Holidays In The 40's & 50's

A Memory of Stoke Fleming.

My Mum had a brother living at 'South View', Stoke Fleming and we spent many holidays with his family. There was an outside row of toilets with long wooden seats and you had to get a pail of water from the well next to the pub to flush it. They kept chickens behind the houses and there was also a swing. As a young girl, I made friends with the shoemender's daughter, Mary Bowden, who lived next door and also Helen Crab(be), whose family ran the dairy. It was fascinating watching them fill milk bottles and put on the silver caps. My auntie Win used to be a handbell ringer and my uncle Bill a bus driver on the Plymouth run. The buses were green double deckers with long seats on the top deck to hold 4 people, not like the London buses I was used to. I have happy memories of walking down to Blackpool Sands with my parents, we'd spend the day there with a picnic and often a man would come on his bike and sell lovely ice-cream. You could also get a tray of tea from the little cafe there. One of my cousins got married in 1952 to her childhood sweetheart and I was a bridesmaid, it was in March and not too warm. After that we weren't able to go back for a holiday but I did go in 1997 and although there have been some changes it was lovely to see it hasn't been really spoilt.

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