … I said, “Well it’s not your …” She said, “Because he’s a Miner.” I mean you don’t think about it, well I didn’t think. So, we got over that, I got some things and then we’ve had like leaks in there. I got a Plumber, it leaks, and this lady sits in it one day and she said, “Oh dear.” She’s sat up in bed and was sprayed with water ‘cos something had gone wrong there and we’ve had things like, you know, floods down the bottom because people put nappies down the toilets and you know the whole ground floor was … because we were on three floors, we were there in ’76 and it was very, very hot and I was like a pit pony down here because the road was up there and my kitchen bit and dining room was half underneath and then there was two floors above it. It was so hot. Let me get out of here and then we got a fan, but it was very difficult because it cooled the stuff too much. You know it cooled the food, so you know I just had to grin and bear it, that was very hot. And then I left in ’79 and by then most of the people were just doing bed and breakfast and they’d stopped doing the dinner because by then there were a few more places like on the sea front that did … like there’s loads of them now that do food with a Pub but initially when we went there they didn’t do that. There was a few down on the sea front but mostly they went for a drink and a packet of crisps, not for the food, and then it changed and by the time I left, and I know the friends opposite, she then went just to bed and breakfast and the guys that are probably still there, they did just bed and breakfast and a lot of those smaller places coming down the road only did that because when you get on the sea front, you’ve got the big places. They did all the meals but we were finding that you know, they would want to go out to eat as a change I suppose, or they just did it or whatever, but I know they said they’re not … probably I’ve no idea if the place I had is still there but we sold it and when we sold it we made enough money to come back to Cowes and buy a house without a mortgage, which was what the idea was. Well, I don’t know if it was but that’s what we thought. We looked at the Essex cottage in Godshill when we were leaving there but I said, ”No, I’ve had enough of that” and I had Tracey and I really wanted another child and they wouldn’t give me another child while we had a hotel, so when we came back here and we weren’t back here very long, and Tanya came. She was four. They weren’t babies, my children weren’t babies. My husband was quite a lot older than me and we couldn’t get babies. I mean now you can get anything can’t you, but you couldn’t then, so we adopted older, you know fostering them with a view to adoption, so that’s what we did.
45 minutes 57 seconds
Lisa : So what was the name of your Hotel?
Carol : The Derrington.
Lisa : And what road was it on?
Carol : Atherley Road. It’s the main road and it’s the next but one as you go along Wilton Park Road and it’s the next one there. But a lot of people also converted to like flats as well I gather, they did that sort of thing ‘cos next to us was a big block of flats but there were private houses down there.
Lisa : So were there lots of small hotels like that in Shanklin in the ‘70’s?
Carol : Yes, there were lots of bed, breakfast and dinner, small places, yeah. Lots going down our road and then as you got down the road, it got bigger and bigger as you got to the sea front and then they were bigger, but up where we were there was quite a lot doing that.
Lisa : And how long would people usually stay? Was it a weekend, was it a whole week, was it weeks at a time?
Carol : It was a week or two weeks. Like Joy and Ken always stayed for two weeks. We didn’t have … there was never like three- or four-day holidays. We sold it weekly but if people came off the road, if we were empty, we were a weekly and we did start doing mid-weeks because of the ferry bookings because everybody would phone and I’d say, “Have you booked your ferry booking? Do that because you won’t get on there.” I mean now, if you look at the hotels now that advertise, they include the ferry booking. I mean there’s lots more boats now anyway isn’t there but they include the ferry booking in the price that you pay which is obviously was the way to go, but we weren’t in the position to do that.
Lisa : So how do people generally get to you then? Did they come as foot passengers and then the train or did they bring their cars over?
Carol : Well, Joy and Ken always brought the car. Quite a few brought their cars, but a lot of people came on the train and then walked down the road to us and then you know the day people that came here obviously walking down the road and they’d, you know, we had vacancies in the early season. In the height of the season we were usually full up all the time with a lot of regulars and especially like these two weeks, you know they close at Coventry for two weeks, so you knew when they were coming and things like that.
Lisa : So did they come from far and wide, the visitors?
Carol : Yeah, I suppose from up the Midlands I would think is as far as they’d come and it was then that … there was nobody that was black or coloured living on the Isle of Wight then, none, but we did have one or two that came to stay. That’s one thing about the Isle of Wight, we didn’t have anybody that was as I say black. You probably not to use that word but I think it might be alright, but there wasn’t anybody, but the odd visitor might be, but not very many again. That was very noticeable. I don’t think I ever had anybody staying with me like that.
Lisa : And you had families as well as pensioners? It was a real mixture?
