Memories of Dovercourt

More Growing up in Dovercourt

I was born in Dovercourt in 1946, and lived there until 1957. My father, too, worked on Parkeston Quay, but moved to New England depot in Peterborough in 1956 - mother and I followed once I had taken my 11-Plus exam. My mother was from Waddesdon Road, opposite the old school which had by then become the library. My father met my mother during the war when he was posted to Dovercourt. Although we moved away, and I now live in Shropshire, I still have two aunts who live in Dovercourt, so I return from time to time.

One of my best friends was Phillip Cone, who lived a few doors away on Main Road. I see that he has now written at least one book about the town.

We used to go to the Regent cinema on Friday evenings, as it was just over the road. I seem to remember that nearly all the films were Westerns!

Growing up in Dovercourt

I have been trying to remember the exact dates when we lived in Dovercourt but I think it was something like 1953-57, while my father worked for the railway at Parkeston Quay. We first rented a place in Shaftesbury Avenue and then bought a house in Main Road. I was interested to see Martin Johnson's post because I was a pupil at the nursery school that his mother used to run at the vicarage. It seemed like a very big place to a small child, with a huge garden that had lots of corners to hide in during break. I also had one term at the primary school in Main Road. I was briefly in the Sea Cubs and can still tie a round turn and two half hitches correctly. My best friends were the sons from Sutherland's pharmacy - they lived in a big house on Fronks Road with a solarium on top. I don't remember a great deal about the shopping except for Bowtells, the grocers, where the bacon was sliced by hand and the butter sold loose. A shop full of evocative smells. I can also remember going for walks along the Hangings - I think this was an old railway line that was full of blackberries and rose hips. My mother kept some wartime habits of thrift and made rose hip jam most years we were there.

New vicar for Dovercourt

My father was inducted as the new vicar on 31st December 1949 at All Saints Church. I was just nine at the time but I retain some dim memories of a packed church! My dad stayed at Dovercourt until his retirement in 1976. I have many memories of Dovercourt for that period. I loved the West beach where I often used to take the dog on long muddy walks. Often as kids we would walk 'down town' to Woolworths or Candy Corner, usually in search of roughly the same things. Beach Stores though was the place where you could get something 'off coupons': a sort of Crunchy Bar without the chocolate. We were away at school and I was terrified of girls, but used to gaze soulfully at Jennifer in the choir in the hope she would notice me. She never did.
We had three cinemas in those days. I remember my dad taking us to The Quatermass Experiment, rated X, at the Regent, and telling them I was 16 when I was actually 15. Well done Dad!
Dovercourt was a lovely place to grow up in but, like many young people, I didn't really appreciate this at the time. Later when I took my own kids there years later I appreciated it more. Both my mum and my dad died in 1992 and are buried in All Saints churchyard.

The Convent in Orwell Road

I was brought up in a Convent in Orwell Road between the years 1947 and 1954. The Convent was vacated in the summer of 1954 and moved to Hastings a year after the sea wall broke which demolished the old school in Harwich.
When I visited the convent again in 1980 it was still there, only standing derelict. I wondered if the building was still standing.

Ruth Wright