Memories of Elizabeth Castle
Elizabeth Castle was a wonderland of entertainment to us as children. So many places to hide and run around. The old guns and turrets were a great source of fun. The biggest challenge was getting into the castle without paying. We would walk across the sand when the tide was out and climb across the rocks alongside the castle. Because we knew that at the back of the castle was an entrance that lead out to the causeway. We had found our free way in, what joy.
I can remember walking back from Elizabeth Castle and collecting winkles and muscles from all the rock pools alongside the path. When we got home my mum cleaned them all up and cooked them for our tea, the taste of the fresh winkles and muscles is still in my memory.
The greatest challenge was timing the tides. If we missed judged the tide we could be caught out at Elizabeth Castle. This is where our charm and cheek came into its own. We would sweet talk the drivers of the ducks that would take the tourists back to dry land. Sometimes we would have to wait for a few ducks before we would bag a lift, but we would always manage to get back to dry land.
When we had visiting family to the Island then our parents would take all of us to Elizabeth Castle and pay to get in, this meant we could visit all the exhibitions in the castle. What an amazing trip down historical memory lane. They have rooms all made out in Elizabethan furniture and manikins with the historical clothing on, this is what I loved, as I would of loved to have been a lady born in that era. Mind you if I had been born then I would have probably been a parlour maid.
The harbour in St Helier
The harbour is a bustling busy port with a mixture of small boats, sailing boats, yachts and Ferries. We would spend many an afternoon watching the fishing men sort out their daily catch and the rich people enjoying their sundowners on board their yachts. As children we didn’t understand the difference in people’s lives, people are just people trying to enjoy their own lives.
One particular memory sticks with me. Mum sent the three of us of with bags of homemade fish and chips and a yoghurt for dissert, her last words to us as we disappeared out of the house was “make sure you bring those spoons back”. Mum was not a lady to disobey, so bringing back three spoons was the task of the day. We were 6, 8 and 10 years of age at the time, me being the oldest and most responsible for the three of us. So off we went on our adventure. Before we knew it we were walking along the promenade heading for the harbour wall to watch the boats come and go. We were all sitting on the harbour wall eating our yoghurts and swinging our legs when Sue the youngest dropped her spoon in the water. Oh no, disaster, we will be belted for this, we have to get the spoon back. So Richard the middle child jumped into the water to grab the spoon before it disappeared..........but he couldn’t swim, so I grabbed his tea shirt to bring him back to the surface, yeah the spoon was in his hand. Now why were we all wet, we are not allowed to go to the harbour without parents. So the story developed, we were on the beach and a large wave got the three of us, that was the best we could come up with at such short notice. Oh we were caught out and grounded, but as least we were not belted.
I can remember as a teenager sitting on the bench at the head of the harbour watching all the boats come and go and soooooo wishing I was on one of them. The Island can be very small and suffocating and dreams of escaping such a small place can be all consuming.
Fort Regent
When we first arrived in Jersey in 1969 For Regent was a derelict old fort with amazing walls to walk around with tunnels and corridors to run along and scream at the top of your voice to get the echo’s.
We then watched the work men come and in and start to develop the old fort into an activity centre for everyone to enjoy. The best thing about the new fort was the plastic ice rink, every Friday night we would all head up to the fort to enjoy the disco dance on the ice rink. Many a bruise was created on a Friday night from all the falls.
Once the Olympic size swimming pool was built our lives changed. Swimming became a major event in our lives, every Saturday we would spend all day swimming and diving off the high dive boards. I suppose the major event for us was enjoying the bag of chips we always enjoyed after our swim.
The Lyons charity organisation then arranged marathon swims to raise money for the charity. We are proud to say that we raised a lot of money for the charity swimming in the marathons. The fun swim was great; this is when we all swam a length of the pool in our clothes without drowning.
I left school at 15, you could in Jersey in 1976. I can remember walking around the walls of Fort Regent looking down at St Helier wondering where I would get a job to earn my living. Very scary times for a young girl with no qualifications. My very first paid job was painting cold on to jewellery, I lasted all of one week as I hated it. Luckily enough for me a friend got me a job as a clerk in an office, my working life had started. Phew.
Freedom Square
When I was growing up in Jersey in the 1970’s Freedom Square was the entrance to warehouses where vegetables were boxed ready for the markets. But once a year these warehouses were transformed into a hive of activity as lots of different Youth Clubs designed, built and stuck millions of heads of carnations onto the created float. This was where the Battle of Flowers floats were created. Because fresh carnation heads were used we only had 24 hours in which to stick all the flower heads before the float was entered into the parade. This was such an exciting time as we spent all night sticking the flower heads on the float, and then being part of the parade the next day. Great memories.
It’s now very exciting to see how the warehouses have been developed into a high end shopping centre which has enhanced this area of St Helier.
It’s also nice to see different groups enjoying Freedom Square. Every February the Chinese community enjoy a day of shows in and around Freedom Square to celebrate their new year. The Dragon show is very popular and well worth seeing if you’re ever in Jersey in February.
The bay and beach of St Helier
Freedom, freedom, freedom, that is my lasting memory of my childhood in Jersey. We would leave the house immediately after eating our breakfast and disappear to the beach. The day would be spent digging holes, building castles, swimming in the sea and finding crabs in the rock pools. When the sun set at the end of the day would be our key to head home, as dinner would be ready, and believe me we would be ready for dinner.
In the winter the sea would be wild, especially if it was windy. The waves would often crash over the sea wall and smash onto the road running along the promenade. Now the challenge was running with the waves and not being caught by the sea. We would often go home wet and cold after getting caught by the waves.
