Lisa : It’s the 12th September 2018 and this is an interview with John Luff and John Woodford in Bembridge. John Luff, if we could start with you, what’s your full name?
John L : John Peter Luff.
Lisa : And what’s your date of birth?
John L : 1937.
Lisa : And where were you born?
John L : Top of the Road.
Lisa : So, Heathfield Road in Bembridge.
John L : Correct.
Lisa : And was that your family home?
John L : Father built it, yeah, when they got married.
Lisa : And what’s your father’s name?
John L : Edwin Frank Luff.
Lisa : And your mother’s name?
John L : Helen Margaret Smith.
Lisa : And do you know where they were born?
John L : Father was born in the village and mother was born in the village. She was the daughter of the local Chemist and he had a building firm which he took over when his father died and then he was seconded during the War to go along the south coast doing the shuttering for the pill boxes, and when he came back he went over to work at Woodnutts Boatyard who were building Naval vessels and that’s where he went and that’s where he ended up. Before the War, Woodnutts was a high-class yacht builder but they were sort of seconded to build Naval ships and those boats were built there. They went over to Portsmouth, had the engines fitted and came back to Bembridge, or St Helen’s I suppose it is to be finished. There’s an example of two of them round the Embankment. One is called the … what John? The ‘Zoron’ it’s a motor launch, it’s the same as what they were building over there and then they used to build motor torpedo boats, the fast ones. And then at the end of the War, they went back to yacht building and he stayed over there.
John W : Uffa Fox worked down there didn’t he?
John L : Yes, Uffa Fox designed the lifeboat that they dropped from aeroplanes, and several of the village women worked over there making them. It was a lady’s job. They had a parachute at both ends, they dropped it out of the aeroplane and the parachute opened and that was Uffa Fox designed them.
Lisa : And we’re also joined today at this interview by John Woodford. John, what’s your full name?
John W : John Wilfred Woodford and I was born 1936.
Lisa : And where were you born?
John W : I was born in Shanklin Hospital, but my mother lived in Bembridge.
Lisa : And is that where you grew up?
John W : Yes.
Lisa : And where were your parents born?
John W : My mother was born in Shanklin and my father was born in Bembridge. My father was the eldest of 13 children who lived in a little cottage next door to the village Inn and how they got 13 children in there I don’t know. Mother was born in Shanklin.
John L : He was a big fat Butcher. His father was the local Butcher and he then took over.
John W : My mother’s mother was a Woodnutt, and my father’s mother was a Woodnutt, so they were related that way as well.
Lisa : So, this is Woodnutt as in the Woodnutts that John was just talking about, the Boatbuilders?
John L : No.
John W : No.
Lisa : No, different Woodnutts?
John L : This is the MP Woodnutt.
John W : As in the MP Woodnutt.
Lisa : OK.
John W : So, my father was a Butcher and he started a Butchers Shop in the village in about 1910. He took over from two brothers also called Woodford, but no relation, and they emigrated to South Africa. My mother helped in the shop occasionally and then when my father retired, I took over the shop. That was in the 1960’s.
Lisa : So do you want to tell me a little bit about what Bembridge was like when you were growing up, when you were a young boy?
John L : Well we grew up during the War. Everybody knew everybody and we always had a local Bobby here and so if you got caught misbehaving you got a clip round the ear and taken home. It was a much more peaceful place, shall we say, not many cars. No, it was a nice place to grow up. We both went to school together. We used to go on the bus to school.
John W : I first met John in April 1941, we were four. Somehow we managed to go down to the bottom of Ducie Avenue because a land mine had landed on Garland Club that evening so John and I went down to see what was up. I remember seeing a bath in the middle of the road wasn’t there? There was a few windows not broken. We finished them all off (laughs).
5 minutes 10 seconds
John L : There was a bath sat right in the middle of the road where this land mine demolished the Garland Club and half demolished Pit House …
John W : Pit House was next door wasn’t it?
John L : … and how we were allowed down there I don’t know. We were only four.
John W : Well, you weren’t four were you then?
John L : Well, 1941, I was three. You’re six months older than me.
John W : But as children, we were allowed to roam the streets as we wanted to. No one worried about us because we had older boys to look after us. We went out the door at 8 o’clock in the morning in the school holidays and never got back until teatime.
John L : Used to go out on the Marshes bird nesting and things like that. Going on all day.
Lisa : How much did life revolve around the sea then, when you were kids?
John L : Well, my parents had a beach hut down at Ducie. I don’t know if you know where Ducie is? If you go down the Harbour and go towards the Lifeboat Station, the first bit of beach you come to is Ducie, D U C I E, and we had a hut down there and we always had a boat so we were … when I left Ryde School, I went to Sandown and I travelled on the train because the train was still running from Bembridge, and I used to get off the train opposite where the Spithead Hotel was and walk along the beach and mother would be there with tea and have a swim and we lived on the beach in the summer.
John W : But during the War, we weren’t supposed to be allowed on the beach, it was forbidden to go on the beach, but we did, of course, being boys and we used to walk on the beach to see what we could find because there was all sorts of flotsam and jetsam come up wasn’t there? Bits and pieces that might have been useful but whatever … how early you went in the morning, someone else had been before us (laughs). You could see their footprints.
Lisa : Were the beached barricaded?
John L : Yes. There’s a picture in there of my sister and I on the beach and it was like scaffolding all the way round. It went right from St Helen’s right round to Whitecliff. All the way round. And at the end of the War, they just dropped it, they didn’t take it away and there are still bits of it there now. They just unshackled it and just dropped it there.
John W : You can still see it sometimes.
John L : They left little gaps for the fishermen to get through with their boats, you could still get in and out of the Harbour but only a narrow gap, and then different places along the beach ‘cos there’s fishermen at different points all the way round the coast right round to Forelands and they used to leave little gaps in it so that they only used small boats and so they left a big enough gap for the boats get and still go fishing.
Lisa : Do you remember any of those fishermen from your childhood? What were their names?
John L : Well nearly all family ones. There was brothers Caws, there was Mursells at Point, they all sort of spread round. There was Caldish who taught me … [looks at a photograph] … that’s the bloke who taught me and he was 90 when he taught me and then he started coming out in the boat with me and that was me when I was younger. There was the Caws’s …
John W : Caws’s were at Under Tyne …
John L : Caws’s were at Under Tyne …
John W : Russells’ were at Point. There was at Lane End we had Attrills’ …
John L : Bert Baker at the time …
John W : George Smith …
John L : George Smith at Lane End and then Holbrooks’ at Thornton’s …
Lisa : And were they catching different types of fish? Did they have different types of boats?
John L : They were only small boats, it was mainly prawns, crab and lobster. They didn’t go very far but nearly all of them had … some of them would go as far as the Nab Tower and that’s only about five mile. They didn’t need as many pots as they got now because the shell fish was quite plentiful then and three of the ones that I’ve mentioned had Tea Gardens and that’s how they used to make a bit more for their money. Also, they used to send some of it to Billingsgate because they used to take it down to Bembridge Station, put it on the train and off it went. A firm called Baxters, that’s still going in Billingsgate, they used to deal with.
Lisa : Is it seasonal, that type of fishing?
John L : It was, yes, but now they fish all the year round that’s why its cleared out. You know, they’ve ruined it. There’s one bloke in the village that’s got 1000 pots. Well we only used to use 24 per man. You know, its gone crazy because they’ve fished it out.
Lisa : And how much could you get in one pot?
John L : Well, you couldn’t guarantee, you know, you had nothing in some and maybe three lobsters in another, you know, but prawns, you started in March with prawns and it went through until it got cold. You’d still be prawning now ‘cos it hasn’t got cold yet. Big prawns, you started in March to the beginning of July, lobsters all through the summer. ‘Cos lobsters only move when the water reaches a certain temperature. Yes, they all made a living.
10 minutes 23 seconds
Lisa : What did they do in the winter in those days then?
John L : Well, some of them went on the building like Bob’s dad used to do painting.
John W : He was a Painter wasn’t he?
John L : Yeah, he used to go … occasionally they used to go netting. They used to get a few herrings in November, but they never went potting in the winter at all.
John W : I expect they used to make them didn’t they?
John L : They made new pots yes, I still make them.
Lisa : Can you tell me a bit about the making of pots?
John L : Well, everybody used to grow their own willows, and they had their own withy beds where they used to grow them, mainly along from Forelands towards Whitecliff there was a … everybody had their little patch where they used to grow them and they used to cut them in the first week in December and sort them all out and then make their pots for the next year. Some of those pots would last three years, with a bit of luck and repairing, so they used to make about two dozen new ones every winter. That’s what they used to do.
John W : They had to be tarred didn’t they?
John L : Oh, they were tarred afterwards to preserve them, so you used to wait ‘till the blokes were coming round tarring the roads (laughs) and slip them a few bob and they’d fill your can up with hot tar (laughs).
Lisa : Who taught you to make the pots?
John L : That old boy. In 1967 he taught me.
John W : Mr Caws had Tea Gardens.
John L : Yeah, he had a Tea Garden.
John W : The Holbrooks’ had Tea Gardens …
John L : And Smith’s had one then. It was a way of …
John W : Supplementing your income.
John L : You know, getting more for their fish by selling it with a cup of tea and a slice of bread, you know.
Lisa : So where were the Tea Gardens? At their homes?
John L : Yeah.
John W : At the back of their homes, yes. Although the Smiths …
John L : That was down where that Blue Beach House is called it.
John W : It’s still there, the Smith’s one is still there but it’s in Hazel Cottage.
John L : Below Hazel Cottage but the Caws’s one was in their back garden. It was open air job.
John W : Yes the Holbrook one at Forelands was very popular. People from all around the Island used to come over and have prawns and cups of tea on a Sunday afternoon. It was very nice. Oh, the price of prawns. This must have been after the War, I used to go down and see Uncle George, that was George Attrill, he lives in ‘Stonehenge’ in Lane End, to get some prawns for Sunday tea and I think they were two and six for 100. The big ones were five shillings for 100.
