Bembridge memories
Here are memories of Bembridge and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Bembridge or a Bembridge photo.
Happy Days
Seeing this picture of the Spithead Hotel has taken me back to my childhood in Bembridge. I have very happy memories playing with my friend Carola who was the owner's daughter. We would play for hours in this hotel making up endless games, hiding in all the rooms and having great fun although sometimes it was a bit spooky out of season when we had the whole hotel to our selves. Happy days.
Bembridge my Home
I was born in Seaview but my mother and grandparents lived at "erndene' Steyne rd.
I went to the Bembridge villiage school and attended the villiage church. I was free to roam the villiage aand beaches at will as the villiage was very safe for children.
I and my family would swim at Lane end and at Forelands and Howegate, We would look for winkles and crabs and also would go mushrooming on the downs. My father was a pilot so we spent time at the Bembridge airport. We lived part of the time on Toad Hall houseboat on the harbour. My mother taught me to love Bembridge and she knew it very well(as did I) She knew the names of all the wildflowers and where all the birdsnests were and she taught me to respect the sea and the tides. What an idealic upbringing it was, I have only the fondest memories.
Memories of Isle of Wight
School Days
I was at Bembridge School above Whitecliff Bay from 1953 to 1958. I used to spend many happy hours in the bay and on the top of Culver Down.
MY FIRST JOB
I worked at the Pier Hotel in the summer of 1960. It was my first job. I was a commis waiter ..didn't really like it at all...but I was billeted out at a nearby village.
I had my first drunk drinking scrumpy mixed with cheap red wine with Italian waiters from the hotel in the pub in Seaview..an experience which brought me great suffering and required my taking the next day off work in order that I would not die !
I also was fortunate to meet a lovely Dutch young woman,Riet Berendsen, 4 years my senior, who was an au pair girl at the hotel. We kissed and held hands on the sea wall. We saw each other briefly in London after the summer but I was too immature for things to progress any further...oh to turn the clock back !!
My Second Home
I spent much of my childhood and teenage years staying at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Ryde Road as my gran lived there too and latterly my mum until 2002. The houses have not changed much over the years but there are a lot more cars parked there now in the summer months!
I have such happy memories of all my holidays spent there and would love to retire to the Island some day.
My Special Place
My Seaview experiences started from shortly after I was born and go right up to the present day. I'm from Reading, Berks, but our whole family used to rent a big house somewhere in Seaview every summer for a holiday. I was born in 1962, so I joined the Seaview summer holiday scene shortly after that. The family started with my maternal grandmother and extended down to her four children and then all of their children (16 of us). For several years we rented a house called Windy Ridge in Ferneyclose Road (which drops right down to Seagrove Bay). Then, for another several years, we rented the Garnett's house, Horestone Point, further on up Ferneyclose Road. After that, the different chunks of the family split up to do their own separate holidays. But my parents carried on with Seaview holidays, renting a house on Seaview Duver for some years. Oh, and one year we rented either Salterns or Saltmeads Cottage at the junction of Bluett Avenue and the Duver!... Read more
Grandad's Cement Works
Mr grandfather owned the old cement works in Quay Lane (this picture shows the large building with the tall chimney, centre of frame) and his men used to make concrete roofing tiles there. In the late 1950's the chimney became dangerous and they used expolsives to demolish it. I have some very poor photos of this. His building company was so busy he closed the factory one winter and the employees were called in to work on his sites. When they opened up in the spring, all of the aluminium moulds had been stolen and the buildings fell into disrepair. I now live in a house built on the old foundations of the brickworks, and my horses have stables over the original ovens which are still underneath. I cherish the history behind my home, and share old stories with some of the former employees who still live in Brading.
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