Nowadays, domestic light and heating are controlled by the flick of a switch but when I was a boy, it was a bit more involved.

Lighting in the home was provided by gas via a mantle which was lit with a match or taper and, similarly, street lights were also gas lit. Oil lamps, candles and hurricane lamps were extensively used, especially in air raid shelters during the war. All of these lights gave a soft, warm glow. Heating left much to be desired. It was fuelled by coal, coke and logs, burning in the fireplace, which also heated the oven for cooking. Paraffin heaters, stoves, earthenware hot water bottles (or a warmed house brick wrapped in cloth) kept us warm at bedtime and we also used a great coat thrown over the bed clothes for good measure.

All fuel could be delivered to the door if the quantity was right. Our coalman, whose business was ‘Arnolds’ lived in Tuckers Lane, Hamworthy and we used him when we could afford to buy a hundred weight but, generally, a quarter hundred weight of coal was the most my mother could stretch to. In this case, I would fetch it from ‘Woods’ or ‘Burdens’ (as they were situated nearer to our home) using our old pram or a cart, or by laying the sack of coal across my sister’s bike frame. Once, when we did have an ‘Arnolds’ delivery, the coalman’s task was to put the coal in a cupboard under the stairs. However, coming through the hall he dropped his load and it went straight through the floorboards – no lino or carpet in our house – and my father was NOT very happy about that!

To fetch our other fuel – coke from the gasworks – wasn’t so straightforward. It was further to travel and we had to enter what was, at the time, a ‘dodgy’ area. At one time, Hamworthy and Poole were a bit tribal, very ‘us and them’ and we from ‘Ham’ felt a little vulnerable when entering the east end of the quay, near the lifeboat station and the gasworks. My mate and I, pushing our old cart along the quay, were suddenly surrounded by some boys, about our age, carrying a length of rope. They decided we weren’t from their side of town and threatened to tie us to a lamppost outside the old lifeboat station. We were bewildered and scared, so to try and frighten them I said “My dad’s a policeman.” But it had little effect as my friend said ”So is mine.” A bit too much exaggeration! However, to our relief, they scarpered when a kind adult came to our rescue. We quickly loaded up our coke from the gasworks and hurried home, plus a length of rope as a bonus!

To boost our fuel stock, my mum and her neighbour would walk with bags along the railway line at Lower Hamworthy, picking up pieces of coal fallen from wagons as they were shunted. Also, drift wood gathered from ‘Ham’ shore was a good extra source, with my dad and I using a two handled cross-cut saw to reduce the large pieces.

The next time we stand warming our backs by a modern fire or radiator, let’s think of the progress made since we all relied on using fossil fuel the hard way, and count our blessings!

P.S. Are you one of the boys who wanted to tie me to a lamppost all those years ago?

They haven’t come to see “Old Tom” they have come to see “Old Harry”

This cartoon by Alec Wills was published in the March 2009 edition of CT Poole
When Martyn Brown was editor.  This was at the time of our ‘Old Poole’ feature
writer, Tom Scott, being in hospital.  It seemed that everyone that went to see
him preferred the view of Old Harry Rocks from the Poole hospital window …
what wonderful views you get from there.

Corrals – fuel oil distributors; R H Newman & Sons – boatbuilders; Wilkins & Wilkins – Marine Engineers; Stoneyard Ballast; The Shipwright Arms public house; J Bolson & Sons – shipbuilders and engineers; Hamworthy Engineering and, lastly, Wood’s coal wharf.

Businesses on the Poole side included:

Bradford’s warehouse; Christopher Hill’s silo; Yeatman’s mill; Burden’s coalyard; The Fish Shambles – where the local catch was sold; Poole Pottery, then the Gasworks.

A railway track ran from Poole station, down West Quay Road and along the quay itself. Various loads were transported in the wagons, like timber and grain, plus coal to fuel the paddle steamers: The Embassy, The Monarch, The Bournemouth Queen and The Empress of India. The railway lines along the quay could cause difficulties for cyclists. Bike wheels could easily be trapped in them, resulting in the rider ‘tasting the tarmac’ – my unfortunate experience on more than one occasion!