John L : They used to sell them in 100’s, not pounds.
John W : Yes, and every fisherman had their own recipe for cooking, and some were better than others. I know Mr Caws’s were very good, we used to have some from them sometimes and of course they were always very good. But some were lacking. It’s the recipe. John will tell you about the recipes.
John L : I only went with Mr Caws’s recipe. You put them into boiling water and when they come to the boil again they’re cooked. And then you tip them into cold brine. You made up your own brine. I expect you remember you used to get blocks of salt, big blocks, like a loaf and they used to use it. When I was doing it, I was using about three quarters of a pound of salt in a washing up bowl of water to make the brine, and you chuck them in there and leave then until they’re cold and that’s it.. Never salted. Other people used to sprinkle salt of them.
John W : And lobsters I think were about two and six I think at the time. Most people like crab better because there is more flavour.
John L : Crab is the main thing now, everybody wants crab for some reason or another. Cheaper than lobster but I think its tastier than lobster.
John W Oh yeah, lobster’s overrated as far as I’m concerned but I prefer crab.
John L : But they’ve had them all.
Lisa : So when you were children, when you were younger, what happened with the fish when it came to shore? How was it sold?
John L : I don’t know.
John W : Well if they had certain customers and if they had a glut, Mrs Holbrook, I remember her, she came on a carrier bike with some fish and she’d call on people’s houses asking if they wanted to buy any fish.
John L : Summertime was alright because there were loads of holidaymakers here ‘cos there was a lot of gentry in the village, well we’ll call them gentry, and they used to buy a lot in the summer ‘cos they were here all the time.
15 minutes 8 seconds
John W : I think they used to sell herring, 12 for a shilling, and one thrown in extra or something like that, but that’s what they used … I know an old boy told me that before … this is before the War in the 1920’s and ‘30’s, if they had a good catch, say they got a lot of herring or whatever, if they had too much they couldn’t sell in the village, they would either row and sail to Portsmouth to get rid of it. And then when they came back, they’d have to set the pots again, so it was quite a day, but that’s what they used to do.
John L : Used to sell them by the long hundred, 110 to100.
John W : Yes, having to row and part sail to Portsmouth from Bembridge, must have taken them a while.
John L : Yes, also they used to salt it down for bait for the following year because lobsters like salt bait, you know, oily fish, so they used to use this rock salt and salt them down in barrels and use it for next years bait for prawns and for lobsters, not for crab. Fresh fish for crab.
John W : And of course when sprats came along, a lot of the Bembridge fishermen used to go across to Sandown Bay which is where the sprats were to get some sprats, but you don’t get sprats now do you?
John L : Don’t know.
John W : I think they must have died out.
John L : Talking about Sandown, Sandown was mostly longshoremen, but they all had a net or two, but they used to rely on deck chairs and letting boats out in the summer. And Shanklin. Freddy Oils was the longshoreman at Shanklin, wasn’t he?
John W : Yes, Langford. He used to work for Mr Morman.
John L : There was no fishing in Seaview at all.
John W : I don’t really know, I don’t know much about Seaview.
John L : I don’t know of anybody who fished in Seaview. Not many in St Helen’s really. It was mainly because of Bembridge Ledge was a good breeding ground and hiding for shellfish.
Lisa : Can you tell me a bit about the boats in those days, the fishing boats? What were they like?
John L : Pot boats. Everybody had their pot boat, about 15 or 16-foot-long. Originally had sail and rowed, before they had motors, and those pots there you can see in the thing that each boat would hold 50. There’s a picture here John isn’t there? Of a boat with a net in it. [searches through photographs]. There look, like that.
Lisa : OK.
John L : That’s down the Harbour.
John W : That’s the Mercer’s.
Lisa : So, what’s this here?
John L : That’s the net. They used to row with big long oars.
John W : They used to row standing up.
John L : No motor.
Lisa : So, you’d row … can you just sort of describe the process to me from start to finish? So, you’d row out with your …
John L : Net. You’ve got two anchors. You’d chuck one anchor over with a buoy on it so you knew where it was, then one would row and the other one would ease it out over the back, ‘till you got it tight, and then you’d drop the other anchor with a buoy on it and leave it overnight. Normally you’d catch more fish at night time. I could only catch prawns at night time. I suppose that was … I don’t know, when was that John?
John W : Oh, that’s 1890’s.
Lisa : Do you know any of the people in that photo, who they are?
John L : Not personally no (laughs). I think they’re long gone. It’s probably down the Point because it’s probably Mursells …
John W : Yes, Mursells, yeah.
John L : … ‘cos they used to work from different places you see. Mursells was down the Harbour.
John W : One of my aunties married a Mursell and … but he was a Carpenter (laughs).
Lisa : How old were you when you started fishing?
John L : Well, professionally, I always had a boat ‘cos I was in the Navy and then I came out and went professional fishing, but doing it for a living I was 40, but before then I always had a boat and always had pots and nets and things so when I was on leave or over Portsmouth, I used to do it. We used to have trots when we were boys. A trot is a long line with baited hooks on and we used to put them down.
John W : Do you remember we went out in your punt once. We set a trot out by the Fort, Bembridge and St Helen’s Fort and we set this trot, John set it, and John rowed out there and pulled this stuff in and there was a massive great spider crab on the end of it.
John L : He wouldn’t pull it in the boat, he had hanging over the back on the way in (laughs)
John W : It must have been about … well, it was huge wasn’t it? It must have been about six-foot-long when we spread it out on the beach.
John L : We used to have some fun as kids. We was always on the beach in the summer.
20 minutes 17 seconds
Lisa : Who built those pot boats?
John L : Well, there was a bloke down Forelands used to build ‘em. Mine, I had two and they were built by Coombs, round the Embankment. I don’t know who else built them.
John W : The Butler brothers at Forelands. They were very good boatbuilders and I know my good friend at Shanklin, they used to get their boats from Mr Butler.
John L : I think that was the main one for pot boats. It was a sort of a standard Bembridge design. Yeah, everybody had one boat each.
Lisa : Where did you keep them?
John L : Mine was down by the Lifeboat Pier, anchored, moored off and then you had a dinghy to go out to it, so you could go in and out at any state of the tide. That’s the only problem with fishing from the Harbour, you can’t get in and out all tides, you’ve got about two hours either side of high water, otherwise you can’t get out.
John W : Did you have penners?
John L : Penners, yeah. If you had too many lobsters, or you didn’t have a sale for them, you used to have a big pot with a lid on the top and put the lobsters in and keep them until you wanted them and they would be alongside your boat, or near you boat so you could go and get them if you wanted them.
John W : ‘Cos you had to put an elastic band round their claws.
John L : Yes, you put it round their claws, so they don’t fight. Yeah, those were the days.
Lisa : With the lobsters then, … do you bring them in live?
John L : Oh yeah, everything comes in live.
Lisa : So, what happens to them then?
John L : If you want to cook them, you stick them in boiling water.
John W : Yes, all cooked live.
John L : And crabs go into cold water and slowly bring to the boil. They reckon now that a kinder way for lobsters is to put them in a freezer for a quarter of an hour, so they doze off, before you put them into boiling water, but we never used to. Prawns go into boiling water, lobsters go into boiling water and crabs go into cold. If you put a crab into boiling water, he’ll throw his claws off so he wouldn’t be saleable.
John W : What’s the largest lobster?
John L : See they’ll live for about 50 years easy. But people don’t realise how long it takes a lobster and a crab to grow to size to be catchable. Everything’s got a size, you know, a permitted size, except prawns, but people don’t realise how long it takes from an egg to you know, catch them sizeable. When we were on holiday, we went to Padstow, on the Jetty, they’ve got a lobster hatchery where if the fishermen lands what they call a berried hen, a hen with eggs underneath it, they put it in a tank until it sheds it’s eggs, and then they give the lobster back to the fisherman, keep the eggs and when they hatch, they bring them on in little cells like this, and when they reach a certain size, they put it back in the sea. Nothing like that happens round here I’m afraid, but unfortunately its been over fished. Same as the North Sea was recently wasn’t it? They had bans on cod and thing like that. Well, this is overfished down here now. Wouldn’t you think John?
John W : Oh yes (laughs).
John L : We only used to have two dozen lobster pots each per man.
John W : Well, do you remember you told me the other day about Fitzsimmond’s boys …
John L : Spiggot. He’s got a 1000.
John W : A 1000 pots, but he had to steam three hours to the fishing grounds and three hours back again before he can get any fish. The Inshore has all gone now.
John L : But the trouble with that is its fuel costs, you know. Steaming three hours, going mid-Channel, three hours there and three hours back.
Lisa : So, when you started professionally in your 40’s, after you left the Navy, did you still have one of those traditional pot boats?
John L : Yeah, I had two.
Lisa : That was what you used.
John L : Yes, I had one built in 1970 and I had another one built in 1977. They were built by a local boatbuilder down here.
John W : Alan Coombes, yes. ‘Sedgie’ built the first one and Roddy’s built the second one.
25 minutes
Lisa : And about how many fishermen were around the area then, in the ‘70’s?
John L : When I started, not many were there?
John W : No. Peter Smith.
John L : Peter Smith, Bob’s dad, I think Bert had finished hadn’t he?
John W : What about Mr Banister then?
John L : No, he finished a long … he had a hut next door to George’s down Under Tyne. Lived in ‘Swains Villa’.
John W : He was still fit rowing a boat when he was in his 90’s.
John L : Yeah well so was he.
John W : I’d lost any thought of rowing standing up.
John L : That Widness chap told me, this is Ashford Caws, he taught me these pots one winter and I was as proud as Punch, you know. He said, “Now I’ve shown you how to make ‘em, I suppose you want me to show you where to put them. So, I said to him, “You can come out in the boat with me.” He was 90 and he come out in the boat with me and he used to row, thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Lisa : So, is there quite an art to making the pots then?