Carol : Oh yes, I started off with the pensioners and then I had family rooms. Four in a room, bunk beds and a double bed. There was four and of course they had … nothing was en suite. I mean I wouldn’t go anywhere now without en suite, would you? I mean I wouldn’t you see. Nothing was en suite but they had the hand basin in the room, and I used to take, in the morning if they wanted early morning tea, I’d take them early morning tea. That’s quite eye-opening at times, but anyway that’s bye the bye, anyway, they used to … so I’d take morning tea round and wake up. Then we had two bathrooms and two toilets. We had a bathroom and a toilet on that floor, a bathroom and toilet on that floor, and then where we slept, right down the bottom that was where the Dining Room was. There was a Lounge up the top as well in the middle floor, a Lounge. Then we had our apartment, if you’d like to call it that, was locked off. It was just two bedrooms and a bathroom, and we also had another room downstairs ‘cos Joy and Ken used to go in there and they had their own toilet. You know we didn’t have a shower for anybody or anything. You think about that now, they just washed I suppose, went swimming and thought that was it (laughs). I don’t know.
50 minutes 19 seconds
Lisa : And was the beach very busy in those days, in the summer months?
Carol : Oh yes, very busy down there ‘cos it was sand wasn’t it? It was lovely, the sand. I mean, you know I used to come home from work and pick up Tracey, our daughter, and go down on the beach, just to get her out of it really, but friends over the road they used to take her to school for me. She used to cry, I didn’t want to go and they said, “We’ll take her” and when she got round the corner she’d obviously wasn’t crying at all but bearing in mind she’d had a pretty traumatic time before she got to me so yeah, she was alright. The visitors loved her, and she loved them. We used to have a bowling lot come. They came every year and they’d say, “Where’s Tracey? Right, sit down Tracey” and she’d have a skirt like that, and they’d put all their change in her skirt, and you’d think that’s kind of them. She used to sometimes lay the table. She’d have something on her wrist, you know, that was the knife side, you know. She was four then wasn’t she, four and a half when she came, so that sort of thing but … you know it was just my job wasn’t it really, tiring, plus wait every time. I used to be eight stone then (laughs).
Lisa : Did people walk down to the beach?
Carol : Yes.
Lisa : And what about the Lift?
Carol : The Lift is right up the other end. They just walked down … keep on going straight down the road, past the traffic lights, keep on going, wiggle round and you’re down there. Once they got their car parked somewhere where they were staying, that stayed there. They used to go out, I suppose Joy and Ken used to go out. I don’t really know what people did because I was so busy cooking and cleaning. One of my cleaners … think what’s going on again. She was thumping away on her piano I thought. I said, “Have you finished the cleaning?” “Oh yes, yes.” I thought I know you haven’t and she’s playing away on the piano. She said, “I haven’t got one at home, I love your piano.” I thought, oh alright, carry on. I can’t be doing with that. We weren’t licensed. Now some of them were licensed, we weren’t licensed, so no alcohol.
Lisa : Do you remember how much you charged for a room?
Carol : No, got no idea. Can’t even think. No, I’ve got no idea. I can see the charge up here now, but I can’t tell what the price was. A few things I can see the hotel easily. We had a cat called Moppet (laughs).
Lisa : Were there any Associations or opportunities for you to talk to other hotel owners?
Carol : There was a Hotel Association, I expect they’ve still got it now, they had it then but I think we joined it, but I don’t think we actually did anything with it. But there was an Association, I know there was but no we didn’t … they’ve probably got one now haven’t they? Or is it a Tourist place?
Lisa : Was there a Tourist Information Centre or Tourist Board?
Carol : There must have been Tourist Board, there must have been something. Well, this Association I suppose, I don’t know…no, I don’t know, but we closed you see from end of September to whenever Easter was, we were closed, and I did other jobs. Before I had Tracey, I did work for Securicorps, I did store detective work at Portsmouth, Newport, counted the money ‘cos they had pay packets then didn’t they? I worked for Securicorps.
Lisa : So, were a lot of the hotels only open in that Easter to September season?
Carol : Yes, certainly the small ones were yes. The bigger ones might have been open down the Front, but we weren’t, no. It probably sort of died didn’t it really? Bit cold, nothing to do is there unless you’ve got sand and what have you, no. Can’t think of anything else, sorry (laughs).
Lisa : Well thank you, it’s been really, really interesting.
Carol : Probably a lot of rubbish really (laughs).
Lisa : No, it’s been lovely.
Interview ends
54 minutes 36 seconds
Transcribed May 2019
Chris Litton