The first Poole bridge was a wooden structure, replaced in 1914 by an iron swing bridge (toll payable) which, in turn, was followed by our present lifting bridge. Previous to these, the crossing was via a ferry boat manned by two crewmen who hauled the ferry across manually using two fixed ropes spanning the water from one side of the quay to the other. They were able to take as many as seventy passengers at a time.

The lifting bridge, completed in 1927, was a often a problem for people whose place of employment was on the opposite side of the quay to their home, as its random closing could cause them to be late for work and, consequently, lose pay. If three blasts of a ship’s siren were heard, the public had to make a dash to beat the closure of the gates. The bridge was operated by just one man who endured many abusive comments being thrown at him as, by hand, he closed the gates. People’s frustration was usually caused by the fact that, at times, he had to close the gates when a ship was about half a mile away which seemed unreasonable to those waiting. Unpopular though he was (through no fault of his own) he was never bothered by it.

In the 1940s, as young apprentices, we lads would wait for the bridge-keeper to enter his operating tower, then lift our bikes over the gates and pedal like mad before the bridge began to rise. We were never caught as the keeper couldn’t leave his station while operating the mechanism! During World War II, our bridge remained unscathed, although a stack of bombs was dropped along the quay and HMS Sona, a training ship moored about fifty yards away, was sunk. The only means of defence of the bridge at that time were two Home Guard sentries.

Electronically operated barriers and lights now equip the bridge – a great improvement on one man’s hands! And, what of the future? The new ‘Twin Sails’ bridge has now been ratified to supplement the one we have – I do hope it meets expectations. After all the years of queuing, on foot and in car, perhaps a fixed bridge across Holes Bay may have been more convenient all along!

During some blackouts I was a ‘guinea pig’ for the Red Cross. On the first of these occasions, I was stationed on the corner of Ivor Road, Hamworthy with an ARP Warden and had a label tied to me stating that I had a back injury. For added dramatic effect, I had to lie on the ground, waiting for the improvised ambulance (a baker’s van!) to arrive.

St Michael’s Hall, the Red Cross headquarters, was a wooden building next to the Blandford Road pump house (now a brick building housing Watkins & Watkins Propellers). The headquarters was quite close to Ivor Road and I could have walked there easily, but for my imaginary injury. Eventually the baker’s van picked me up and transported me to the hall, back doors wide open all the way as it was too short to accommodate the full length of the stretcher!

It was all worthwhile though, because volunteers received a cup of tea, cakes and biscuits; and of course we were helping the war effort.

That old, wooden hall was also the place where I learned to dance – the hard way! How the girls must have suffered as I kicked them around the dance floor with my ‘two left feet’. It was hardly Strictly Come Dancing and the judges were the girls with whom you had danced – if you asked for another dance and got a refusal, you soon realised you were no Fred Astaire. With the number of refusals I received, I think I was more Fred Flintstone!

My second escapade as a blackout guinea pig occurred at the same spot in Ivor Road, this time with a different injury and a very different outcome. I was waiting with the ARP Warden, looking at the stars on a cold, clear night, when he decided to walk to headquarters to fetch a couple of blankets telling me “Won’t be long.” Shortly afterwards, I heard the drone of aircraft engines, then the eerie wail of the air raid sirens. Searchlight beams began to scan the sky. Although I was just 11 years old, I was quite content to watch the display – that was until the anti-aircraft guns started firing! All alone, I then got scared…what should I do? Wait for the transport, run to St Michael’s Hall or dash for home? I chose the latter.

At full pace I scarpered to Harbour Road, where I lived. On reaching the row of terraced cottages, I felt along the front garden hedge in the darkness. Finding the front door, I opened it and walked down the passageway into the kitchen where, to my surprise, Mr and Mrs Russell, our neighbours, were sat at the table. “My, it’s Percy Scott’s boy,” said Mrs Russell. In the pitch dark of the blackout I had lost my bearings and was two houses out!

