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Brancaster
Brancaster maps
Historic maps of Brancaster and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Brancaster maps
Brancaster area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Brancaster and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Brancaster
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Brancaster.
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Paranormal Memories
My earlies memories center around the Barrow Common area of Brancaster, Many of you probably do not beilieve in such things, but at this time as a family, our lives were profoundly affected by these happenings. If you are interested, the details are at http://journals.aol.co.uk/chunkichick/TheLifeBeyond
Circus at The Village Hall C 1955
We lived in the village pub The Lifeboat Inn. I remember being flooded and all the beer barrels floating in the cellar, mum cooking mussels given in lieu of beer, which were left in the bath and climbed up the wall and had to be knocked off with a shoe! Fred from the Hall bringing pheasant and buckets of cream, the visiting circus in the village hall opposite, with a moth eaten toothless lion!!! which we thought was wonderful in those days. Walking out to the wrecked ship on the beach, exploring the underground gun encampment with all the wrinkled floor boards, tin hats, metal beds etc, riding our bikes through the high tides along the beach roads, losing our wellies as we waded through the marshes looking for King John's treasure (yes I know we were nowhere near where it was lost but it kept us busy for the summer holidays)!! Picking fruit for pocket money,
watching the lights on the marshes at night which we thought were smugglers... Read more
Norfolk memories
Stories of North Creake
My grandfather, John Arnett, was the teacher at the North Creake school for many years. Four of his sons came to Canada. When I was a little girl growing up in distant Saskatchewan the uncles would gather and tell marvellous tales of living in North Creake. I have a photo of the grandmother riding her tricycle, of the brothers in front of the school house during World War I. When my grandfather died there was a story in the Norwich newspaper of how he passed on the Earl's frock coat to the newly elected Labour Member of Parliament. (The Earl was in the habit of giving Grandfather items of clothing for the poor as many were in need in the 1930's but there was little call for a frock coat among the farm labourers.) Thank you for showing me North Creake. F. Arnett Sbrocchi, Western Australia
Fun at Proudfoot's
I can remember walking up Sea Lane with my brothers, and visiting the little shop owned by Mrs Proudfoot, in the hope of getting some groceries for our parents (and sweets for us)! Everything about the shop was quaint, from the layout of the shop floor to the scales on the counter. It wasn't always the best stocked shop, so if ever Mrs Proudfoot had sold out of something, or we needed something she didn't sell, we had to gingerly walk passed her shop window and buy the goods from the Post Office shop instead. Then when we walked back down Sea Lane, we would have to hide the groceries from her view when passing the shop window again!
When the weather was nice, our family used to spend the day making sand castles and playing games on the Old Hunstanton beach. It was always a painful affair to get to the sand and sea though - the cobbled pathway leading to the beach was much trickier to... Read more
MY FIRST JOB
I worked and lived at the Golden Lion Hotel, beginning when I was 19, fresh out of Westminster Hotel School, when I was a trainee/assistant manager there from 1959-63 or 64, with the exception of the winter of 1962/63 when I worked in a luxury hotel in Munich, for the experience. My German friend, Reinhardt Willner, a waiter in Munich, came back with me (a mistake) and worked in the restaurant at the Golden Lion. He married one of the English waitresses and never made the effort to treat my position with respect. It was a very busy hotel with a lot of function dinners (especially Masonic as we had a temple built into the hotel), crazy bank holiday weekends where, when serving in either cocktail or back public bar, all you could see were three rows of outstreched arms clutching empty pint mugs requiring refills.
Mr and Mrs Hinchliffe were the managers (ex Todmorden, Yorks). One day while relieving the barman, Scottie, for his lunch break in... Read more
Ponies, Donkies And Roses Don't Mix!
I worked with the ponies and donkies in the mid to late 1960s. Sometimes we would take them home to their field via Seagate Road, there would be about 4 or 5 of us riding ponies and the donkies would follow but quite often they would stop and chomp on people's flowers, especially roses. They would lean over the walls and tuck in, many a time someone would come out and shout at us. Sometimes if the tide was right we would be able to ride them back along the beach up to the slope where the boats go down to the water, that was great. My pony's name was Chummy. I can remember some of the names - Nibbs, Tony, Mary, Gerry the donkey, Inky and Jenny. I wonder if anyone has any old pics of them.
My Father
My father, ARTHUR PERCY CRUMP, was born in 1898 in London, but orphanned in 1901. He was sent to Heacham with his older sister, EDITH. The 1911 Census shows him living with foster parents....Samuel Groom, his wife, daughter and 2 other "boarders" at 2, Garden Terrace. His sister was housemaid to a Mrs. D. Steward. He spoke of leaving school at 14 and being sent to work on a chicken farm.........he said it was his job to shampoo the chickens before the owner took them to local shows !!! He left Heacham sometime after 1914 and returned to London, but had happy memories of a boyhood in the village.
