Yarmouth, the Bugle Inn 1923

Mountfield Caravan Park

My great uncle Frank and his wife Fan Sampson and their partner Chip Wright owned this park then. My grandfather Bert Sampson helped out there too. We used to come for family holidays from our home in London. I loved it. The Island was magical. I never wanted to go home. We visited all our family and had great holidays. There was a big house there where the family lived. I think it is still there. There was a little shop full of groceries and holiday must-haves. My first place to go. There was a playground and a sandpit too. I never understood why I loved the Island so much, then I traced my family tree in later years and found we came from there, mystery solved.

Hook Hill

In 1960, when I was 6, we moved into Longhalves, a detached house on the left of Hook Hill going up, and just on the brow of the hill. The road then was narrow and dangerous, and in about 1964 they took 3 - 4 yards off our front garden to widen the road and make a footpath. Opposite the main gate to Longhalves was Asher's field. Mr Asher kept cows on there, and we used to walk through the field across the marsh and the old railway line (closed even then), and onto Afton Road. The railway station was derelict when we moved in, but within a few years became a spring factory. Next to Longhalves on the uphill side set back, the builder, George Weeks, built a bungalow to live in. Our garden went back quite a way right up to a row of firs boardering Weeks' yard. My father dug that garden out over the years and uncovered yards of flag paths, with some square rose gardens boardered with brick paths toward the back. The house had an amazing, rickety wooden conservatory on the front.
I went to school at All Saints, and walked to school daily - and home for lunch! We walked down the hill and along Station Road if my mum took me, but I went up the bridle path and along the back if I went on my own. Next door on the downhill side was Major McCormack's paddock. I don't believe I ever saw the Major, but he had a fearsome reputation and you just didn't get caught in his paddock or anywhere else on his land.
On Station Road a chap had an enourmous aviary, which always fascinated me. Honours, the coal merchants, were on Station Road and they had a Chow dog, a weird looking thing with a blue tongue. Our dog, a Standard Poodle, was scared of it and used to cross the road whenever we approached their shop. Over the road from them was the Rec. It seemed huge then, but probably only had a couple of football pitches and some swings at the far end. The Circus used to pitch its big top on there. At the village end of the Rec the path off it came down and finished opposite the school entrance. There was a lovely cottage just there where Pauline Bilson lived. I was deeply in love with her for a while, but she studiously ignored me for the 6 years I was at All Saints - as did most of the girls, come to think of it!!!
Further up Hook Hill lived the McCulloughs. He was a solicitor. He had twin girls who I went to school with. Angela and ... (I can't remember!). And right at the end of the road was the church. I was in the choir from 1962 - 1965, and was often in trouble for either missing practice, or eating sweets during the service. I remember we all got an easter egg at Easter, a shilling (5p) at Christmas, and half a crown (12.5p) for a wedding!! To the right of the church the lane swung away and down until it crossed the river and the railway line - the same railway that started at the bottom of the hill a mile or so away. The disused railway was a favourite Sunday walking place for our family, particularly during blackberry season - there were endless brambles along there. You could walk all the way to Yarmouth, though I don't think we ever did.
My parents ran a stationers shop in the main shopping street - near Mac Fisheries as I recall. They had a private lending library within the shop, which people don't believe existed when I tell them. It was all Romance and Westerns - nothing erudite, and certainly nothing my mum would ever have read (she was a bit above herself, my mum!). In 1965 Dad opened a second shop a few doors up and expanded the business into office furniture and machinery. I don't know if his timing was wrong, or his business sense poor, but it didn't work out, and they had to sell the shops and the house, and we moved out to Ningwood in 1965/6.
We left the Island in 1968 and I didn't go back until a brief holiday in the spring of 2005. I was delighted to find how little had changed, and shocked to find how small it all was. Longhalves is still there, but didn't look the mansion I remembered - I don't even know if it's still called Longhalves.
I've lived in probably 25 homes in my life so far, but Longhalves is the one I remember with most fondness.

Childhood Memories

My aunt and uncle ran the New Inn in the 1930s and 1940s, possibly before.
Their names were Patrick Huston and Annie Huston. Also living with them in the early 1940s were my grandmother, Mary Evans, and my Auntie Lou. I lived in Portsmouth and remember being sent by my parents at the outbreak of war in 1939 as they thought it would be safer for my brother and myself. However, after 3 or 4 days my mother came and took us back as she did not want us to be separated. I have seen a postcard on another site showing the fireplace uncovered at the New Inn by P F Huston, my uncle, and I remember sitting at this fireplace and listening to a speech by the King at the outbreak of war.

After my uncle became ill they gave up the pub and moved to Chapel Cottage, remaining there until my uncle died. I spent many happy holidays with them and used to spend lovely days at the creek, where a Mr Roy lived in what I remember as a very small dwelling at the side of the creek. Another memory I have is of collecting milk in a jug from the farm just past the New Inn on the way to the creek and, on a later occasion, my brother and I were chased by a bull from this same farm, while we were walking down  to the creek. I don't know if Chapel Cottage is still there but hope one day to revisit  Shalfleet and have a look round.  

Captain Macpherson

My late mother told me that she was related to Miss White, daughter of the Rev. Richard Walton White. His daughter left the manor and or land to Captain Macpherson in 1911. Although we have no claims on this family, we have no first names of Miss White or Captain Macpherson's nephew for our family tree. Any historical history and or photographs would be great.