Mr Russell took me home, where all my family then climbed into our indoor Morrison Shelter. After the all-clear, the ARP Warden called to check that all was well and that I was, indeed, at home.

The label was still tied to me, stating ‘broken leg’ – didn’t I do well to run all the way home with an injury like that!

My mother would use the ferry boat some days when she’d been shopping in the High Street. Now, if you wanted to get the ferryman’s attention from the Piplers side of the quay you had to shout at the top of your voice “OVER” because if he was in his wooden hut he couldn’t hear you.

My mother could never shout so she had to wait for someone to call out. He didn’t like rowing for a single fare, so he would wait for 3 or 4 people, and on occasions mum couldn’t wait any longer and would walk all the way round over Hamworthy bridge to our home in Harbour Road, which reminds me of we 3 Boys Big Swim.

We used to swim from the ferry steps quite often, when the ferryman wasn’t about because he didn’t like his steps getting wet.

One day he caught me off guard and threw me in the drink. I went down very deep and I found myself just like a “limpet” fixed to the bottom of the mine sweeper moored at the quay. I was scared. Slowly I eased myself to the surface seeing the shade of the water getting lighter. What a relief to breathe again.

One day three of us boys decided to swim the quay width when the tides were still. We set off and slowly swam to the other side of the ferry steps.

One boy even did “Dog Paddle” all the way. Standing at the top of the steps we looked across the quay at the distance we had swum.

Then the three of us had to make up our minds, do we swim back or walk all the way along the quay over Hamworthy bridge then down Harbour Road, back to the ferry steps at the Shipwrights Arms? Walking bare foot, and just swimming trunks it was quite an achievement for eleven and twelve year olds.

At some time later, I decided to do the swim again, hoping to swim to the “Piplers” side and back. I asked an older lad (a teenager named George) to accompany me this time.

When we set off the tide had started running (ebbing) and at two thirds of the crossing I was beginning to feel the strain and this time I was drifting off course towards the Fish Shamble Steps. I shouted to George for assistance and he nursed me to the steps. I was so glad he was at hand otherwise it could have been a sad ending, and this time the ferryman rowed us back to the Hamworthy Steps.

The event taught me one thing, especially when you’re young. You can be over confident and sometimes you don’t give enough thought to the task you are undertaking. Most old Poole lads swam in the quay, and it was allowed. People came out of the pubs and threw coins in the water and we would try to gather them, it was almost impossible, you had to be extremely lucky to bag one.

When I was called up for “National Service” in 1950 into The Royal Navy I thought “I’m glad I can swim”.

The war was in its third year and, being an eleven year old boy, I found it all very interesting – especially the tasks we had to fulfil to help with the war effort. After school our duty was to report to gun sites and help fill sand bags, to collect waste paper or scrap iron, or sometimes we would be guinea pigs for the ambulance service.

But today was Saturday, so we could do our own thing. My mate, Jimmy Coomber, decided we should ‘attack’ the Home Guard headquarters at the end of our road. My shoes weren’t waterproof enough to walk through the slush and snow, even though my mother had put cardboard insoles over the holes. I noticed my father’s fur-lined boots and decided they would be just right. Without telling my mother, I put them on. They were about ten sizes too big for me but that was ok, the main thing was my feet were dry and I thought I looked quite the part!

Armed with our catapults, we left home to begin our assault on the battalion headquarters of the Hamworthy Home Guard, at that time captained by Mr Lake, landlord of the Potters Arms. They were housed in an old manor, the home of a Miss Sally Clark who, when the war began, had been given notice to vacate the property. The house had many rooms, including a cellar, plus coach house, stables, a large walled garden and a long semi-circular drive in front. It was well protected from bomb blast by sand bags (many of which my friends and I had filled).

