My Childhood Home

A Memory of Dovercourt.

Dovercourt was my childhood/boyhood home from my birth (well, almost - that momentous event actually took place in an Ipswich nursing home!) in 1937, until we moved as a family to Worthing around 1952. I attended the Hill School (I remember Miss Best, the infants' headmistress, and my class teacher Miss Rowntree) until I went to boarding school (Culford, near Bury St. Edmunds) in 1945. My father, the late Percy Edward Newton, ran the family building business (originally founded by my grandfather E.E. Newton) of Newton Bros. ["NB"]; at first jointly with my uncle and subsequently on his own, from the premises in Harwich then known as Victory Works - now I believe the Ark project of the Save the Children Fund. This period is quietly commemorated in the naming of Newton Road, Upper Dovercourt, which was developed by the family firm. Dad was also a Borough Councillor, and served during the second world war - when Harwich was a prominent naval base - as a member of the local ARP and Home Guard. We all attended Dovercourt Methodist Church, now joint Methodist & URC, and I remember especially the late Percy Wiffen, my Sunday School Superintendent. It was the beginning of my lifelong active membership of the Methodist Church, which continues to this day (I am now 73).

Dovercourt & Harwich was a great place to grow up in, and I have many fond memories of it. My friends and I used to love riding on the Felixstowe and Shotley ferries, and generally just enjoying the simple but varied amenities of the town. Dennants' hardware and toy shop near the station, always smelling of paraffin, was a boyhood Mecca: sadly all traces of it have since vanished. I last visited Dovercourt in May 2001, when all things considered it didn't seem too much changed. Best wishes to anyone from that era who happens to see this.