Crab Cottage

A Memory of Cromer.

In l984 my sister, Christine Ramsey/Taylor wrote to me at my home in Texas asking if I would like to share a holiday cottage with her and her three children. She had booked in at Cromer and had rented an old fisherman's cottage, called Crab Cottage. The rent was going to be 75 pounds for a week. I had planned to visit England that year so I accepted for my daughter Amy and myself. We stopped off in Leicester for a few days, then we loaded up the car and set out for Cromer. The cottage was very small and I was to learn that the previous owners had raised a large family of children there. How they managed I don't know. There was a kitchen downstairs and a lounge. Upstairs were two bedrooms. One had a double bed (which almost filled the room) and the second one had bunk beds. In the lounge downstairs there was a bedsettee. Hot water for the kitchen was available from a tank over the sink and just a few steps outside the door was a building, which had been a coalshed and storage in the past. In this building was a flush toilet, shower and hot water tank. The cottage was small and rather primitive but we loved it. We felt like we were part of history. I remember the location. It was Crab Cottage,11 Chesterfield Cottages, West Street, Cromer. I can never forget the staircase, the steps were so narrow. When this cottage was built, probably several hundred years ago, people were of smaller stature but they must also have had very small feet. We managed to go up sideways! The children enjoyed long,lazy days in the sun, playing on the beach, gazing in awe at the huge lifeboat and spending most of their allotted pocket money, doled out daily, in the amusement arcade. My sister and I would find ourselves a secluded spot and would settle down to read. Catherine Cookson was our auther of choice at that time. We also discovered our taste for chocolate-covered Turkish Delight that year and we ate more that our share. Such simple pleasures but such happy memories.

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