John L : Yeah, I think I’m the only one on the Island that can do it. I’ve seen them on the television making lobster pots down the West Country similar to what we used to make but the trouble is you couldn’t do one indoors. I make these indoors in here in the winter, but a lobster pot is so big and where they are six feet long, you couldn’t do anything in here, so you got to do it outside. And the only difference is I buy those in because where we had withy beds, they’ve been built on, been sold and built on, so I buy those. They’re basket making willows from Somerset and the only problem is, you have to soak them to make them pliable and if you’re doing it in the summer, they dry out quick and you’ve got to keep on soaking and soaking but they make a decent pot. A friend of mine whose nephew is a farmer on the Mainland somewhere, and she comes up for a haircut now and again and she said, “My nephew, he’s got a river running through his farmland and he wants to catch crayfish. Do you reckon your pots would do it?” So, I said, “Well we can only give it a try” so I’m making up some for him to take to wherever he is. I don’t know where he lives, do you Jackie?
Jackie No, I’m not sure.
John L : And he’s going to give them a try, but I’m going to try and preserve them before I have them but as I can’t get tar, I’m going to try this fence panel preservative. Try and dip them in that and see if that will do. So, we’ll see what happens.
Lisa : How old is this tradition then?
John L : Gosh, for ever isn’t it? They don’t have the netting and stuff like that we’ve got these days. Must go back hundreds of years, mustn’t it?
John W : I imagine they used to make their own nets but latterly in the sort of 1920’s and 30’s, they used to get the nets from Bridport and they used to come in by sea to Chaplain’s at St Helen’s Quay, because I got some invoices at home from I think it’s the actual ones that we used to get them from Bridport. They had to maintain them of course when they got snagged or broken.
John L : Yeah, I used to buy gear from Bridport.
Lisa : How long does a pot last?
John L : It all depends on the weather and all sorts of things, but lobster pots weren’t dipped in tar, they were just bare so they possibly … it all depends if you had a blow or you got a big crab in there and he decided he wanted to bite his way out. Lobster pots wouldn’t last as long as shrimp pots. A shrimp pot, you might be lucky and get three years out of it with repair, so you always had to make new ones in the winter to just keep the numbers up. And then you had to wait for a hot day in August to tar them because otherwise it would clog, so you wanted a hot day and hot tar and used to have, you know the old water tanks you used to have in your roof, put the tar in, fire underneath and then you had a corrugated sheet running down and it had to be a hot day and then you dipped them and then you put them on the corrugated sheet and the surplus tar would run back into the thing. It was a horrible time.
Lisa : Do you sell your pots now then?
John L : I sell miniature ones. I still make miniature lobster pots, but Jackie’s daughter has been running the Lifeboat View café and she’s had a few down there and her son runs the Barge on Fisherman’s Walk which sells crabs and lobsters, but they haven’t sold many this year. They’ll have to get their buck up.
29 minutes 56 seconds
Lisa : So how has the technology changed nowadays then, how do they catch their crabs and lobsters now?
John L : They’ve got all metal framed pots with netting on it. You’ll probably see them hanging around in people’s front gardens that have been washed ashore.
John W : Well, there’s one family you’ve forgotten to mention so far with fish nets, the Holbrooks.
John L : Who is that? Oh, we did mention Bob didn’t we?
John W : Graham’s son. Graham’s people, you know. Holbrooks were …
John L : Oh Harry Holbrook. Well he worked with Archer didn’t he?
John W : Yes, that’s another one we forgot to mention. They fished from Ducie?
John L : Well, where the Sailing Club started, Fisherman’s Gully. But he worked on his own a lot of the time, Harry Holbrook.
Lisa : How was the fishing regulated then?
John L : Well, you always had a Fishery Officer who could check on what you were selling and if it was the right size. It was normally a local chap. I think Freddy James was at one time, Brian’s father, and another thing that the Fishery Officer used to do, you know cormorants? Well he eats about seven pound of fish a day, little fish. So, what they used to do, they used to pay fishermen or pay anybody to kill cormorants and they used to give him so much a head. I think it was half a crown a head. You’d chop the head of the cormorant. Lucky if you could find one dead on the beach (laughs) but that’s what they used to do because they ate so much of the small stuff and I suppose they still do.
John W : They still do, yeah.
John L : I don’t think you’d get half a crown a head for them now.
John W : There’s [inaudible] now.
John L : There’s no boats down there now. There used to be a dozen or more down by the Lifeboat Station, all gone. Not one down there now. It’s only ‘cos they’ve … I can still catch prawns but that’s the only thing you’d get, make any money at. Nobody catches prawns any more, they don’t bother.
Lisa : How did the weather affect your work?
John L : Desperately, you know. East wind you were buggered up, you know?
Lisa : So, were there certain times when you just couldn’t go out?
John L : Weatherwise, yeah, blowing a gale and of course you tended to lose gear you know.
Lisa : ‘Cos if you couldn’t get back out to get your pots in?
John L : No, well sometimes you had to pull the boat ashore if it was that bad and so your pots were still out there, so they might stay there two or three days and then you’d hope they’d be there when you went out next time.
Lisa : Do you remember any times in particular that stick in your mind that the weather was very bad? Big storms or anything like that?
John L : Not that I can remember that stopped me fishing. Well not for a long time. Odd two or three days perhaps when it became easterly but other than that I can’t remember a lot of time. But we never used to do it in the winter when it used to blow you see?
John W : Would you call winkling a form of fishing?
John L : I don’t know, I suppose so. I used to go oystering.
Lisa : Oh, tell me a bit more about that.
John L : Well, everybody used to pack up potting in about November and then they started, I think years ago there used to be oysters in Osborne Bay and then nobody bothered for ages and ages and then all of a sudden they decided that was quite a lot of oysters in Osborne Bay. I bought another boat for oystering and we used to fish from November to Christmas, we used to fish off Seaview on the Warner Bank for oysters. Lovely oysters out there but then after Christmas you used to go to Cowes and fish in Osborne Bay all the winter until March, I suppose. And then a chap used to come from Southampton and buy the oysters. Pay you cash there and then.
Lisa : How much did they sell for?
John L : Quite a lot of money they were. I can’t remember exactly how much but a fair bit.
Lisa : And how do you catch an oyster?
John L : It’s like a trawl, it’s a metal framed trawl with netting on it and it just scrapes along the bottom. It just skims the bottom like that. You get a lot of rubbish as well with it.
Lisa : Did you have a different type of boat for doing that?
John L : Yeah, a bigger one.
John W : With an outboard then, you didn’t row there.
John L : My oyster boat had big diesel in it and then you have two trawls, one on either side.
35 minutes 15 seconds
John W : But there was one family members who made their living from collecting winkles and that’s the Etheridge family and they used to go winkling off Lane End and they used to sell the winkles to Portsmouth, and they’d be out there in all weathers, the whole family…
John L : The whole family went out.
John W : … and they most probably made a lot of money from it (laughs), I don’t know, but that was the Etheridge family. That was in the 1960’s?
John L : Oh, doing it when I was fishing.
John W : They did it for many years.
Lisa : Do you pick winkles?
John L : You pick ‘em up.
John W : Yeah, you pick ‘em up, hard work.
John L : Only when there’s an ‘R’ in the month.
John W : That’s true.
John L : You could only pick winkles when there’s a ‘R’ in the month because the rest of the time they’re breeding, and cockles is the other way round. You could only have cockles when there’s not an ‘R’ in the month, in the summer.
John W : And that’s hard work too.
John L : That’s breaking.
John W : Oh dreadful. You rake at low tide, with a rake (laughs). St Helen’s is a very good place for that, St Helen’s beach.
Lisa : And did either of you do that?
John W : Oh, for a hobby (laughs). I didn’t but …
John L : No, I never did it for a living. My son used to go to the Harbour and do cockles and he used to cook ‘em up and put them in vinegar and sell ‘em round the pubs. There you go. Are you an Island girl?
Lisa : Umm, not really (laughs).
John L : That means no.
Lisa : Let me just come back to something you mentioned there. Any superstitions around fishing. You mentioned about the ‘R’ in the month or not the ‘R’ in the month.
John L : Well, that’s only conservation that is. No, I don’t have any superstitions really.
John W : Did you fish on Sundays? Never fished on Sundays did you?
John L : Yeah, you could fish on Sundays, fish every day of the week.
Lisa : Have you ever had any accidents in your fishing career? Touch wood.
John L : Only cuts and things like that and hooks in your foot. It’s only a minor detail, no big ones.
John W : There are several fishermen round the coast were drowned. In the summer, they used to take visitors out for it, joy rides, fishing and what have you. John’s got a photograph over there of one of the men who did die and that was Bert Baker’s brother. He was taking a couple of fishermen out for a day and he fell overboard and drowned.
John L : ‘Cos they you used to wear, well I did as well, huge oil skin coats and thigh boots, you know, right up to here, if you went over the side you were … there was no way you’d come up again. But I never wore a lifejacket all the time I was fishing.
Lisa : Can you swim?
John L : Yeah, I can swim. I don’t know about now (laughs).
Lisa : Tell me a bit more about these oilskins.
John L : Well they’re just long oilskin coats, heavy as lead and big thigh boots up to here.
Lisa : Where did you get them from?
John L : Well I think you got … Copperking used to sell thigh boots, I’m not sure. I can’t really remember where the stuff came from.
John W : We had some sailmakers in the village. We had a man called Mr Attrill who had a shop down on the Point, and he made sails, and then latterly Mr Coombes started from St Helen’s. He made sails for people didn’t he for the fishermen.
John L : Ginger, my mate. He was in the Navy with me.
John W : Yeah, Ginger. It was only a side-line to help the fishermen out and used to get your supplies from this Mr Attrill as well. What was I going to say? Oh, were the fishermen allowed to fish during the War?
