Bolt Head memories
Here are memories of Bolt Head and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Bolt Head or a Bolt Head photo.
Coastguard Station
We came to Bolt Head in 1950, my father having joined the Coastguard service after being in the Royal Navy for 40 years. I found it quite a way to cycle to work, I worked in the post office in Malborough. I used to go rabbiting with ferrets and the dog with my brother-in-law, we got quite a few on the air field, that was before the RAF came back on the camp. My sisters and I went down to Soar Mill Cove to walk and also to swim, that was a good way from the station. We got our milk from Mr Yeoman at his farm, all warm as it was straight from the cow. I found it much more lively at Bolt Head after the RAF moved back and was able to go to their pictures, mind you it often broke down and a lot of shouting went on. I met some lovely lads though but went on to marry a soldier doing his National Service in 1956,... Read more
Memories of Devon
Customs Quay Salcombe
This view shows Customs Quay and out of sight on the right is the Customs House. Mrs Florrie Gasson and her husband lived in the building and she would make a great show to the visitors of feeding the swans. A flock of 20 or so would swim in the water looking for her and she called each one by a different name.
I can remember sitting here with my friend Michael H when film-makers arrived to shoot a washing powder commercial. I never saw the finished ad but a friend told me that the happy family descended the steps to the fore of the photo to soft golden sand! Such artistic licence! More like shingle and mud ... AND the film crew used large silver discs to reflect the sun on to the towels making them appear snowy white. I have never trusted commercial advertising since.
Ss ''Channel Queen''
This vessel was built by Messrs Craggs of Middlesbrough - launched 13th July 1895. 185 ft long - Gross tonnage 386 tons with full electric lighting. She ran a regular service across the Channel calling at Guernsey, Jersey and St Brieuc and was a well know tourist vessel in and around the Devon and Cornwall coast. The company traded and ran the ship from Sutton Pool Plymouth. The Channel Queen was chartered by local business men for a voyage to Spithead for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Review of the Fleet in 26th June 1897. Less than a year later she was shipwrecked in fog on 1st Feb 1898 with my great grandfather as captain (Capt E J Collings born St Peter Port Guernsey 1844 - died Plymouth 1923). The wreck occured on the north coast of Guernsey and a memorial to those 21 who perished is in the churchyard of St Sampson's church on Guernsey. Many of those who perished were Breton onion sellers returning from selling thier produce in... Read more
Normandy Way
As someone who was born in Courtenay Street, Salcombe in 1941, I have a fairly good knowledge of local people. The man on the extreme left of the picture in waders is Larry Prinn or Prynn, the one on the extreme right would appear to be Ian Cooper. I recognise the central man in the group- I think he may have been ? Distin (Eric Distin's grandfather).
Courtenay Park Salcombe
This view of Courtenay Park is quite poignant for me. It shows houses at the lower end of Devon Road and also the land on which Egremont Terrace was later built.
My parents lived in no. 10 Egremont Terrace from the late 1930s until they moved to St Dunstan's Road in 1970. We had a splendid view over the estuary from the balcony of no. 10 and sitting out there in the summer was like having an extra room. Courtenay Park could be reached by a long flight of some 50 wide steps from Devon Road. I tripped over a cat rushing down them one day and still bear the scar on my right knee.
The Park was a delightful place in which to play and I have wonderful memories of rolling in the freshly-cut grass with the Tucker family who were great friends and climbing the trees playing games and travelling the world in our young and impressionable imaginations. We used a pebble to bang on the... Read more
Early Teenage Fun at The Salcombe Hotel
The Salcombe Hotel was at one time owned by the formidable Mrs. Ryder. She could be seen in her latter years being escorted to and from The Ferry Inn by Mike Philpotts, a long-term hotel employee. Mrs Ryder had a bulldog, wore a silver bulldog brooch and it is remarkable how some people are said to resemble their pets.......
The Hotel used to hold an afternoon party in the ballroom on Christmas Day and my friend Michael H and I went one year as two girls from St.Trinians. We borrowed gymslips, hats and hockey sticks from the Mulligan girls and made plaits from coarse tractor twine.
As we paraded around a daring gentleman pinched my bottom - a dubious thrill!
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Places this week
Here are some of the places you've shared memories of this week:
- Wrexham, Clwyd
- Finchley, Greater London
- Barnehurst, Kent
- West Kirby, Merseyside
- Southend Airport, Essex
- Ilfracombe, Devon
- Neath, West Glamorgan
- Bridge Of Gairn, Aberdeenshire
- Watford, Hertfordshire
- Barking, Essex
- Tredington, Warwickshire
- Weaverham, Cheshire
- Duloe, Cornwall
- Luton, Bedfordshire
- Bath, Avon
- Oadby, Leicestershire
- Stanhope, County Durham
- Oswestry, Shropshire
- Hampton Wick, Surrey
- Bowness-On-Solway, Cumbria
- ... and lots more - Browse this week's memories now.
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