We approached the building through some bushes at the front, step-by-step moving stealthily into the walled garden at the rear. We entered the stable block and then the coach house. There were still bales of straw in there from the days when it must have been a welcome sight for horses, being the last feeding and watering place for them on the lower Hamworthy peninsula. There was no sign of life. How strange we thought, here we are a country at war and there wasn’t a Home Guard in sight. With our loaded catapults, we had ‘captured’ the unit’s headquarters without firing a shot! If we’d managed it so easily, what would the Germans have done?

It was nearing time for dinner, so we decided to make our withdrawal by the same route we arrived. All the snow had turned to sleet and there was plenty of cold slush on the ground, but my feet were still dry because of the boots. Suddenly we froze – a Special Police Constable was cycling towards the entrance. To my amazement and horror, Jimmy fired his catapult at him! I can remember to this day the sound the stone made when it hit the framework of his bike.

There was no time to stand on ceremony – we turned and ran as fast as we could into the walled garden with the policeman now on foot in hot pursuit. With hearts beating and lungs panting we reached the wall at the bottom of the garden. Jimmy leaped and pulled himself up over the six-foot high brick wall and I closely followed. I jumped and pulled myself up with great determination but, in the process, and to my dismay, one of my boots fell off!

For a few seconds I was left with the choice of fleeing home wearing one boot and facing the wrath of my father, or dropping to the ground and being caught by the policeman. I chose the latter. The constable told me to hand over my catapult but I told him I didn’t have one – luckily I had thrown it over the wall. Not believing me, he started looking around on the ground, when his eye caught the dropped boot.

‘Where did you get those boots?’ he asked.

I thought to myself, good news, he’s not interested in the catapult. Proudly, I answered ‘They’re my fathers!’

‘Then I’d like to meet your father,’ he replied. ‘You’d better take me to your home.’

Now there would be trouble from both of them!

I had no choice but to accompany him, so off we went. We made our way through the slushy snow, the policeman pushing his bike beside me. He questioned me about my friend Jimmy – what his name was, where he lived – but I wouldn’t give him any information. Foremost in my mind was, why was he so interested in my dad’s boots?

On arriving home, I was told to go upstairs and to remain there until sent for. My father, who worked at the J. Bolson & Son shipyard, would be home for dinner shortly and would soon sort it out. (And sort it out he did – including me!) The constable and father had a talk, I was sent for and everything was explained to me. It turned out that the catapult incident was secondary. It was the boots that stole the show! The policeman said that the boots I’d been wearing were in fact government property and my dad had bought them from a sailor off one of the ships that was in Bolson’s shipyard for repair. In other words, they were obtained on the black market! The policeman, having written down all the information, closed his note book and, just as he was leaving, said to me with a chuckle

‘The trouble with you, young feller, is you were too small for your boots!”

Eventually my father was summoned before the Magistrate’s Court where he was fined five shillings (a lot of money in those days) and the boots confiscated. After his court appearance, the outcome sent a shockwave through the shipyard. Men removed or discarded all kinds of clothing, tinned food, footwear, blankets, tobacco etc. and it all came about because two young boys decided to ‘attack’ the Home Guard unit headquarters!

Just think, if Captain Luke and his men had been at the manor house that day, they would have asked us to chop firewood and given us a cup of tea, and my dad would still have had his fur-lined boots and been five shillings in pocket!!

The glass Corona bottle was unique with its flip top and four bottles filled each wooden crate. However, I’m not here to talk about the drinks, but the bond between the drayman named Fred (whom I knew well) and Corona’s beautiful Shire horse named Frank, whose stabling was between Pender Plating and Edith Lyle Hall.

As a boy in the late 1930’s, on Saturdays I had the good fortune to travel with Fred and Frank on deliveries, when Fred and I would have some fun and laughs. But one particular Saturday morning he was strangely quiet. Later he explained why.

The depot was to be relocated and mechanised, which meant the loss of his job and beloved horse.

Well, I thought, no more fun on the horse and cart, I would miss it. The time came to do the final delivery with him and to my surprise he seemed rather buoyant. How strange…. Then he proceeded to tell me the good news. All we folk in Old Poole and Hamworthy knew of ‘Walter Curtis’ who owned a horse-drawn haulage business and covered land in the Turlin Moor/Sandy Lane area. When Fred heard that Walter Curtis had purchased Frank at an auction, he decided to approach Mr Curtis for a drayman’s job. To his delight he was accepted.

