Down by the sea

Constance and Edmund Kimberley
and grandchildren c.1955-6
me between Grandma and Pam Pam

By the time of my first memories of Grandma and Pam Pam they were already "retired" and spent part of the year looking after their holiday seaside bungalows amongst the grassy fields and dykes at Ingoldmells in Lincolnshire. This was not long after the Great Flood of 1953 which caused havoc all along the east Coast and took the lives of 300 people. (Found some great images and accounts of this event in the Skegness Standard 50th anniversary supplements at http://www2.skegnesstoday.co.uk/sites/floods/floods1.html)

Billy Butlin had already built his holiday camp before the flood, up by the Roman Bank but it was still quite a sedate affair. Not all the roads had too much tarmac then and cockerels called the time of day at the farm next door - before Tommy Bingo arrived.

Probably only a quarter of an acre but with two bungalows, a chalet and caravan let out to holiday makers and another chalet for family accommodation  and the “Waney” shed, it was another world, well heaven actually - when you were five years old.

Electricity ran to the bungalows but all else relied on bottled gas. The soft light from the gas mantles was not dissimilar to the low energy lamps of to-day but they were so much prettier. As for plumbing; the out door Elsan toilets may have had some resemblance to oil drums but were emptied on cue every week into a tanker wagon. Pam Pam wasn’t a smoker but he would carefully leave 2 Woodbine on the lid to reward the men from the council for their trouble. There was a water pump out in the garden but I don’t think it worked, I only remember using water from a tap. Flush toilets did come later.

You could still smell the sea air in those days, it would hit you as you got within a few miles of the coast. The excitement mounted in the back of the car, the only little misgiving was the knowledge that the scary steep downhill turn off the Roman Bank, with the dykes on either side, on to the unmade roads of “Beach Estate” had still to be negotiated. The dykes were big and full of reeds, one came right up to the side of the bungalows, they always fascinated me.

Inside, I remember being taken up too by the imitation stained glass made from some sort of translucent paper that decorated the back door of “Seaholme”. I can still sense the intense aroma of the sunroom at the front. It wasn’t damp but it was “woody”. It had earlier been a verandah. There were two levels but it had been built in and you could take your pick of large Victorian armchairs or just jump up and down on the steps or swing from the wooden pillars.

Much of the furniture was Victorian; the marble topped wash stands in the bedrooms were resplendent with fine pottery toilet sets comprising wash bowl, pitcher and soap dish with a matching “gazunder” parked within.

All this was complemented by two very important features. The hand pegged rugs which decorated every room and took the chill off the lino covered floors and the amazing knitted bed covers which bedecked every single and double bed.
All of these were worked by Grandma and Pam Pam and there were dozens of them.

The bedspreads were knitted by hand on fine needles in a silky yarn. Knitted in large sections, usually in two or three colours, the designs were often based on squares and joined. I have never seen others like them and unfortunately none appear to have survived. It would be good to try and replicate one while there are still some who can remember them well.

While Grandma knitted Pam Pam pegged the rugs from thrumbs. This involved not just pegging but coming up with an attractive workable design from a jumble of loom end threads which had to be cut. This was no “Readicut” man, a sign writer by trade, he was a craftsman. Today these items would command a high price if offered in an arts and crafts market. Then, they were simply a joy and a way of life.

Woolly Facade