Stories from our past - part 2

After Violet finished school she got a job in Barton upon Humber which was located on the other side of the Humber from Hull. In those days there wasn’t a bridge, so Violet would take the ferry boat there and back, sometimes they would have dances on the boat during the crossing.

When Violet was 20 she moved back up to Bridlington for awhile and worked as a waitress at a Lunchroom called Oberon’s. She was obviously pleased to be able to renew her friendship with her step sisters. Violet had quite a few admirers but she eventually met and fell in love with a young man from Hull called Herbert Cyril Orwin, they married on the 31st July 1922. Violet and Herbert had three children, Cyril, Joan and Doreen. They had a happy life though sadly Violet’s Mother Rose died in December 1930 when the children where still quite young. Violet can remember seeing a rainbow around the Christmas tree on the day her Mother died.

Their youngest child Doreen was my Mum, she also shared some memories of her childhood. Her Dad, Herbert had a little car with what they called a dickey at the back where the children could sit strapped in, usually on a Saturday or a Sunday they would go for a drive to Hornsea or Withernsea, little seaside resorts. On their way home they would always stop at a wayside pub called 'The Jack of Hearts' and the children would sit outside by the tables and get a glass of lemonade and a packet of crisps. Doreen always loved this treat and sometimes if her Dad pretended to drive past the pub without stopping all three children would start yelling from the back of the car. Next to the pub was a farm and the lady who lived there got to know them quite well and would often bring over a glass of goat's milk for them to drink.

One of Doreen's stories from her growing up years is from when she was about 7 or 8 years old. The children living in her street, Spring Gardens in Anlaby near Hull, asked her if she would go to the shops for them on her bicycle, they said that they badly needed some elbow grease. Doreen recalls: "I agreed to go and get some, about 30 minutes later after having been in just about all the shops, I arrived back in the street to see my friends doubled up with laughter, it was then that I realized what elbow grease was, (elbow grease means hard work). Feeling very embarrassed, I fell off my bicycle and ended up with a very bad knee which took a few weeks to heal up, and I must say ended up with my friends feeling very sorry, but it was a laugh when I think how foolish I was."

In 1940 World War 2 broke out, with Hull being a big port it was very badly bombed during the war, Violet’s family had an air-raid shelter in the back garden with bunks and bedding and food, but it was not very nice having to sleep there every night and hearing the sirens and the bombs falling. Doreen usually received the hand me down clothes from her elder sister Joan, but once during the war she had received a brand new strawberry pink coat, she was so proud of it that she had it hanging in the living room to show to some friends, when her father came to warn them of an air-raid. They rushed to the shelter, it was very frightening as they could see the land mines coming down, thankfully the wind blew them further down the street and one of them landed in Rokeby Park in a lot of mud, but it caused such a big crater you could have fitted three houses into it, and the explosion caused all the windows to blow in and the plaster to fall from the ceilings. Luckily everyone was in the shelter so no one was injured but Doreen's new coat was covered with plaster and soot so she was most upset.

During the war Cyril enlisted in the RAF and often flew on missions to the continent, on one of these missions he was shot down above the Hoek of Holland and taken as a prisoner of war. This was a terrible time for the family, at first they didn't even know whether he was still alive until someone from the Dutch resistance was able to send word to the family. In the last years of the war Herbert was also called up to serve even though he was already in his 40's,he was sent to India.

Violet had lot’s of fond memories of Bridlington and would often visit her step sisters there in her later life.

Stories from our past

Stories from our Grandparents link us to the past they are like a bridge to an earlier time. My Grandmother Violet Popplewell, whom I called Nana, was born at the beginning of the last Century, on the 12th December 1900. Her Father, Harry Popplewell died when she was only two years old. He had worked in a coal mine since being a young boy of fourteen and the coal dust had infected and blocked up his lungs, he was only twenty six when he died. A year later Violet’s Mother Rose remarried, a widower with six young daughters between the ages of two and thirteen, Violet suddenly had six sisters to grow up with.

Violet’s step father, William Whiting and his daughters lived in the Seaside town of Bridlington, North Yorkshire. People around that time were just beginning to start taking vacations, they would usually travel with the train from the busy industrial cities to seaside places like Bridlington, for this reason Violet’s mother Rose kept a Bed and Breakfast establishment on Quay Road and William worked as a Porter by the Railway station. Violet told me that when the guests would leave at the end of their vacation, she and her sisters would line up by the front door and they would often receive a little tip. When Violet was old enough she attended school with her sisters at Oxford Street School. On this photo you can see a May Pole, the girls all learnt to do a little dance around the May Pole, each girl had a different coloured ribbon, Violet’s ribbon was red. After their performance Violet’s Mum, Rose brought a basket of little chocolate bars for all of the children.

At Easter the girls all received a new dress and bonnet, which Rose had sewed for them, they were white with a red ribbon and their straw bonnets where decorated with flowers. After church the girls asked whether they could go down to the beach, their parents gave them permission but warned them to stay on the promenade and not to go down to the sand. Once they where there it was much to tempting, one of the sisters suggested running along the sand from one set of stairs to the next before the tide came in. They all agreed but unfortunately they were not quick enough for the tide and they all got soaked, their beautiful new dresses were ruined because the red dye from the ribbons ran out over the white dresses.

One of Violet’s step sisters was called Fanny but she had a nickname, they all called her Joey, she was a year older than Violet and she was a bit of a tomboy. Violet and Joey got on really well together and Joey often thought up wild adventures for them to do. One day they borrowed a rowing boat and took it out into the bay, it was a beautiful sunny day and they had brought along a couple of books and a picnic to enjoy. Violet was a little bit worried about rowing out too far but Joey waved away her worries, they ate their lunch and then began reading their books and enjoying the sun and the solitude. At a certain moment, Violet looked up from her book and couldn’t see the harbour anymore, they had drifted far out to sea!Thankfully another boat had seen them and had notified the Lifeboat rescue service so they were eventually towed back to safety.

When the girls were a bit older they received bicycles, a relatively new invention which gave them the freedom to discover the surrounding countryside. One day one of their friends joined them for a bike ride, she had a brand new bike and Joey really, really wanted to ride that bike instead of her own. At first the friend didn’t want to swap but Joey was so insistent that eventually she gave in and Joey got to cycle on the brand new bike and the friend took Joey’s older bike. Everything went well until they started biking down a fairly steep hill and Joey couldn’t find the hand brakes to slow her decent, her friend’s new bike had back pedal brakes! Joey ended up crashing into a hedge at the bottom of the hill and learnt her lesson about being too bossy the hard way.

After spending most of her childhood and early teens in Bridlington with her step sisters, Violet’s mother Rose was divorced from William Whiting and Violet and her Mother and younger brother Hector moved down to the larger city of Hull.