Once again Fred and Frank were re-united, but their new work was very different. The Corona transport was the Rolls Royce of wagons, with red paintwork and pneumatic tyres, but the draycarts and wagons that Fred and Frank were now familiar with were basic and sported green rimmed wooden wheels.

The pair now transported timber for Sydenham’s, pebble stone for Carters, sacks of grain for Bradford’s and did various other tasks. I was so pleased to be able to travel with them again.

Sitting below Fred, him at the reins, Frank would swish his tail, badly stinging my legs – uncovered in those ‘short trousers’ days!

When the rain started, my retreat was to sit under the wagon on the rear axle housing, but I needed to be alert and lift my feet well up if the horse did a poo!

Fred once allowed me to back Frank into the shafts at the Carter site. This massive shire stood on my foot. I was in agony and my left big toe has suffered ever since!

“Frank, let’s go home,” were always Fred’s words at the end of a hard day’s work.

The horse would break into a lovely trot along Blandford Road, Hamworthy, turning into his field by a row of Almshouses, now called Old Rope Walk opposite Riglar Road.

After removing his harness, Fred would throw me up onto Frank’s back, give him a whack and the horse would go galloping off with me hanging onto his mane – the highlight of my day!

Although I‘ve not been on a horse again since those days!

Our heater was the coal-fed oven grate, although we felt more warmth from the gas light (providing the mantle was in good condition.) There was no hot running water. Ours was heated by the copper in the scullery which also provided hot water for mum to wash the clothes on a Monday. It was built into a corner, consisting of a large cast iron cauldron-like bowl with a fire grate built into the brick casement. Mum’s gas stove was also in this small area, plus a ‘butler’ type porcelain sink with cold water tap and wooden draining board – a far cry from the present day ‘fitted kitchen’ (except the sink, which appears to be quite the thing these days!)

In winter time the cold water system would freeze, due to the main feed into the house being fitted to an exposed outside wall in the small courtyard. To thaw the frozen pipe, dad would light a brazier which he nicknamed “The Devil”. Not only would it do the job, it gave we kids a nice warm glow.

At the end of the yard stood our outside – and only – loo. A comfortable retreat where we could go for quietness and to flush away any cares or woes. That was unless our neighbours decided to use theirs at the same time, because the toilets were back to back in our terraced cottages and only separated by a thin partition wall. As a matter of fact we would often hold conversations with our neighbour whilst we both sat on the ‘throne’. The interior contained a lavatory with a wooden seat manufactured by a ‘Mr Crapper’, plus a cast iron cistern with a pull chain fitted on the wall well above head height. It had an old wooden door; a hurricane lamp hung on a pipe for ‘night duties’; concrete flooring with a slope towards the door for drainage and a top of the range toilet mat called a ‘wooden duck board’.

During the Second World War, toilet rolls were unobtainable so we resorted to the next best thing – newspaper, neatly cut into squares and tied with string to a nail on the wall. The upside of such paper was that, if bored, we could read a bit of news (even if a little out of date) while in the closet. The downside was flushing it away, as newspaper is not too absorbent. Hence frequently blocked drains. Most families in such times, like us, had no bathroom or running hot water, but we did have the luxuries of the tin bath, the copper and the water closet, plus gas lights, candles and oil lamps…..I could go on and on.

But we survived! What more could I ask for?!

It was a well run, disciplined school where boys were segregated from girls – meaning no distractions from the opposite sex! Teachers’ tools of punishment were bamboo cane, chalk board rubber, measuring rule, slipper or anything else they could lay their hands on. One teacher specialised in flicking the backs of your ears if he caught you talking to a classmate during lessons. Detention with 500 to a 1000 lines was a more likely punishment from the kinder tutors, but most preferred the cane as it was swift and positive. The handicap for pupils was having to continue to work with painfully stinging hands, for instance dipping the pen into the inkwell and trying to write.