John L : Yes they did. That’s why they had those gaps in …
John W : I know but I read from the Lifeboat sort of point of view, they weren’t allowed out without Admiralty permission. I just wondered if the fish …
John L : Well I know Ashford fished during the War.
John W : A lot of the local fishermen joined the Lifeboat didn’t they? Alan Holbrook was on the Lifeboat. He’s just left as Cox of the Lifeboat. Who else?
40 minutes 16 seconds
Lisa : What time would this have been John?
John W : Well I mean Alan Holbrooks and the Bakers, they’ve been on the Lifeboat for generations.
John L : A family run …
John W : Did we mention the Bakers as fishermen? [telephone rings]
John L : The first one that I remember having anything to do with was the ‘Jesse Lumb’ which is now coming back to the Island from Duxford. It’s been at Duxford which is a RAF Museum. ‘Cos I was speaking to Streaky the other day and he said its on the way back, so it’s been preserved and it’s coming back to the Island. That was the first motor Lifeboat I think wasn’t it John?
John W : No, the ‘Langham’ was the first motor Lifeboat.
John L : ‘Jesse Lumb’ was the first boat I can remember.
John W : That took over from the ‘Langham’. The ‘Langham’ was the first motor one. They had the Pier built to house it, the ‘Langham’ and then I don’t … what was after the ‘Jesse Lumb’ but she did all the War service, the ‘Jesse Lumb’ with Bert Baker as Coxswain. The crew was summoned by maroons. They were fired, one from the Coast Guard and one from Weaver’s Yard weren’t they. They raised the crew …
John L : Before they had these pagers, they say they used to get the blokes to come.
John W : The maroons were a sort of two-way thing. To call the crew and also to tell the people at sea that they had been recognised they were in danger. That stopped, I don’t know when that stopped.
John L : They’ve got pagers I think.
John W : Yeah, they’ve got pagers. That’s all sort of high tech now.
Lisa : Do you remember any, when you were boys, do you remember any ship wrecks, any ships in trouble, any stories related to that?
John L : When was the ‘Empress Queen’?
John W : Oh that’s 1st World War.
John L : ‘Aragansit’?
John W : That was 1st World War.
John L : Oh, we had a submarine up on the Ledge.
John W : Oh that was way afterwards, that was 1970’s.
John L : No, not very close. Round the other end of the Island, there were loads round Atherfield and round Brook and places like that.
John W : I know after the War at Ducie Beach where John had his beach hut, there was two wrecks brought ashore that they’d cleared from the Channel and they stayed there for a long time didn’t they?
John L : Yeah, one was a private yacht, steel built, and the other was a Landing Craft.
John W : We went out on a boat from the Harbour didn’t we? You weren’t supposed to go out.
John L : Well we used to go on it ‘cos the gun on it still used to turn.
John W : Yes, it swivelled. But I can remember the lead up to ‘D’ Day. I expect you can as well, can you? Because we used to go down to the Harbour in the school holidays of course, and the Harbour was literally full up with Landing Craft. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
John L : But we had a lot of …
John W : Soldiers were everywhere. We had two billeted with us.
John L : And I lived at the top of the road. We didn’t have any, but Sally Woods did, they had Canadians billeted with them.
John W : We had a couple of Welshmen and they were sleeping in tents all over the place and up above were German spy planes, way up above, you know. And how they never twigged that something was going on I do not know because the Solent was absolutely full up with shipping. Dozens and dozens of them weren’t there. And then one day they’d all gone. That was ‘D’ Day. Surprise, surprise, it worked out alright.
Lisa : That was interesting what you were saying about how the fishing still happened during the War.
John L : Oh yeah. Well, they had to make a living didn’t they? That’s all they knew, they didn’t know anything else. Ashford never did anything in the winter other than make new pots. I suppose he survived on the takings from the Tea Garden.
John W : Yeah, he had a well in his back kitchen didn’t he?
John L : A what?
John W : A well did he?
John L : Yeah, in the kitchen, underneath the floor because he used to do … he was quite a keen gardener and if the Bembridge Horticultural Society Show was coming on and he had some nice runner beans but they were a week early, he used to put them on a cabbage leaf on a thing and drop them down the well in his kitchen to keep them fresh, then pull them up on the day of the Show (laughs). And of course it was a scullery, a tin bath on the wall, they’d have a bath once a fortnight or whatever, it was pretty primitive. And whitewashed the step every day.
45 minutes 29 seconds
John W : Oh yes, she was the last … Mrs Caws was the last person I knew who used to whitewash her front doorstep which everybody used to do years ago didn’t they? Well, not everybody but a lot of people used to do it.
John L : But dinner was at 12 and tea was at 4 on the dot every day.
John W : The fire was never lit ‘till the evening.
John L : Well theirs was because they had a what they called a trivet where they used to put the kettle to keep it hot after it had boiled. There you go.
Lisa : What were the houses like that you grew up in? Did they have running water or …?
John L : Yeah, mine was new up at the top of the road here. Dad built it in 1932. This road was gradually built from this end. This house was built in 1926 and they gradually went up the road and when they got to the top, I suppose 100 yards up the road, was where I lived. It was brand new and it even had a bathroom ‘cos Jackie lived down next to the Pilot Boat and she didn’t have a bathroom. Had to go next door for a bath and she slept three stories up and the toilet was out in the yard at the back (laughs) so she had the bloody rats and all that sort of thing in the middle of the night. She said you learnt how to hold it (laughs).
Lisa : And what about the house you grew up in John?
John W : I spent all my childhood in Dennett Road which is in the village.
John L : That was modernish, 1919 was it?
John W : That was built in 1890’s I suppose. We had an outdoor toilet, but …
John L : Well this was outdoor toilet at one time.
John W : Yes, but father had a conservatory built over it so it was indoors. Bathroom, you had to go through a bedroom to get to it.
John L : We were posher than that (laughs).
Lisa : What about electricity? When did that come?
John L : We always had that, although there was gas fitted in this place when I moved in, the pipes were sticking out the wall.
Lisa : What about telephone?
John L : Well we were Bembridge 254.
John W : We had a telephone ‘cos we had a Butcher’s Shop. Ours was Bembridge 17. Of course, we has a switchboard in those days. You went through a lady called Mrs Barclay.
John L : She knew all your business (laughs) ‘cos you phoned up and she plugged you in to somebody so she could listen to what you were saying.
John W : Obviously she did the nights sometimes and Terry told us the other day about … “I expect you’re listening in Mrs Barclay.” “Oh no I’m not” she said.
John L : Because my cousin is also … we all went to the local school, Terry Weaver’s the local Builder come Undertaker. He used to ring me up, ‘you might not like the language too much’.
Lisa : Can you tell me about some of the shops and businesses in the village when you were young?
John L : Well John will tell you about them.
John W : When I was a boy, we had three Butcher’s Shops. There was Jordan’s in the lower part of the High Street, ours was in the middle part of the High Street and the Preston’s were above us, further up the High Street. We had three Bakers. We had Mr Chick, Mr Pocock, Mr Ridditch. We had lots of people who made home-made cakes, the village was mostly sort of … you could buy most things. If you didn’t have the things you wanted, you asked the Carrier to get them from Newport, you didn’t go yourself, you asked the Carrier to go. You gave him a list and if mother wanted a pair of bloomers or something, that’s what the Carrier did. He went to Newport to get it for you.
John L : A sweetshop and tobacconist, a haberdashery …
John W : There was a Hairdresser’s.
John L : And they had a Shoe Shop.
John W : We had two Chemists, one run by John’s grandfather, Mr Smith, and the other one was by Ben Harris who came from …
John L : Yeah, there was only one ‘til Ben Harris came.
John W : Ahh, what else did we have down there? Vegetables, we had two …
John L : Grocery Shops…
John W : … two Greengrocer’s Shops …
John L : … you had Southgates and Rivets and Tom Jacobs the Greengrocer.
Lisa : Could you buy any of fish that you were catching or that fishermen were catching at that time in the village?
John L : There was no Fish Shop in the village at that time. John Cox originally came didn’t he? Eventually came …
John W : Yes, in 1930, Les Morris he was the Fish Shop …
John L : There is one now but that’s only recent. When we’re talking about all those shops, three Bakers and three Butchers, there was only a few people living here, compared to what there is now.
John W : Yeah, but they used to bake twice a day because it didn’t keep in those days and … where were we?
50 minutes 47 seconds
John W : We had Ships Chandlers, I suppose you call Frank a Ships Chandler.
John L : Who?
John W : Frank Attrill?
John L : Yeah. And there was Caldrey’s, sold everything.
John W : Caldrey’s, he had what they called an Emporium, that was in the High Street.
John L : You could buy anything there couldn’t you? Tar, paraffin, anything you like. Oh, a Hairdresser, Gent’s Hairdresser, Ladies’ Hairdresser, Killercoot.
John W : Yes and there was Mary Lou round the corner.
John L : We had everything here actually.
Lisa : What about the pubs?
John L : Oh yeah, plenty of them. Plenty of pubs.
John W : Starting in the village, we had the ‘Village Inn’ and then we go down to the Harbour and we had three down there, we had the ‘Pilot Boat’, ‘Marine’ and the ‘Smugglers’. The next one we come to would be the Burdham Hotel, this is now the ‘Spinnaker’ Hotel and then we had one out the Forelands called the ‘Crab and Lobster’.
John L : The big one!
John W : Umm, you could go … take a jug round to the ‘Village Inn’ and they had a little window up the side there, you could have a jug of beer, and I think it was still about one penny a pint when we were children, wasn’t it?
John L : Umm?
John W : About a penny a pint or tuppence.
John L : The ‘Crab’, Highbury, down here, Greg Poore’s
John W : Yeah, that was a long time afterwards wasn’t it?
