I began teaching in Sidmouth around 1977, doing peripatetic work before being appointed to Sidmouth Infants. At this time Gryff Ford was Head at St Nicholas C.of E. School. I remember seeing him hard at work in his office making a beautiful fishing rod. June Lock was...
We all walked several miles to school. Mum came to start with, but then I just went with older children. I was very shy and hated school. My older brothers went to the village school, but I was sent to a private school. I walked five miles there and back, the bombs...
Frank Symington was living in Charlton, near Woolwich when war broke out. A dangerous yet exciting place for a young boy. Incendiary bombs fell in his street and Frank and his pal would collect sand and pour it over the devices to put them out! As his Father was ill...
My parents owned the Sidmouth Herald so when my grandfather died we moved down the town and lived over the shop, then we moved into Caxton House with my Grandma who had dementia. The paper was all printed on one sheet and I was paid 3 farthings per dozen to fold them...
My father was very strict, we had to do what we were told in that little cottage. In the evenings we sat by the coal fire and sang lovely little songs that he had learnt in Lincolnshire and other places, he would get his mouth organ out and play. We had to make our...
Moments in Time is a pioneering oral history project, delivered by our members of Sid Valley Memory Café, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund ‘All Our Stories’ grant programme. Members have undertaken a programme of visits to local heritage sites, walked the route...