Teachers who didn’t have the resolve to use the cane would send a boy to the headmaster who would administer it.

Having been caned on numerous occasions I will tell you of a few:

Mr Albert Sharp, who was my teacher, entered the classroom and called us to attention.

“Good morning boys,” he said and I replied from behind my desk lid “Good morning Bert”.

I was called to the front and had two strokes of the cane for ‘insolence’. What a way to start the day.

The next time, I was chasing a pupil around the classroom during dinner break and the duty tutor was the science master, Mr ‘Milky’ Hartnell. Now this teacher was noted for his accuracy when caning. He had a long thin bamboo and he would line up your hand with precision and rise right up onto his toes and dispense with lightning speed. At first you thought he’d missed, until you felt your hand slowly catching on fire (very painful).

On one occasion, I was caned by the headmaster for back chatting a prefect when I thought he was wrong.

Then, one morning when entering the school corridor in the required single file column, we passed the hall and a sudden urge found me nipping in and bouncing down the parallel bars. To my horror, H P Smith was stood watching and, this time, I got two strokes on each hand (four of the best, we used to say).

The most severe caning I ever suffered was administered by Mr ‘Podgy’ Hillier, the woodwork master. Myself and another pupil, Raymond, started throwing wood shavings at each other, quickly getting more boisterous. Suddenly, Mr Hillier appeared and we had sawdust and wood shavings in our hair so we knew what to expect. Six strokes of the cane, this time on one hand. It was so painful!

Back at our benches, we watched our hands swell. Raymond’s suffering was worse as the master was cross-eyed and, by mistake, twice hit Raymond’s wrist – he cried that day! ‘Podgy’ came to our benches later.

“You two don’t seem to be making much progress.” Surprise, surprise!

We never told our parents, they would conclude we deserved it! My, how times have changed!

I was asked to work overtime one evening to finish a project. I didn’t mind, but by the time I left work for home it was dark and miserable with rain. Even though I had no lights I decided to cycle home to Harbour Road, on the Hamworthy side of the bridge from Number 2 yard at West Quay Road, it wasn’t far. As I rode someone came right across my path also on a bike but this one had lights glowing. It was a policeman lads like me knew well, PC Frazier.

Standing in the rain he took down all the particulars of the offence. Then, when he was gone I cycled the rest of the way home! Eventually I received a summons to the court but before I went, the chief draughtsman at Bolson’s, Mr Wilson, called me into his office. I was worried that I might be in even more trouble but Mr Wilson offered some advice for the hearing. He told me to say that I was working on a very important job, earning dollars for our country to pay back the war debt we owed to America. He reckoned that the magistrates would be impressed and let me off “Scott-free”.

Well it didn’t work out like that. In court I stood in the dock not saying a word while PC Frazier read out the evidence (I think he became a Sergeant soon after that). There were three magistrates on the bench, the main one being Miss Lewellin, who asked why I had decided to ride my bike without lights. I replied that it had been raining at the time so I took a chance. The magistrates had a pow-wow and reached a decision. Miss Lewellin delivered the verdict “You took a chance and you got caught, I fine you ten shillings for no front light and ten shilling for no rear light”. That was harsh seeing as my wages were only nineteen shillings and four pence a week, but I was ready for it and paid up there and then.

Back at work I was sent for by Mr Wilson. “Right Scott” he said “Tell me all about it, did you tell them what I told you to say?” “No sir” I replied, I was a bit scared. Then he gave me a lecture on how to fight my corner and not give in too easily. “Always make your point and talk with authority” he said. How on earth he expected a fifteen year old to talk with confidence over magistrates I don’t know but he grinned and sent me back to work. In those days if you were an apprentice to a good man he would not only be concerned how you made progress at work, but also about your welfare at home.

At the end of the week Mr Wilson called me into his office again and said “Now look Scott remember what I said and you’ll be a stronger person for it” then he opened his wallet and gave me a one pound note. “Buy some lights for bike; I might need you to work overtime again”.