A Monthly Publication

Having made a short visit to my old home town I was interested to catch up with recent happenings through the Newsletter.  I particularly noted the item in the July edition on John Kew and his business on Greevegate.

              This brought back memories of my father, Vern Wilson, who had the shop next door which he took over from his father, Samuel Wilson. Sam had some similar working life connections to John Kew in that he worked at Donaldsons in the High Street before setting up his own Fish, Game and Poultry shop. After work Sam enjoyed a summer’s evening at the Bowls Club at the Water Tower corner of the recreation ground and in the winter there was always a chance of a game of snooker in the Club House. Sam exchanged pin badges with visiting bowls clubs and his great grandson now has these proudly displayed on boards.

Vern worked for Lamberts the ironmongers in Westgate and was an auxiliary fireman during WW II and eventually went to work for his father in the 50’s and soon took over the running of the shop. I remember summer holidays ‘helping’ at the shop and tearing up newspapers to act as the outer wrappers for the parcels of fish. I most enjoyed the twice a week deliveries to customers around coast on Tuesdays and Fridays. This was mum’s job (Elsie) and after lunch we would take off in the little blue Ford van, and take orders around as far as Brancaster and stop for an ice cream in Mrs Proudfoot’s shop in Sea Lane.

Other excursions took dad and I down to the game keeper’s lodge beyond Lees Farm on The Downs Road. In there was a selection of braces of pheasants hung for different numbers of days and rabbits and hares. These were taken back to the shop and prepared for customers and this was at a time when the millinery trade used the best cock tail feathers and parcels were sent to London by train. The rail station was also the place where the supplies of fish arrived in big wooden boxes packed with ice and remained fresh all the way from the fish docks at Grimsby.

The summer trade brought in local supplies of shrimps and Bennett Middleton, a well known Cromer lifeboat man, delivered crates of live lobsters and crabs.  Sunday evenings were often spent at the shop scrubbing the lobsters (with claws tied) and avoiding the flailing pincers of the crabs which were then cooked in large copper boilers ready for dressing for the visitors on Monday. Dad had a good sense of humour but was not too pleased with the ‘Sunday Trippers’ eating fish and chips in his shop doorway and leaving the greasy papers behind. One evening the shop blinds were down and three ladies were enjoying their supper and dad hit on the idea of lashing a crab to the cord pull of the blind over the door. By slowly letting the blind up he managed to get the crab high up the window un-noticed. The gentle tapping of the crab’s claws against the glass eventually caught the attention of the ladies who screamed at seeing the monster at eye level, threw their bags of chips in the air and were last seen running across the green!

Our recent visit was enhanced by coming across the St Edmund’s Friday Coffee Morning where I discovered an old school friend, John Smith, who is regularly displaying some of the archive photographs he has acquired. This a vast nostalgic collection which he is making available to the public and I look forward to seeing a copy of his first book of early Hunstanton pictures.