John L : Garfield, Ray Poore … yeah there were quite a few pubs. There was more pubs then than there is now.
John W : Hotels, we had the ‘Spit Head’ Hotel, we had the ‘Elms’ Hotel, the ‘Highburg’ Hotel, ‘Bembridge House’ Hotel, and a lot of people did bed and breakfast and most of the big houses in Foreland Road were bed and breakfast.
John L : I know of two now, one out Forelands and one up the village.
John W : Yes, there was the sort of Spanish holidays that gave bed and breakfast in Bembridge sort of died out. We’ve now got ‘second homers’.
John L : Well, I think what happened was the people stopped coming to the Island because they could get just as cheap a holiday abroad, because when I was travelling to Portsmouth and back, early days, the 1960’s, used to have to work Saturday mornings and on Portsmouth Harbour Station there was a queue filled half the Station and on this side, the queue was halfway up Ryde Pier waiting for the Ferry, so that is the amount of people that used to come over.
Lisa : You mentioned there was a Passenger Ferry from Bembridge. Can you tell me about that?
John W : Yes, that started just after the Harbour was reclaimed in 1880. There was several ships there but the popular one was the ‘Bembridge’ which went from Bembridge, it stopped at Seaview and then it went over to Southsea, only during the summer months. They didn’t work in the winter. Mt grandfather worked on the ‘Bembridge’ until he was too old, and then he was … well, by the 1890’s, the Bembridge Harbour couldn’t be entered at low tide because it had silted up, so what they used to do, they used to take them round to a place called Under Tyne, which is off Bembridge, people had to walk there and be taken out by pinas to a boat that anchored offshore, and my grandfather used to drive the pinas there and back. It finished in about 1924, I think was the last time it was there, but only used during the summer months. We used to have a Ferry between Bembridge and St Helen’s…
John L : That’s there, behind your head.
John W : … which was stopped by bureaucrats in Europe because of Health and Safety, but it was run by the Attrill’s who lived on the Duver over St Helen’s most of the time and that Ferry goes back to … ooh, way back, centuries.
55 minutes 24 seconds
John L : The problem was that that Harbour has gradually silted up over the years and some of it comes from the river Yar, but when we were kids, there was a permanent Dredger in the Harbour called the ‘Ballaster’ and it went all the year round. I don’t know where it used to dump the stuff, but it had a big grab like this and it used to go all along, picking up all the stuff.
John W : Umm, just kept the channel free didn’t it?
John L : It was working all the time, steam driven, but now it’s full of houseboats and sand.
Lisa : Were there any houseboats there when you were young?
John L : Very few.
John W : Yes, there was one or two …
John L : The ‘Ark’.
John W : The ‘Ark’ was there. That was put there in 1908. That was the first one that was put there and that belonged to the Love family at the time . After the War, a lot more appeared. A lot of Landing Craft and there was MTB’s, Motor Torpedo Boats, but they were all spare and they could be bought quite cheaply. People bought them, put them on site and they made ideal holiday homes.
John L : The only trouble was the sewage.
John W : Which went straight into the Harbour.
John L : Now I think they’ve got to have these chemical toilets.
John W : Septic tanks, yes. I understand a plot down there now costs £90,000.
John L : Yes, the Harbour’s recently been bought by a business man and he’s … [interrupted by person unknown … ‘excuse me for the last time]
John L : I think most of them now have got these chemical toilets.
John W : The new ones have got to have got to be better. But of course, that encouraged rats and I was friendly with a family called Fulljames’s who had a Landing Craft as a houseboat down there and we used to sit there with the window open with an airgun and shooting rats sometimes, but they were big horrible things weren’t they?
John L : [calls out ‘Jackie’]
Jackie Yes.
John L : Keith’s just see a rat run across the top of the garden.
Jackie Have you?
John L : Do you want a coffee my love?
Jackie Yes.
John L : Jackie will tell you about the Station she used to live opposite. She used to get sent through a hole in the fence to pinch the coal (laughs).
Lisa : Where was the Station at Bembridge?
John L : Opposite the ‘Pilot Boat’
Jackie Know [inaudible] Cottage, ‘Pilot Boat’ Inn. It was there, just opposite.
John L : Where those flats are now.
Jackie There was a turntable and you turned the train round to go back again.
Lisa : Because that was the end of the line.
John L : Yeah, they’d put it on the turntable and two blokes pushed it round and it went back again on the other end.
Lisa : And what was the Station like? Was there a Ticket Office or a Waiting Room?
John W : Oh yes, we had W H Smith as well there.
Jackie Gosh, in Bembridge.
John L : They had a Baker’s Shop on there.
John W : And they had those machines where you could print your own name on a bit of foil, remember that?
John L : That’s right, stamp it out.
Jackie That’s the Station.
John W : And Nestle’s chocolate.
John L : Jackie used to live just here you see, and all this was lumps of coal and so she was sent through the fence to nick the coal.
Jackie I was only five (laughs).
Lisa : It looks a bit like Brading doesn’t it, the architectural style of it.
John W : I think all the Stations looked the same, ‘cos St Helen’s Station House is still there, that’s similar.
Lisa : And that’s the Hotel behind.
Jackie Spit Head.
Lisa : So, how much did it cost for a ticket to get anywhere then?
John W : I think a return to Brading from Bembridge was about six pence.
John L : It was two and eight pence ha’penny on a boat from Portsmouth to Ryde.
John W : Jackie’s dad used to look after people’s bikes where the workmen used to go to work on the train, you could leave your bike at Jackie’s house in a sort of little fenced off area. When the train came in, ‘course it didn’t go out straight away again, there was half an hours wait before the next train went, so what happened was the Engine Driver and Mate, they used to drink in the ‘Pilot Boat’, and the Guard and the other chap used to drink at the ‘Row Barge’ which was just across the road, and then when it was time to go, the Station Master used to ring a bell, five minutes before the train was leaving so to give them a chance to get back to their jobs (laughs). It was a leisurely cycle and my stepsister was married to a man called Bill Fallender and he was a train driver from Bembridge, and I had the honour one day of being allowed on the engine when he was on duty down there.
1 hour 39 seconds
Lisa : What time was the first train then and what time was the last train?
John L : Well the first train was fairly early ‘cos the boats used to go to Ryde to catch the Ferry, the Navy boats. First train Jack?
John W : 7 o’clock?
Jackie I don’t remember. Joe went on the last one and I can’t remember what date.
John W : Of course getting all the railway tracks on the Island you know were turned in to footpaths now. That one is from Brading to Bembridge. From St Helen’s to Bembridge is a footpath. It’s just clogged up by whatshername, Mrs Stratton at St Helen’s.
John W : You can’t get by there can you? As soon as they sold off the houses just afterwards, this is the problem. Well problem, it’s what happened.
John L : Well Mrs Stratton must have bought the Station.
John W : During my childhood, my grandparents lived in Shanklin, my grandfather was a Blacksmith up there, and I used to go up there perhaps once a week and sometimes I stayed the weekends. I would go up by train and I remember going up one particular weekend and that’s when Shanklin got bombed. I remember going down to see all the damage they did down there. But I didn’t travel very much by train. I didn’t go anywhere other than Shanklin. I never went to Ryde on a train, I never went to Cowes.
Lisa : So, life was very much centred in Bembridge.
John W : Oh yeah, if you didn’t have to go …
John L : Nearly so much that they used to interbreed. Well, didn’t have that much transport. It was either walk of catch a bike if you had a young lady in St Helen’s or Brading wasn’t it?
John W : Oh you walked, yeah. My father, when he first started his apprenticeship in Mr Jordan’s Butchers Shop in the village, on the Tuesday he and another man would walk to Newport, buy cattle, and then walk them home again and then most probably when he got home, they would have to kill them. Now that took some doing (laughs).
Lisa : That was a tiring day.
John W : He said sometimes during the school holidays, some of the kids said, “Can we come with you mister?” so they used to sort of get help. The kids just used to walk for the pleasure of walking, you know, somewhere to go. And also, my father was on reserve occupation during the 1st World War and once a month he and lots of other chaps from Bembridge, they had to march to Newtown, to fire 12 rounds of ammunition from a rifle and then march back home again. Newtown is a long walk. I mean that’s what you did in those days, you walked.
Jackie There was also a ‘beastly day’.
John W : That’s why they were so short (last).
Jackie (laughs) They were so short. Yeah, didn’t grow very big. Now they’re growing big.
Lisa : Did you get out to many other places on the Island John, when you were younger, or was it just Bembridge?
John L : Not really, no.
John W : You went to Ryde if you were to school.
John L : Well, I used to go to … on Sundays we used to … Terry and I used to cycle to Brading ‘cos our grandparents owned the ‘Wheatsheaf’ in Brading, and we used to cycle there and play shove ha’penny. I think we used to go on Sundays after the pub had closed because it used to close at half past two or something like that.
Jackie I’m showing her the pots.
John L : That would be used for the beginning of the season. That’s got a five-inch cove for big prawns and crab. That would be used from March to the beginning of June, and then the smaller one … the smaller one’s smaller … and that would be used for shrimps.
Lisa : OK, So, once they’re in, they can’t get out.
John L : Well, if they’re lucky they can get out.
Lisa : So, tell me a bit about the bait.
John L : Salt fish normally. We used to salt mackerel and salt herring.
John W : But when bait was short, we used to have fishermen come up … chicken’s heads…
John L : Chicken’s heads, yes.
John W : … and things like that. Anything to put in, anything that we didn’t want, instead of throwing it away, you’d stick it …
John L : Another thing they used to use would you believe, is gorse in flower.
John W : Do they?
John L : ‘Cos most prawns and lobsters go by smell, even though they’re under water and obviously gorse has got something that attracts them. It was a prickly job putting it in the pot.
