MEMORIES
My early years on Walney Island by 'the late' S. P.
Bundy
In the early 1900s Walney Island was being developed rapidly to house the
increasing workforce at the shipbuilding and armaments firm of Vickers. On our
arrival at the end of 1913 my parents had to find lodgings until the house that
had been allocated to them in Delhi Street was
completed. This was to be the last street to be built but when the Great War
commenced in 1914 more and more employees were required by Vickers and more
streets were built. My earliest memories were not of the Isle of Wight, but
whilst lodging in Lord Robert Street
where I played with the neighbours? boys and remember two events. The first was
a ride on a huge rocking horse and the second was when two of the boys lost my
small toy yacht at the ferry landing stage on Walney Island.
On moving in to Delhi Street I began school at the age of 5 and attended Ocean
Road 'Tin School' ? a temporary corrugated iron building on the corner of a
field in Mikasa Street. This was the site of
the Ocean Road Elementary School which
opened in 1917. The 'Tin School' was an infant school staffed by a headmistress
by the name of Miss Dobson(?) and two class teachers Miss Nellie Campbell and
Miss Perry(?). The school was designed to house about 100 children. Heating
was by coal stoves and lighting was provided by oil lamps. As far as I can
remember there was one impressive picture on the wall of my classroom. This was
of ?Nibbles?(???), a fair curly haired boy. I can?t remember learning to read
but have memories of slates and slate pencils and of one afternoon when my
teacher Miss Campbell told the class to be ready to meet an important visitor.
From the classroom we could see a path through the grass from the road to the
school and low and behold the important visitor turned out to be my sister
Gladys who was due to start school in 1915!
It was a happy school and many of the children were meeting for the first time
as, like my family, their parents had recently arrived in Barrow from various
parts of the country such as Glasgow, Newcastle and places in Ireland. I
received a letter recently from a former girl pupil who reminded me that we both
started school on the same day and that she, myself and two other boys were
destined to become head teachers; one of them eventually holding the headship of
Ocean Road Junior School in the
1960s and 70s.
After two years my class moved to the former(?) church school
(Michaelson Chapel School) at the bottom of
Church Lane where I was taught by Miss Harland
who later, in 1917, took over a wooden building in
Biggar village to cater for the younger
children of that area. I was there for a year and was due to be transferred to
Vickerstown School ? a mile
further along the Promenade. Fortunately Ocean Road School was completed by
this time and I made a new start in a new school; new teachers, a large
playground, new heated classrooms with electric lights and a woodwork room in
the basement. The school had a Boys? and a Girls? Department under the
headships of Mr Lawton and Miss Freeman. Conditions in the new school were very
good and my class teacher Miss Emily ? , Miss ? , Miss Geldard and Miss ?, under
the eagle eye of the headmaster Mr. J. W. Lawton made my Junior School days
happy and interesting. In 1921 I sat and passed the scholarship examination for
the Municipal Secondary School for Boys and began my secondary education in
September 1921.As a reward for passing the examination my mother?s sister, Aunt
Rose, sent the railway fare and I spent the Summer holiday in the Isle of Wight
decked out in my new school blazer and cap.
Childhood on Walney Island was a happy time in spite of the rigours of wartime
1914 -18 and the depression from 1919 onwards ? a period when the majority of
Vickers manual workers were ?on the dole?. I rarely left the island except for
a trip to Barrow with my parents, usually with the pram carrying Nell (born1914)
or Fred (born1916). The whole family, dressed in our 'Sunday clothes' went out
together. Once we thought we had lost Jack but he was riding on a bar
underneath the pram. On another occasion I was punished because I had gone
across the bridge on my own and my parents
had been anxiously looking for me. Our visits were to Barrow outdoor and indoor
markets where food was cheaper than at the Co-op. The atmosphere created by
salesmen shouting their wares, the pet section, and the roundabouts and swings
was exciting to us children.
If the weather was fine we sometimes went to Barrow Public Park where we
strolled round or listened to a band on the bandstand. I remember an outing to
Furness Abbey, attired in my white sailor suit and of Sunday School trips by
steam train to Kirby, Lindal or Haverthwaite where we had races and were regaled
with a bag of buns and cakes and a cup of tea!! The Sunday School teachers
hired the train and arranged to take us and bring us back again, usually to and
from Barrow Island railway station as this was a shorter walk for us from
Walney.
