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Roche memories

Here are memories of Roche and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Roche or a Roche photo.

First Visit

I first discovered Roche while on a motoring holiday with my parents when I was 12 years old.  Being young and nimble, I was up those ladders like a monkey, much to the horror of my parents.  
My latest visit was last week, Monday 11th September 2006, and although I was ready to try the ladders again, my fiance would not allow me, because, unfortunately, I am not a teenager any more. I was not really aware of any changes due to the long period in between my visits, and my memory of it has obviously faded.

Memories of Cornwall

The Bones-Playing Shopkeeper

I was born in Stenalees in 1962. When I was a kid the local shopkeeper (before Mr Kemp) used to entertain us kids by playing the bones. In fact he gave me a set when I was 8, which I still have.  Mark Scott.

Old Charactors & Childhood Memories

I grew up in Stenalees in the 1960s and 1970s, my sister and I have so many fond childhood memories - Dick Richards shop, the smell of the paraffin heater in the winter and buying Spangles. Old Toby Tucker who smoked like a trooper and lived by the park - Dear Mr Daw, a veteran of the Great War (with a tin leg), he is responsible for my interest in war poetry and inspired me with his stories and memories. Carloggas Downs was like our back garden and Kerrow Moor our special haven. We lived in The Lodge and always felt ours was a special house, originally built to be a vicarage. The lane behind our house was known as Bandhouse Lane and our dad, as a boy, had actually lived in the one-room bandhouse for a short time when his house in Saltash received a direct hit during the Second World War.

Lockengate of The ''40s

I  lived in St Austell as a child but my Uncle Ewart and Aunt Ruby farmed at Trescoll Farm, Lockengate. From a very early age I spent every holiday with them and although only four or five years old at the time, I remember well and fondly those wartime years, the Land Army girls and the two shire horses. (The first Fordson Major tractor didn't arrive here until the early '50's.)   Trescoll was up a long lane from Lockengate and each morning Uncle would harness up one of the horses and after hand milking his twenty or so South Devon breed cows would  load the churns into the cart and take them down to Lockengate where there was a concrete block stand onto which they were loaded ready for the Milk Board lorry to collect.
  Lockengate was at the junction of the Bugle-Lanivet road (the A391) and the road to Bodwen and on the corner opposite the farm lane was Mrs Grose's shop.
One of my occasional chores... Read more

My Life as Boy And Man in St.Dennis

Robartes Road c1960
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I moved into the first house on the right in the photo with the bay window in February of 1960 with my parents and 3 brothers. We were only the second tenants of that house. I stayed there with my parents until I got married in 1974.  My father still lives there 47 years after we moved in. I have very fond memories of that house and surrounding neighbours. Mr Cory our next door neighbour at the time used to breed pigeons and a great aunt of mine gave me a couple of Bantams and I used to breed them and father would have his chickens. As children we would spend hours playing football in the road and down the bottom of the road on the village green. I was born in St. Dennis in 1953 and I still live there even though I have moved around the village a bit.  When we first got married Jackie and I lived next door to the Blacksmiths Shop were we stayed for... Read more

Happy Days

Hendra Road c1960
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Wonderful memories of a very happy childhood. I am St. Dennis born and bred, and for me there's no place like it. My father Stanley Grigg and his partner had a cycle shop and repair business and I remember well the American G.I's bringing my mother tins of fruit and meat during wartime.  I would get the odd packet of chewing gum too. The summers seemed much longer then and I can remember how I would wait for my father to come home from the quarry, we would take a jug and walk hand in hand down Prazy Hill to fetch cool sparkling water from the spring.
I first went to the infant school where Miss Curtis was in charge, and then onto the top school with Mr. Pellymounter and Miss. Kent. Miss. Williams my sewing teacher always shouted at me. I could'nt sew to save my life, still can't.  She always called my stitches cat's teeth. I think she was maybe the reason why I hate it so... Read more

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