Childhood Memories...
I remember most of these places shown in the photographs and as I look at them memories flood back! I remember learning to swim by the steps on the quay and drinking cider whilst hiding amongst the sprat boxes piled high on the quayside.
Taking empty pop bottles stored behind Plattens milk bar and returning them to the counter to receive money back on the empties! Walking the 'greasy pole' at Regatta time and working on the funfair for free rides. Riding my 'trolley' (soap box on wheels) down Staithe street and around the Butlands while visiting my friends to swap comic books. Paying sixpence at the Regal Cinema on a Saturday afternoon to watch the Lone Ranger! Hanging around the whelk houses down the East End for freebies! Walking over the mussel beds (ouch, cut feet!) at low tide to the marshes to collect seagulls' eggs and helping the older lads dig for sandworms before they were loaded onto the steam train at the station. Attending school with trunks on under our trousers so we could swim before we went home. Playing under the beach huts and watching the hydroplane racing on Sundays when the tide was right... Walking to school in all weathers and the great summers we had or is that just what I remember? I still remember the great fish n' chips from French's, Grays amusements, Fred's cafe (at the Scarborough Hotel) together with the International Stores, The Globe, The Crown, The Ship and Jubilee cafe, just to mention a few! The ITV series 'Kingdom' features a lot of scenes from Wells in the show and portrays them as Market Shipborough, which as far as I know a fictitious town, but having spent my childhood there I am not easily fooled!
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RE: RE: Childhood Memories...
Hello Fred..... It has been a long time since you wrote about your memories of Wells-next-the-Sea but today I discovered you! You have probably read of my memories and I realize how different they are than yours. Yours are boyish, childhood memories and mine are those of a young wife and mother who had recently arrived from Leicester. I loved reading the names of all the places you mentioned, the shops and the cafe and the pubs. Most I could not recall. The Ship brought back the most vivid memories because I spent my first night in Wells there before moving across the street to St Heliers were I lived for a year. I remember my husband coming upstairs at the Ship, picking up a bear skin rug that was laying on the hallway floor, putting it across his back and scaring the dickens out of me. I have recently learned that St. Heliers is still there (I had been told that it had been demolished) so hope to re-visit Wells on my next visit home from Texas. Thank you for sharing.
Comment from Janet Ramsey on Friday, 11th February 2011.