After school hours, at the weekends, during school holidays, most of our games
were carried out in our own or neighbouring streets or at
Biggar Bank and
West Shore. These were team games and girls of all ages such as 'tin can
nerky', 'tig', 'guinea' ? with a stick and a pointed wooden guinea about the
size of a cricket ball, skipping rope games, high cock alarum (where teams of 7
or 8 formed a ?horse? and the opposing team vaulting onto the ?horse? - if the
horse broke down ?need(?) horse? was shouted and the teams changed roles), and a
?wide game? called ?leooy?(?) which took two teams further afield.
Games involving one or two people followed each other in season. Whip and top,
booly bowling with a wooden or iron hoop and a stick, marbles, cigarette card
flicking. Football was not very popular in our area until the farmer?s fields
in Amphitrite Street were sold as a
building site. The lanes and fields between Amphitrite Street and Biggar Bank
provided interesting place for walks, bird nesting, frogs, blossom and
blackberry picking. I went to hear a corncrake in the fields next to Delhi
Street. Conservation was not a consideration in those days. Bird egg
collections were not frowned upon and wild flower competitions at church fetes
were quite common.
In the summer holidays things were different. Biggar Bank and West Shore were
popular venues and on bank holidays the trams brought hundreds of town dwellers
where they put up tents, picnicked and bathed. The ?Walneyites? spent a lot of
time on the sea shore and tide line. The older ones dug bait ? sand worms ? and
set lines of fish hooks to hopefully catch fluke and codfish. Winkles were
collected and taken home to be boiled. Winkle parties were held in back yards
where the winkles were winkled out of their shells by means of a long pin. A
song was written by Wynne Large which extolled the delights of winkle picking -
?I?ve been looking for winkles on Walney?.
Beach games were very popular and, of them, Leap Frog, French Cricket and Duck
Stones stand out in my memory.
The tide line was scoured in the search for any unusual or interesting object
thrown overboard. There was one very exciting occasion when a boat carrying
potatoes came ashore near Thorny Nook. People
were allowed to take the cargo in the hope that it could be re-floated. Hordes
descended on the wreck with every conceivable
conveyance. The wreck didn?t re-float and after partial demolition the hull was
left lying on its side and for some time was used as a swimming pool which was
refilled at each high tide.
Childhood memories seem to come back in snatches. Reading a letter in the North
Western Evening Mail triggered one such memory. The writer remembered that in
the 1920s his father made a box wheelbarrow to collect horse manure ?dropped? in
the street. This was known as ?coddimuck?. We had such a box on wheels and my
brother and I collected ?coddy?. The horses drew the carts which brought goods
to the door, e.g.. Laundry van, milk float, coal cart, dust bin cart, ice cream
cart and so on. This ?collection? was needed to fertilise the allotment which
was quite large as my father had a double allotment and a single one on the
field off Ocean Road. He also collected seaweed
in the autumn for the same purpose and of course used the droppings from the hen
house. Grit for the hen run, shells and stones, were collected from the shore
and wood from the tide line, which was used to stoke the fire and if large
enough to make fences etc. for the garden. Wood of good quality was also saved
as my father made wooden Christmas toys in the early winter evenings.
At this time most of the children on our end of the island attended Sunday
School in the 'Tin School' run by members of the Gospel Hall. They were very
kind and generous and gave a sound knowledge of the New Testament. Fact cards,
small coloured text cards were given to us. We were expected to learn the text
for the next Sunday. A weekly attendance register was kept and prizes (usually
a Holy Bible) were presented each year. I attended this Sunday School on Sunday
mornings and went to St Mary?s Anglican Church
with my mother on Sunday evenings, eventually joining the choir when I was 11 or
12.
Our other leisure activities were reading; Children?s Newspaper, books and
homework. We hadn?t a wireless set or a gramophone. My father played the mouth
organ and tin whistle and my mother the mandolin but no attempt was made to pass
these skills on to us children. My friends all lived nearby. We played in each
other?s back yards but only went into each other?s homes for such occasions as
birthday parties. My best friend at that time was Harry Granville and many
years later I was the best man at his wedding and he at mine.
Note: The above is a duplicate of a handwritten account by Mr. S. P. Bundy
who many locally will remember as having been a headmaster at St Paul?s School
for many years, a member of St Paul?s church, one time District Commissioner for
Scouts and in his earlier years a leading member of Walney Amateur Operatic
Society, who passed aged 92 in June of 2001. The account was found after his
death on various scraps of paper and clearly incomplete. Surprisingly for one
who normally had very neat handwriting much of it was difficult to decipher and
some words, particularly names, impossible. I think that you will agree that it
does shed an interesting light on life on Walney in the early years of the 20th
century.
------oooo000O000oooo------
MEMORIES
? Copyright Walney Webs. All rights reserved.
|