1 hour 5 minutes 10 seconds
John L : They used to try and catch enough to salt down, you know, to use ‘cos salt bait was the best for lobsters and prawns, but fresh bait for crabs. When I was fishing in the spring, we always used to have a net out permanently and we used to do the net first and any fish you had in them you would use for bait for the crab. Fresh fish is ideal for crab. But, those were the days.
John W : Food was different too in those days. The bread, as I said before, didn’t keep did it? You couldn’t use it next day unless you toasted it or something and it was all much greyer wasn’t it?
John L : The flour I suppose.
John W : The flour, yes, I suppose it was. They say people were healthier but there was lots of things that people suffered with in those days that they don’t now, such as boils. I mean boils was a dreadful thing, large …
John L : At the back of your neck and you used to put a bucket of …
John W : … Oh they was awful and people always used to suffer … a lot of people used to suffer from earache. That’s because they lived in draughty houses I suppose, I don’t know, but you don’t hear of people having earache nowadays. Most of those things have gone by the board haven’t they?
Lisa : We were talking about the shops and businesses in Bembridge. What about the Doctor?
John L : Oh, he came from Ryde, my Doctor, Doctor Docray.
John W : Doctor Docray. It was all private in those days, you paid.
John L : There was no National Health.
John W : Paid in kind sometimes. You swopped a visit for a dozen eggs or whatever, you know. I think it was two and six a time wasn’t it?
John L : I don’t know if we were … I was sort of privileged ‘cos grandfather was a Chemist, obviously close to the Doctor, but I always had Doctor Docray. He came out in his old car.
Lisa : So, the Doctor would come to you? There wasn’t a Surgery in Bembridge then?
John L : No, not then.
John W : We had a Doctor Clough who lived in Foreland Road, and he was a private Doctor of course, but he was the village Doctor for many years, and he would treat people at your own homes most probably. I remember my dad took me fishing just after the War ‘cos you weren’t allowed to fish in the Harbour. He showed me how to throw a fishing line out, you know, and somehow he got a fish hook right through his finger, and I had to take father up to Doctor Clough. And Doctor Clough made me sit down and watch him how to do it in case I needed to do it …
John L : Cut the barb off first.
John W : … in the future. Father had to be given brandy (laughs). He wasn’t very good.
Lisa : Was there … you might know this Jackie, was there a local Midwife?
John W : Oh yes. Yes, there was.
Jackie Mrs Jacobs was it?
John L : No, she was the ‘layer outer’.
Jackie Oh, she was the ‘layer outer’ (laughs).
John L : They was in competition. There was two of them that used to ‘lay out’. I can’t remember a Midwife.
John W : Oh, we had a permanent Midwife. She lived in Newtown.
John L : Who was that then?
John W : Nurse Newton I think it was. Yes, we’ve always had a Midwife.
Lisa : Because babies were born at home often weren’t they back then?
John L : Oh yeah, mostly. Well both mine weren’t in Hospital. Ian was born up the road and Stephen was born in his auntie’s house in Ryde somewhere. I think she was a Midwife, or retired Midwife or something.
John W : There wasn’t a Dentist. We had school Dentists in those days. We also had a Mr Scotley.
John L : The School Nurse used to inspect you didn’t she? That was to see if you had nits.
Jackie Would you like a piece of cake?
John L : Yeah, homemade.
Jackie We’ve got lemon or fruit.
John L : You’ve got lemon or fruit.
Lisa : Oh, fruit please. Can’t say no to that. [recording pauses]. Tell me about some of the sort of local names for different places in Bembridge.
John L : Well, Down Point is where Jack used to live, next to the ‘Pilot Boat’. All that area is Down Point.
John W : Up Street.
John L : Up Street is in the village.
John W : Up on Downs.
John L : Yeah. And then ‘Over Goose’ is St Helen’s, it’s Goose Island.
Lisa : Why is it known as ‘Goose Island’?
John L : ‘Cos they used to have geese on the Green up there. They used to have a flock of geese running wild up there. If you come in to … I don’t know if the sign is still there, somebody nicked it didn’t they?
John W : It’s still there.
John L : Oh it’s still there. If you come up in to St Helen’s from Ryde, just as you come up to the beginning of St Helen’s there’s a notice on there that says St Helen’s and there’s geese on it.
1 hour 10 minutes 24 seconds
John W : Used to go ‘Round Harbour’.
John L : ‘Round the Bank’ is round the Embankment Road. ‘Dustbin Corner’ ‘cos when we had motorbikes, there’s a fairly sharp bend half way round there and we used to run out of road and of course we run into a row of dustbins that belonged to the houseboats.
John W : We used to have a Toll Gate in the village once upon a time. You had to pay to get into the village and that was situated down where the ‘Toll Gate’ café is now, down by the Harbour and I think it was a penny for a pedestrian and six pence for a car.
Lisa : How long did that run until then?
John L : Well that belonged to … because the Southern Railway paid for the Embankment Road, so they wanted to get a few bob back.
John W : I think the Isle of Wight County Council bought them out in about the 1970’s and it stopped then.
John L : But I don’t … by the time they paid the bloke who collected the money, I don’t think they had much money to go back. Especially when Sam Watkins was on there. As soon as he had enough for a pint, he was over the pub.
Lisa : We’re there any characters when you were kids growing up in the village?
John W : Oh yes, far more than there are … well there are most probably characters about now, I don’t know.
John L : John Coal?
John W : [inaudible] Dyer. I suppose you’d call Arthur Weaver a character wasn’t he?
John L : What was the name Broom who had his bike called ‘Trigger’? Eric Broom. Dunno. They all had nicknames.
John W : Yes, people had nicknames, yeah. John’s name was ‘Piglet’, my name was ‘Ginger’.
John L : Obviously.
John W : Umm, ‘Widdly Weaver’. Who else was there?
John L : Only one of our crowd of our age, village boys had died. That’s Quilly isn’t it? All the rest are still plodding on. Terry, Roy Wheeler.
John W : Red Lacey’s gone.
John L : Went to see John yesterday.
John W : Oh did you?
John L : Yeah, he’s up and about. There’s not many locals left. And what we find when we go round the village, I always … I’ve got a little buggy, I don’t drive anymore, and you go along, and you say, “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” to people, they don’t answer you, they just look at you. That never used to happen when we were kids. Everybody knew you and everybody said, “Good morning” but they don’t now.
Lisa : Do you think the sense of community is different now?
John L : It’s gone. Well, this road, John lives at the top of the road. In this road there’s me, there’s Vick Barratt, there’s Orf and Broomy and that’s all the locals there are in the whole road.
John W : There’s Malvin Dennet … Malcom’s lad.
John L : I suppose he is. Well, he returned to the village didn’t he? There’s not many locals left.
John W : There’s a few spread around the village …
John L : You can soon tell when you go to a local funeral. You know, they all come out the woodwork.
Lisa : You still like living in Bembridge?
John L : I’ve been all over the world my gal, and I’ve always come home. I’ve been everywhere.
Lisa : You speak to lots of people and the Island has this sort of special hold over you.
John L : Why do I always come home? The only place in the world I never went, I wanted to go, was Japan, but other than that I’ve been everywhere. There was a program on this morning about the Falkland Islands. Well I was down there … I left there 45 years ago and there was a program on about … it’s called ‘An Island Parish’ I don’t know if you’ve seen it before, and it hasn’t changed much. There’s 500 more people live there now than when I was there.
John W : I only left the Island for two years when I did my National Service and I never go to Hampshire, although (laughs) I wanted to, I wanted to travel but I was going to the Suez crisis but that was called off at the last minute. I was going to Malaya but that was called off (laughs). I never got anywhere. The farthest I got was a place called Barton Stacey which is just outside Winchester, so I didn’t get much chance to travel.
1 hour 15 minutes 24 seconds
John L : I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I keep on saying about buying a bungalow but who’d get rid of all my junk. You haven’t seen what’s in my workshop. Need a bloody full lorry to get rid of that.
John W : Oh, we haven’t mentioned Builders have we? We had lots of good Builders in the village. We had the Loves, and we had the Weavers, we had the Nightingales, we had the Staples. They were all …
John L : Arthur Dallimore.
John W Dallimore, John [inaudible]. Loves, they’ve been the longest establishment I think. They had a very good set of Carpenters and Bricklayers and that, and Bembridge has always been known for its quality of workmen. And it still exists today in places doesn’t it?
John L : I think Bembridge started growing in about …
John W : 1820.
John L : … when they started like building this road and the 1920’s I suppose when they were busy. Well, they built your road, Dennett Road, I think mother told me they tarmacked the road in 1919, or something like that. There’s not much work for the Builders now ‘cos Bembridge is full up. Not much spare room left. It’s like lots of places on the Island isn’t it? Full up. They want to keep on building, but the roads can’t cope, the Hospital can’t cope. I phoned up about a Doctors appointment over St Helen’s. Three months. I could be dead by then couldn’t I? That’s not good. There’s too many people. Mind you, the majority of Bembridge is old people. There’s not many kids. There’s two kids over the road here and I don’t know if there are any kids up your road?
John W : Well, our kids children (laughs). No, we’re all old wrinklies up our road.
John L : There’s two children over the road and that’s it round here.
Lisa : So what about these people who have a second home in Bembridge then?
John L : Loads of them.
Lisa : When did that sort of start becoming popular?
John L : Oh, I don’t really know. There’s always been gentry in the village that had houses here, but they came down in the summer but people … lots of houses now have been sold as second homes you know. Like this one here is, next door. And what they do is they buy it and to pay for the rates they let it out occasionally.
John W : I suppose it started coming in in the 1980’s really.
John L : I’m not sure.
John W : We haven’t mentioned the gentry. When we were young, the gentry were the people who lived in the big houses and they employed Housekeepers, Washers Up, Gardeners and they basically sort of were the backbone of the village.
John L : My aunt was in service.
Lisa : Where were the big houses? What were they called?
John L : Well we called them ‘The Gentry’ which is the posh people. People with loads of money and they always had slaves, you know. As I say, my aunt was in service at ‘Chetwynd’ just up the top of the Hight Street.
