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More on
Emeline...
Our last Chat Column featured more on the story of
the Whitstable yawl, Emeline. As you know, she was rescued from
Spain in the early 1990s after being spotted by Ray & Olive
Harman and Leonard & Jessie Cole who were enjoying a summer
holiday on the Costa del Sol.
Jessie has now located another photo of the
vessel.....
Leonard, Olive, Ray and Jessie
This was taken at Standard Quay in Faversham
during February 1994.... after the craft had made the 1000 mile
trip home on a "low loader" trailer.
I would like to thank Jessie for her latest
contribution. I will now be re-writing our permanent article on
the Emeline to include this and material discussed in last week's
Chat Column..
Wolfe House of
'55/'56
Cliff Cuttelle has kndly added to our data
collection for the Oxford Street Boys school with this shot of a
house football team during the 1955/56 season....
| Back (L
to R) |
1: ????, 2: Cliff Cuttelle,
3: Mick Blagdon, 4: ????, 5: ????, 6: Billy Backhouse
(possibly), 7: ????, 8: ???? |
| Front
(L to R) |
9: ????, 10: ????, 11: ????,
12: ???? 13: ???? |
Yes, it's my old house.... Wolfe! I suspect that
the house teacher for Wolfe may have been a very popular guy
called Len Hake. He was certainly the house master in 1956/67 when
I started at the school.
Cliff has added names for three players... but can
our readers name the rest?
I have a lot of material to add to our
schools items. I will try to bring it up to date shortly. I am
sorry for the delays.
Permanent
Waving
In the last Chat Column, we took a lighthearted
look around the town's business community by examining old
adverts in Jock Harnett's copy of the 1949 Whitstable Carnival
Program. One of the entries raised a few eyebrows....
What on earth was a Superma machineless system?
Well, Diana Suard has now supplied the answer...
Eugene Madison Superma was one of the first chemical
perms and the fact that it was machineless must have been
very attractive to women.
I can remember, as a very young child in the forties,
going to the hairdresser's with my granny and seeing a
lady 'tied up' to a perming machine. Very frightening it
was too! The hair was clamped into curlers which were
heated via electric cables suspended from the ceiling.
The hairdresser in question was a Miss Standing and she
had a salon in Tankerton Circus, above Clegg's the chemist
(now Wright's Flooring). I think chemical perms came
in before the war, but perhaps poor Miss Standing was at
the end of her career and couldn't face the change.....
Hope this little bit of useful/useless information helps
you sleep better, Dave!
Diana Suard
Paris |
It certainly does, Diana. It sounds like the Borg
from Star Trek.
I really don't know why women put up with all that
when they could have had their problems solved by Bert Harman
- the Demon Barber of Victoria Street. After just three minutes
with the electric shaver, there was no hair to worry about.
Customers then stood outside
wondering how Denis Compton had managed to retain some hair for
the photo in Bert's window. Funny thing though..... I never saw
Denis at Bert's place.
In those days, parents expected their offspring to
get their money's worth at barbers. Often, they accompanied their
kids to the salon to safeguard their investment. I remember a
friend managing to get to a Whitstable barbers on his own....
whereupon he convinced the proprietor that he was just there for a
trim. It didn't last long. His mum dragged him straight back down
the salon.... "to have it done properly".
She wasn't going to pay for two haircuts in the same year. Times
were 'ard.
Reaction on Hairdressers
Our discussion of hairdressers has prompted this
response from Lawrence in the USA.
| The mention of Harman's barbershop
brought back some memories. I had my hair cut there
for several years as a boy.
The problem was that youngsters had to wait until all
adults had had haircuts. One could wait and wait for
one's turn. Often, just as it was my turn, in would come a
gentleman of adult years and the wait would continue. It
was possible to spend a good portion of a morning waiting
for a chance in the chair!
After the mandatory "short back and sides"
would come the inevitable question about something on the
hair. I usually declined the vile smelling stuff!
Lawrence Bradley
Tacoma
Washington
USA |
| Our Reply:
Thanks, Lawrence.
In those days, kids were certainly kept in their
place... quite unfairly in many instances. I have never
been a great one for saying that the elderly deserve
respect simply because they are elderly. True respect is
something that is earned.... and it can be earned by a 5
year old just as easily as it can by a 65 year old. It is
not something that is bestowed with a birth certificate.
It's all a bit different today, of course. Recently,
I stood in a queue at a newsagents and watched a swarm of
kids (in a well known and very distinctive uniform) push
past. |
Sandy Sandford
|
Diana's message above caused me to re-visit Jock's
1949 carnival program.... whereupon I spotted this ad on
the back cover.
Some of our readers may have come across much older
references to Sandy Sandford.
Pages 60 and 130 of Doug West's book "The
Second Portrait of a Seaside Town" contains
relevant photos from the 1920s. It seems that the Sandy
Sandford Concert Party were regular performers at
the Lawn Pavilion on Tankerton Slopes
The venue was actually located on the flat top of The
Slopes - opposite Tankerton Hotel. It was originally an
open air stage but, by the 1920s, a simple but substantial
single storey building had been erected. I have heard
stories that it even showed cinema films in the late
1930s.
|
I am not sure if the pavilion re-opened after
World War II. I rather doubt it - which might explain why
Sandy Sandford's "Holiday Week" programme
was scheduled for the Castle Grounds "Pleasure Garden".
However, it was nice to know that he was still going strong as
late as 1949.
By the mid-late 1950s, the site of the Lawn
Pavilion had been adopted by Dunelm School as an extra
classroom.
Did I go to Sandy's opening performance on 30 July
1949? No.... I was unavoidably detained. I was being born that
day... round at St Heliers!
Reaction on Lawn Pavilion..
Mike Bune has added some memories of the Lawn
Pavilion....
| I am pretty certain that I was taken to my first motion
picture at the Lawn Pavilion in late 1952.
We were shown a children's film. I was little more than
a bairn at the time and can remember little about it. I
could hardly see the screen and if there was any dialogue,
I didn't understand it!
I was probably there because we couldn't find a baby
sitter.
Mike Bune
Corfe Castle
Dorset |
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