Memory Lane

duffy

Member
A recent sighting of an old photograph triggered an early memory.

I was on one of the tripper boats,we left from the slip by what became the Buccaneer Shell Shop, by the old Harbour Office. think it was the "Mermaid", (though could have been the other one!).

Anyway the boat was rolling all over the place and I dropped a big purple plum I had been given and was groping down on the deck for it. Next view, Grey things, big grey things bouncing all over the place, just big "Grey" things.

Next early memory.

We used to live at number 10 Queen Street. Up the road was Taylors Garage, next to that Craze's Blacksmiths, next to that Lazletts shop, next, Clift the Cobbler and next to that a cafe.

My memory was standing outside Craze's as my mum took the Pink coloured, well sprung pushchair in for "repair" ( had to walk home and never saw that thing again).

1st memory - 1947 Fleet review in 1947 - I was 2 years old.

2nd memory, I must have been about 3 years old - 1948.

Anybody have similar ones??

Duffy ::5:::5:
 
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Isn’t it fascinating that with the Internet a picture, a sound or a few words can pin ball around all over the place flashing up different memories from one person to another?
Your early memories of Queen St. reminded me of standing in the queue for the Ritz at that time. Over Mr Craze’s door there was a small “matchstick man” made out of welding rods (or maybe, your old pushchair) and Clift’s had a workbench in the window which was in full view from outside – remember the fast worker with a moustache? I think he might have played up to his ready-made audience – and being ready with a mouthful of nails he gave a displays of cobbling.
A philatelist opened a small stamp shop around there – can’t remember where it was.
Among my own early memories is one of the grass verge that stretches from the Three Tunnels to the railway crossing. During the war it became an unofficial recreation ground for young and old to go out and stretch their legs and get some air.
The Roly-poly Bank was just about the limit that anyone could safely walk and still have time to get back to shelters if the air raid siren sounded - which inevitably it sometimes did. Most warnings, thankfully, turned out to be false alarms but still all of them would bring on the run to town – which is what I have vague memories of – prams, dogs, pushchairs, three wheeler bikes all in the stampede back.
 

duffy

Member
Trevelyan,

I think you are a bit older than me. I was born in March 1945. I seem to remember the term "Roly Poly Bank" but do not actually recall it.

You are quite correctin that there was a stamp shop up from Clift's and I am sure it was Robby Clift's dad that was displaying his expertise, (sad about his son and my boyhood friend who had a few problems after his fall and head injury in the Edward Bolitho Gardens - now a car park on the Prom (West). Nowadays the parents would sue, then it was part of growing up!!

As for the Ritz, well I remember standing at the door asking "take me in sir??" when there was a film I was not old enough to see. I remember taking in youngsters when I was of that age, only to see them scamper away (as I did) to their mates down in the bottom rows.

Oh the Organ!! I can still remember it rising in all it's Art Deco glory and being entertained by it until the main feature film.

Keep these memories alive, we are what PPz is all about.

duffy
 
Only eight years between us – your recollections of the Ritz are identical to mine – I can’t watch a western movie with a saloon scene and still not think of the Globe and Mr Retallick playing the piano.
The part of the Eastern Green known as Roly Poly Bank was by the manned railway crossing. As you probably know the beach was closed for the duration of the war, some time after when the scaffold and barbed wire were cleared away the shoreline was opened up again. Left behind were three (?) pillboxes and eight (?) four foot cubes of concrete. The bases of the cubes went deep into the sand and they were grouped in a rectangle towards the top of the beach and near to the railway turntable. Originally they were the bases for a substantial wooden building which had been abandoned. The wood and all the fittings were soon liberated by some local people and went for recycling.
 
Mr Retallick. Thats right. He indeed did play piano. He was my Grandfather. Any other memories of him? Me too young to remember seeing him play.
 

Tropicgal

Janner/ Senior Member
I remember Clifts the cobblers, I also seem to remember a 'statue' in the window of a cobbler at a bench - or am I imagining things? I remember the Ritz, the organ and Saturday Morning Minors! I also remember there was a guy who painted the advertising posters for the films being shown at the Ritz. I was in possession of a very well illustrated story book about fairies and he borrowed it to copy some of the fairies for a film advertisement! I can't imagine what film it was!

I remember the roly poly bank! How long since I said those words!!! I was born in '48 so Eastern Green Beach was open by the time I was old enough to go. I remember the big granite blocks along the shoreline below the railway station and towards the tunnels. We (a bunch of girls) would go there sometimes during our office lunch breaks and sunbathe you could reach them by hopping over the wall of the railway station. I was told later that these blocks were alive with rats but I never saw any!
 

missp

Senior Member
I can remember Cliffs the cobblers, he was called Charlie, used to go there as a child to have my shoes adjusted, I had one leg longer than the the other and they used to build one shoe up to match t`other one, nowadays I walk with a limp::11:::11:
 
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