Lisa : ‘Chetwynd’, is it still there?
John L : Yes, been built bigger.
John W : Some of my aunties worked for Tide Hall which is down past Ducie.
John L : There were loads of locals employed in these big houses like …
John W : Some of these houses had as many as four Gardeners because they had big gardens and perhaps they had a Scullery Maid and Upstairs Maid and what have you. There was also … can’t think of the name of then place now, down Ducie. ‘Hill Grove’ that’s … at one time there was a family called the Mortons who lived in Bembridge. They lived at ‘East Cliff’ from the 1820’s onwards and they had seven children. Six of them were daughters and at one time every daughter had a house in Ducie Avenue, which is a sort of premier avenue in the village wasn’t it? Their only son was killed in the 1st World War and they basically opened up Bembridge from the 1820’s onwards. They had the … what’s the big Hotel down at … the ‘Bembridge’ Hotel built in the 1820’s to encourage people to come to Bembridge and then all Bembridge was, was a collection of Hamlets. There was Lane End, there was Forelands, there was Hillway, there was the village and the Point area. In the middle there was nothing, just two houses I think, that’s all there was in the middle. Basically, it was an island, almost an island in those days as well. You still had to come to Bembridge through Yarbridge and slowly the village developed, brought people in. When they reclaimed the Harbour in the 1880’s, they had a big Hotel built and they bought the Railway and the Ferry Boat. Rich people started to come in the village for the sailing, the Sailing Club started, and the golf which was on the Duver and basically its always been a playhouse for rich people and so it remains today, basically.
John L : It still is. You see some of the houses that have been built and renovated lately, in the last few years. People wouldn’t believe the money they’ve spent, millions. Where do they get it all from? I want some.
John W : We’ve got the Managing Director of B&Q living in Bembridge, we’ve got all sorts of different people and the Managing Director’s wife of Morrisons.
John L : She’s the one you met…
John W : Mrs Potts.
John L : … the wife, Mrs Potts.
John W : There’s some big money in Bembridge.
John L : I don’t know … I think she’s separated, she’s got a new chap hasn’t she? He only earned £2.8 million last year so I expect she gets a little bit of that, don’t you?
John W : There’s lots of money hidden in Bembridge.
John L : It’s not in this house.
Lisa : It would be nice to have a look at those photos John, if that’s OK? Tell me a bit more about them.
John L : These are latchons. That’s me and my Tutor.
Lisa : So, about how old were you then?
John L : Umm (laughs) I don’t know. 1967, 30.
Lisa : OK.
John W : No, more than that.
Lisa : And this is Ashford Caws.
John L : Yes, and he had a brother called [inaudible], they worked together.
Lisa : And where are you?
John L : I’m in his back garden. There’s a big bay tree there but that’s where the Tea Garden used to be.
Lisa : And what’s the name of the house? Where is it?
John L It’s next to the ‘Village Inn’.
John W : That’s where my grandparents lived with 13 children.
John L : It’s after 1967, but that’s when he taught me how to make pots. I came home from the West Indies and I was home two years and then I went to Singapore, so it’s in that two years I should think. And he was 90 there. Had no teeth but he could eat anything (laughs).
Lisa : And Caws is …
John L : C A W S … a good old Island name.
John W : Lots of Caws in Seaview. The used to own Seaview once upon a time in [inaudible] and migrated to Bembridge.
John L : That’s outside the ‘Crab and Lobster’ down Foreland.
Lisa : And what are they holding here?
John L : Conger Eel that is. They’d been fishing.
John W : One of those gentlemen there was drowned later on … that one, and he was a local Coxswain’s brother, Bert Baker’s brother, which is Jackie’s relation.
Lisa : Did you ever catch any eels?
John L : Oh yeah. You get conger eels in lobster pots and they’re a bugger to get out. [looking through photographs] That’s the boat I showed you. That’s about the size of the boat everybody used to have, 15 or 16 foot.
Lisa : Yep. And where is this?
John L : This is down the Harbour.
John W : That’s mainly in there about Bert Baker.
John L : You could do one on the Lifeboat even if it would take you a long time because my cousin Terry Weever has got a lot of information about the Lifeboat. You’ve got some of it haven’t you?
John W : And of course there’s Martin Woodward.
John L : Martin Woodward.
Lisa : Yeah, he’s the diver isn’t he? And someone else asked me to maybe get in touch with Graham Hall.
John L : Yes, he’s ex Trinity House, Captain.
Lisa : Yeah, and he was also Coxswain wasn’t he?
John L : No.
Lisa : Lifeboat?
John L : Well, Harbour Master. Was he the Harbour Master?
John L : He was the Secretary.
Lisa : OK.
1 hour 25 minutes 47 seconds
John L : That’s all the pots there. You see this is the Harbour Café. This is Lane End Café before … when this was lived in this place here which was knocked down anyway and the huts all belonged to the Café then. So, that’s one boatload of pots.
Lisa : What’s this?
John L : That’s the thing that holds the mast up. The mast with the flag on, like the entrance to the Lifeboat.
John W : The black one’s a stink pipe isn’t it?
John L : That one’s a stink pipe.
Lisa : When was the Lifeboat Pier built first of all?
John W : 1922.
John L : ’22 the first one.
John W : That was to house the first motor boat they had, the ‘Langham’. A man called Tim Gawn was the Coxswain in those days. Hard as nails they were.
John L : That’s Jack’s uncle and that’s a shrimp pot that been tarred and that’s a lobster pot ‘cos it’s got wider gaps in it, you see? There’s a rough looking crew.
Lisa : Oh, they’ve the thigh boots.
John L : The thigh boots on, yeah.
John W : Who’s that, George Smith?
[looking through photos]
Lisa : ‘Landing Christmas Fare at the Nab. An annual trip for the Lifeboat’
John L : Yeah, they used to take food out every Christmas Day.
John W : Every Christmas they used to take a hamper of stuff out to the Nab …
John L : The Vicar used to go with them.
John W : … the Vicar used to go with them, and local tradesmen used to give a turkey of the year or something towards it. I don’t know why or how it started but it seems the men were taken off at stops but that was an annual thing and every person who gave a gift got a hand-written letter of thanks from the Chief Lighthouse Keeper. I think we’ve got one at home somewhere.
Lisa : The Nab was manned back in those days.
John L : Oh yeah, ‘till not long ago.
Lisa : Can you tell me a bit about that?
John W : You know more about the Nab.
John L : It was just manned by the …
John W : There was six people at a time didn’t they …
John L : I don’t know how many was on there, but I think about 1960 it was mechanised.
John W : It was put there after the 1st World War, about 1919 because it was made … first of all, they were going to make six of them, at Southwick, which is just across the water, and what they were planning to do was to string them across from Dover to Calais and with a net between to stop the submarines from coming up through, but before they were completed the War had stopped.
John L : They only built two.
John W : They had two built. One was dragged over to where it is now, I don’t know what happened to the other one, but I’ve got lots of photographs of the actual when it was sited. It’s on a tilt, slightly on a tilt. Still is now.
John L : Yes, ‘cos it landed …
John W : It landed wrong didn’t it? It was put on the Nab rocks and before that they had a lightship there called ‘The Nab’ and of course they needed men to man it and that’s what happened, belonged to Trinity House.
John L : But there was an incredible thing because the base was hollow because they floated it out there and then flooded it when it got there to sink it, but the base must have been huge to keep all that afloat, must have been huge.
I hour 30 minutes 4 seconds
John W : It was well documented.
Lisa : What’s this then John?
John L : That’s a big turbot by the look of it.
Lisa : Do you get many flatfish around the Island?
John L : Used to get quite a few, yeah. Sandown Bay is quite good, or it used to … sometimes ‘cos of the weather they couldn’t get ashore there. They had to chuck the stuff across if it was too rough to go alongside. It could be interesting Lifeboats on the Island ‘cos for you, for the Heritage. Another project for you.
Lisa : So, who would be a good person to talk to then about the Bembridge Lifeboat in particular?
John L : Well, Martin Woodward I should think.
John W : Yes, but he’s cut himself off from the Lifeboat Association now, but he knows an awful lot. He’s written several books about it. Personal reasons I won’t go into why he left the Lifeboat.
John L : He was the Coxswain at one time. I’ll tell you why.
John W : You tell her why.
John L : I was speaking to him the other day.
[recording pauses]
Lisa : There’s a photo here of three local fishermen I guess? It says, ‘Alan Holbrook, Bert Baker, L Cooper’.
John W : They were all Lifeboatmen. Alan Holbrook’s father was called John Holbrook and he was a Coxswain of the Lifeboat during the 1st World War and before that, Bert Baker’s father … no he wasn’t, no that’s wrong. We had two shipwrecks in the 1st World War, the [inaudible] and what was the other one John?
John L : What?
John W : Shipwrecks in the 1st World War. There was the ‘Naragansetta’
[transcribers note: unable to verify this ship] wasn’t there? What was the other one?
John L : The ‘Venus’ was out there but …
John W : Anyway, they were involved in the rescue of the people. Bert Baker’s father was 2nd Coxswain, his name was James Baker and he had three sons and … who was the other one?
Lisa : L Cooper.
John W : No, Holbrooks. He had three sons I think.
John L : Alan Cooper wasn’t a fisherman, he was a builder I think, Bricklayer I expect. Everybody, all walks of life were in the crew, not just fishermen. But nearly always fishermen were there but there were other people as well. My uncle was in and he was a Chemist.
Lisa : So, the crew would need to be people that could get to the Lifeboat pretty quickly.
John W : Who worked in the village, yes.
John L : Who worked in the village, yes.
John W : Which would have included most of … a lot of fishermen did that you see.
Lisa : How did they get down there? Did they ride a bike?
John W : Bike or run or if they had a car they would have come by car.
