Memories of Gilberdyke

Evacuees from Hull in WWII

I have never been to Gilberdyke, but I recall that my grandmother, Ivy Ruston, took her 2 younger daughters, Mabel and Dorothy, to lodge in Gilberdyke when the bombing began in Hull.
My grandfather, Harry Ruston, a signals inspector on the LNER railway, knew someone connected with the railway in Gilberdyke who offered Ivy and the girls a safe home away from the bombing.
If anyone has any recollections of, or connections to, a family from Hull coming to live in Gilberdyke at this time, I would be very pleased to hear from them. If there was a station in the village, it might have been the station master's family who took them in.

Willow Garth

My Grandparents Arthur and Gladys Gossop lived at Willow Garth, opposite the White Horse Pub.  Grandad bought it with his Army money.  He built a workshop, and began a business which included Wheelwright, Joiner and Contractor.  He made coffins and walked in funeral processions with his best top hat on.  He put piped water, WCs and a bathroom into the house, and did the same in Dad's house in York.  He had a bakelite telephone and always a car - first a little black one with orange indicators which stuck out to the side between the doors (one day the rain was coming through the roof when we went to the foundry and I saw the smith pour liquid metal into a sand mould to make a drain cover).  Later he had a very swell green Humber Hawk with red leather seats and I got to sit on the armrest (no seatbelts of course).  His brother Bristow also lived with them and was employed in the business.  Bristow had one holiday a year - a day at the races in York with a visit to our house included.  He did the gardening and grew lovely veg and flowers.  Grandma was crippled up with Arthritis and going deaf but her cooking was lovely.  My sister and I spent all our Summer holidays at Willow Garth - we never got bored, there were plenty of games to play.  We also had to fetch the eggs and clean them ready for sale.  There was an orchard which yielded plenty of fruit and honey.  My Mum Minnie was their only child.  She went to live in York when she married my Dad, but for years they went to Willow Garth at weekends to help with the gardening, fruit picking and honey extraction.
There were other Gossops in the village - Aunt Toppy lived at the White House, now demolished.

The Cottages. Sandholme Road

Moved into Sandholme Road in 1954 from Howden. Father and grandfather bought The Cottages at auction and I lived there until going to college in 1970. My parents stayed there until 1983 when they moved into Laburnum Walk, where my mother still lives. Typical of many villages of the type, walk through it once and you have seen it twice. Living as I do now in Bedlington, Northumberland it is quite a way to visit but we get down when we can. I went to the old Gilberdyke primary as did my father and grandfather. (Ironically my father spent his last few years in the old school when it was turned into a nursing home). Passing the eleven plus meant I went to Goole Grammar School (thankfully before it went comprehensive. When I was young, the modern estates weren't built and rates were cheap. The aircraft works at Brough provided much of the work and gradually Gilberdyke became a dormitory village servicing Hull and Goole. I bought a BSA Bantam in 1969 and enjoyed riding it round the empty roads. Petrol was 5/8d a gallon (29p) and I remember going into Jordan's in Hull and seeing the massed ranks of British bikes lined up. I own a BSA Bantam now, a 1967 registered one built from scrap which I have tried to get as near as possible to my first one. The roads were much clearer, and every thing seemed so much more optimistic than they do now. I have an MGB GT from the same era (1970) and these vehicles invoke a feeling of nostalgia for what has been to a large extent lost. Gilberdyke invokes the feeling...whenever we get ready to visit, I always remember it as being Easter or August bank holiday, back in the 70's. I remember sitting on the railway platform around 1983 with my 2 young daughters, at Easter in the sun, and getting a feeling of such calm, an 'island' moment in a stressful teaching job, which I have great difficulty in recreating. The foggy nights in the late 60's, walking in such a pea soup that we had keep singing so we didn't lose each other. The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band were one of our favourite groups and to find each other one would shout "Hey Ali Barber!" and the reply would be "Your Camel Loves You!" I wouldn't like to try that now. I am a retired science teacher, but still working as a science technician at one of the top Newcastle private schools. I hope these comments stir other people into offering their own remembrances. I look forward to reading them.

Dave Cooper