Elizabeth Castle sits in the middle of the bay of St Helier, in the summer evenings the castle is always ablaze with lights. But in the winter they turn the lights off, our parents used to tell us they took the Castle away for winter maintenance, and we believed them.
Our Home, the Cafe
Living above a Cafe has its advantages. Your parents are so busy they have no control over what you get up to. So many a day we were left to our own devices and our imaginations would run wild. We would often turn the furniture in the lounge (which was directly above the main cafe) into den’s for us to live in. This would involve dragging the sofa and chairs around, dropping the dining table to throw a blanket over it. This would be very noisy and the customers underneath us would wonder what was going on. Then we would be in trouble with the parents, time to escape.
The church building next door to the Cafe was our Youth Club. What a wonderful place to escape to. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night would be youth club night from 07:00 until 11:00 we would run wild, dance, sing, play murder ball and generally burn of lots of energy.
The downside of living above a seasonal business is that in the winter the Cafe was closed so my parents panicked about where the money was going to come from. So my mother had a bright idea, she would rent out our bedrooms. So the four of us kids aged from 4,6,8 and 10 all slept in the lounge whilst lodgers rented our bedrooms. This was a success in my mother’s eyes, so each winter we would all move down to the lounge to camp for 6 months.
Some horrible memories of what happened because of lodgers. On three separate occasions lodgers would stagger back from the pub very drunk, get into their bed light up a cigarette and fall asleep. Yes the stupidity of drunken people. So the first fire burnt the top two floors out. We all had to run out into the dark to escape the smoke and flames. We then moved into the B&B down the road for 6 months whilst the house was rebuilt.
The second fire just burnt the top floor out and we all escaped down to the Cafe for protection. But the third fire was bad, this time the house and cafe were gutted. We were all saved by the fire brigade, we were carried out by fireman, quite exciting but scary as well. My sister and I took protection in the phone box across the road because it was cold and dark. Then all of a sudden all the front windows of the house and cafe blow out right across the road. Wow that was scary, that could so easily have got my sister and I in the back if we had still been running across the road.
Now the ironic thing about all of these fires, the only person that ever got hurt was the man that started the fire with his cigarette in his bed, burnt his back.
And the memory, the worst one of all, the one that eventually made me leave Jersey. My brother who was two years younger than me decided in his wisdom that this world would be better if he was no longer in it. He did something I could never do; he hung himself in our back shed. My poor Dad found him now that must have been horrific to see your first son dead in the shed. We don’t know why he took his life. The rumour mill tells us he didn’t know if he was Arthur or Martha. All I know is we wouldn’t have cared; he was still our flesh and blood and a person who deserved a life. He has gone, but we have never forgotten him.
Archirondel Tower
Archirondel Tower is an old German Bunker that was built to protect the Island during the German Occupation. Our Youth Club was fortunate enough to own Archirondel Tower. We were very lucky because most weekends we would get the chance to camp out at the Tower.
The Tower has three floors. The ground floor is the kitchen, lounge and sleeping quarters for the leaders. The first floor was for the girls to sleep in and the third floor was for the boys. Each floor had a set of wooden stairs between them and a trap door, the trap door was padlocked.
When it was bed time we would all snuggle up into our sleeping bags on our beds and the lights would be turned off at 21:00hours. At about 21:30 we would climb the stairs and chat to the boys through the trap door, giggling and being silly, until the leaders heard us and chased us back into our beds. Good memories.
On a Saturday night we would all huddle around the camp fire and cook crumpets on the logs after enjoying our hot dogs for tea. If the moon was full and the sky was clear the leaders would let us have a swim in the sea. We called it the midnight swim, but it was really about 21:00 as they liked us in bed early.
As a Youth Club we were always looking at different ways of raising money for charity. I can remember one of the events was a walk around the Island. Now this doesn’t sound too difficult as the Island is only 12 miles long. But it’s very hilly, so the 12 miles suddenly becomes 25 miles. So one Sunday we set off to walk the Island. I managed to fall down a steep bank going into a rolly polly down the bank bashing into bushes and trees and finally coming to stop in a nettle bush. Oh I was brushed and covered in a stinging rash, oh it hurt. I then had to continue the walk in pain as the blisters developed on my feet. I can tell you when I saw Archirondel Tower in the distancet looked like the best haven I have ever seen, and the thought of the beans on toast we were being given for tea was heaven.
Corbiere Lighthouse
We would walk along the old railway walk to Corbiere Lighthouse and sit on the rocks watching the sea, thinking things through and clearing the head of the cobwebs that had developed. This was another one of my favourite places to sit and wish I could escape the Island.
When we were children my parents would take us to the old Hotel facing Corbiere Lighthouse. We would go there to have a drink and catch up with our Uncle who owned the bar at the time. Now back in 1979 this Uncle won the Jersey Lottery. He won enough money to enable him and his family to retire back to Madeira which is where my father’s family come from. Uncle John won the grand total of £20,000.
Gorey Village and Gorey Castle
Gorey Village is the most beautiful little village in Jersey; it is nestled underneath Gorey Castle. As children we often visited Gorey Village to enjoy moules mariner with chunks of fresh bread, this was always a treat on a Sunday afternoon, the only day the Cafe would be closed and we would have family time.
Around the base of Gorey Castle are lots of blackberry bushes. As a family we would pick the blackberries and Mum would make a blackberry and apple pie, yum yum.
From the top of Gorey Castle on a clear day you can see the beaches of France, you can even see the people walking along the beach. Oh so close, but so far away. I obviously spent a lot of time thinking about how to escape this tiny island of Jersey.
No comments:
Post a Comment