John L : Sometimes, say Bert was out fishing in a boat, they’d launch the boat and pick him up at sea. I know they did that with Peter Smith when I was working with him.
Lisa : So, you mentioned about the jumpers.
John L : Ashford Caws, the bloke who taught me, always used to wear a white jumper on a Sunday. He might have gone fishing in the morning, but the rest of the day he had a white jumper on.
John W : They were called Guernseys, for some reason or another.
John L : Well, they were made in Guernsey I suppose. The roll necks, yes.
John W : That was the standard dress.
John L : I expect they were all hand knitted I expect.
John W : And Bert Baker had the largest hands I’ve ever see on a man.
John L : Well, that’s right ‘cos he had to make the holes, the gaps in the pots bigger for his hands. Now shrimping, Ashford Caws had tiny hands and he could have a smaller cove than I ‘cos he could get … I couldn’t get my hand in a three-and-a-half-inch pot but he could, so the smaller the cove, the less could get out.
John W : When the Queen came to Sandown, I think Bert was there to show lobsters to the Queen at the ceremony there. I’ve got a picture at home about that.
John L : Ah, this is them coming ashore. Now, see they’ve all got these thigh boots on, sou’westers. That’s their lifejackets there look, that was the old type of lifejacket. That was my neighbour, that’s Jack’s uncle, Jack’s auntie’s husband, Perce Weever, that’s Terry’s father.
1 hour 35 minutes 20 seconds
Lisa : You can just see on his cap there, it says ‘RNLI’. How did the lifejackets work, what made them …?
John L : They were made of kapok. Do you know what kapok is? Well, kapok comes from a plant. It’s like …
John W : It’s like cotton wool isn’t it?
John L : Yeah, it’s like thick sort of wool. It comes from a plant, I’m sure. I’ll have to look on my computer.
John W : The story of that launch is on the other side I think. They couldn’t house the boat at low tide.
John L : Sometimes they couldn’t get the boat back up the slipway because it was too rough.
John W : I think that’s the story of that launch and the written text there is all about what the Lifeboat did in the 2nd World War and the epic sort of journeys they made. I don’t suppose you want to read all that, but that’s the reason why they’re walking ashore, they couldn’t house the boat. Had to tie it onto a buoy nearby.
Lisa : So, in this photo, this is quite interesting because there are a couple of women here.
John W : I don’t know what that was, it’s Open Day I suppose.
Lisa : I just wondered if there was a sort of role for women in fishing. Did the women actually do anything?
John L : No, they did the cooking when the old man came home.
John W : Yeah, they did the cooking. They ran the Tea Rooms as well. Mrs Holbrook did the teas.
John L : Mrs Caws did the teas, well, the two Mrs Cawses’.
John W : Yeah, one was as thin as a rake and the other was as fat as a little pig, wasn’t she?
Jackie You used to count the prawns…
John L : They used to count the prawns then.
Jackie … instead of buying them by the pound, you used to count them. One, two, tree, four, five … hundred.
Lisa : And that’s the first Lifeboat Station there?
John L : Yeah.
Lisa : How did it all operate inside? Was it all by pulleys or…
John L : No, they had a big winch in there, you know, and it still works the same. The boat comes up the slipway, the slipway’s like that, when it gets to the top, it’s on a cradle and it tilts upright and then when they go to launch, they just tip the thing up and then they knock a shackle out and it goes down.
John W : Yes, you had about four men in the house to house the boat and …
John L : George used to be Launcher didn’t he? Peter Wade’s Head Launcher now I think. Cyril Harboard, used to launch it.
John W : They had quite a few crew they could call on but it was the first …
John L : First four. They had more crew than they needed to go but the first ones there, went. The Coxswain picked who he wanted to go.
John W : They had a regular Coxswain and also an Engineer, so they were always on the board, when they had four crew didn’t they? The first four to get there were usually went.
John L : The Coxswain and the Engineer are they only ones who are paid. Other ones get so much a call out I think. I don’t know if they still do, I presume they do. But it’s the Coxswain’s decision who he takes. I mean somebody might turn up and he’s just come out the pub you know, he wouldn’t want him, you know?
John W : But Martin certainly could tell you a few stories about the Bembridge boat.
John L : Yes, get in touch with Martin. Lovely chap.
John W : His nickname’s ‘Streaker’.
John L : (laughs) He don’t like it, he’s just 70 yeah ‘cos we were down the Café ‘cos when the Café closed, we went down there for a clearing up drink …
John W : A noggin.
John L : … and he was there with his new wife. Well, I don’t know how long he’s been married, ‘Streaker’. Anyway, he’s always been ‘Streaker’ because he’d streak down the High Street in Douglas, Isle of Man, and he streaked on the ski slopes in somewhere and of course he’s always been ‘streaker’ but now he’s 70, he don’t like being called a streaker (laughs), so when go and see him, say, “Is it right you’re called ‘streaker’?” and see what he says.
Jackie And John told you that.
John L : (laughing) He don’t mind.
Lisa : Were there any Regattas in Bembridge when you were younger?
John W : Yeah, Regattas were going on in Bembridge for a long time and of course other places as well, Sandown and Shanklin had their own Regattas, and Wooton. Bembridge started in the late 1800’s in the Sailing Club, and on Regatta days there were swimming races, yachting races and of course the famous greasy pole. And what they did they put the grease on a mast and put it between two boats and you had to walk across it without falling off and it’s very difficult. Mr Jim Baker was the expert at that. He managed to walk across it without falling off, so he got a prize. I suppose the prize was ten shillings or something like that. I remember going on there one day once, to try to do it, and the man in front of me was a man called Robert Morley, who was a film star. He was staying at the Spit Hotel, and he said he was doing it for a bet. Of course, he took one step and straight in the water. He was a big chap …
John L : I expect he’d had a few too.
John W : Oh must have, he was a nice chap. I never got across and also what they called the ‘Fisherman’s Regatta’ at Lane End which was a race for boats and swimming and the local fishermen used to race against each other in little boats, and I think the Lane End one is still going as well.
1 hour 41 minutes 29 seconds
John L : You know next to the Café where the Café was there’s a load of huts. Well, they all used to belong to the Café owner and those people, they was all August people came down and they used to organise their own Regatta. They still do.
John W : They call themselves, the ‘Lane Enders’.
John L : And they’ve just recently had it, you know, this past month and they have swimming races and rowing races and I don’t think the locals are allowed ‘cos they’re too good. We used to enter it and I think we used to win.
John W : I’ve got a friend who’s family has been coming to Bembridge for the last 40 years, they’ve stayed at Lane End for the month of August every year and it was many families like that. They used to live in houses let by locals. ‘Cos once upon a time, what people used to do in Bembridge, they used to let their big house and live in a shed at the bottom of the garden, there’s one at the top here and that’s how they supplemented their income because the wages round here weren’t very high. That’s what families used to do, just stay during the month of August.
John L : Up the top of the garden, on the Deeds, it’s a stone bungalow. Well, not my aunt but the previous owners before used to let this house for August, move up there and there’s gas up there, water up there, there’s electric up there, and they used to sort of slum it for a month and ‘thank you very much’.
John W : Always do it for …
John L : And ‘Smithy’ used to do it didn’t he? Yeah, loads of people used to do it. Mrs Evans used to do it.
John W : Chapel’s used to do it, George Chapel.
John L : Mrs Evans, I’ll tell you this story. I used to live down Lane End in my past life and my next door neighbour was a Mrs Evans and she used to … she was a widow, and she used to let her house in the summer and move up the shed, which was all fitted out and I used to cut her grass for her and she said, “Be careful when you get round the back John.” So, I said, “Why is that?” She said, “Well …” the whole shed she lived in was … the foundations were empty brandy bottles that were years and years ago smuggled in by her family, I suppose …
John W : Oh yes, her grandfather went to prison for smuggling.
John L : … and all this, the foundations of the shed were bloody empty brandy bottles and they’re still there.
Lisa : We haven’t really talked about smuggling have we?
John W : Well, it happened.
John L : It happened and fairly recently I might add (laughs) when I was fishing.
Lisa : Do you want to say more about that?
John L : No. Better not do that.
John W : Most of the families were involved as the poem said, you know.
John L : If you think about the immigration problem now, smuggling people across, well who comes to Bembridge and has a look at a yacht that comes from France, nobody, so … and who comes to look at a yacht that’s moored on the Lifeboat moorings at 4 o’clock in the morning that’s just come back from France? Is there anybody coming to inspect it? No.
1 hour 45 minutes 4 seconds
Lisa : Did the Regattas always take place in August?
John L : Yeah, nearly always, yes, ‘cos that was when the population shrunk. Bembridge population nearly doubles in August I should think. The traffic up the village is horrendous. Parking is a pain in the …
Lisa : Did you win a few prizes then in your younger days at the Regattas?
John L : Only rowing I think. I didn’t go in the one down the Sailing Club. I used to go in the one down Lane End at the Lifeboat House.
John W : My father was a good swimmer and he used to win prizes at swimming at the Bembridge Sailing Club. That was in the 1890’s. My father was born in 1881 and he was just a young boy of course in those days. He left school at 13 to be an apprentice Butcher at Mr Jordan’s Butcher Shop in the village.
John L : Mr Jordan had his own field which is now Meadow Drive and he had his own Slaughter House just behind …
John W : There was two Slaughter Houses in Bembridge. One is still in existence. It’s in Walls End Farm and I think Mr Jordan’s must be still there mustn’t it?
John L : It’s at the back of those houses in Meadow Drive, behind the first two or three. The building is still there.
John W : Yes, all different nowadays I’m afraid.
Lisa : Well, thank you gentlemen. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Not just the insight into the fishing side of things and the memories of the sea but also your memories of Bembridge. So, thank you, we’ll draw it to a close.
John W : Thank you.
Interview ends
1 hour 46 minutes 54 seconds
Transcribed March 2019
Chris Litton
