I come from a family with very strong links with the Isle of Wight.
My paternal grandfather William Hedges was, for many years, the manager
of the W.H. Smith and Son bookstall in Freshwater. This was in the days
when the railway came to Freshwater, and the bookstall was on the
station. Later, when the railway closed, the bookstall was dismantled
and re-erected in one of the main streets of the village. Despite being
a rather ramshackle wooden structure it remained standing for several
decades - most recently as a local antiques shop called Aladdin's Cave -
and has only recently been demolished.
As a child, in the 1950s, I sometimes used to visit my grandfather on
the station where I was allowed to wave a flag just as a train was about
to leave the platform. I fondly believed that I was responsible for
sending the train on its way, though in reality I was told to wave the
flag just at the moment when the train was due to depart anyway. My
paternal grandparents lived in the house called Sarsfeld, in Copse Lane,
Freshwater, and lived there until they moved to the mainland in 1967.
My other pair of grandparents - my mother's parents - lived on the
other side of the island in Lake. My grandfather, Charles Barnes, was a
projectionist in the old Rivoli cinema in Sandown. The cinema closed
long ago, but the building remains and is now a supplier of theatrical
costumes, next to the Baptist church.
Both of my parents spent their childhoods on the island, eventually
meeting in Newport, where they both worked. One of my mother's more
dubious claims to fame is that, as a girl, she knew Dorothy O'Grady, the
infamous Sandown landlady (wrongly?) imprisoned for spying for the
Germans in World War II! Having two sets of grandparents on the island,
my parents, my two brothers, Alan and Neil, and I spent almost all of
our summer holidays on the IOW in the 1950s and 1960s, usually spending
one week at Freshwater and one week at Lake. I also spent additional
weeks at Freshwater with my cousin, Tony.
Memories of these weeks are too numerous to mention, but I vividly
recall the occasion in 1965 when the Queen and Prince Philip visited
Yarmouth. I remember seeing them come ashore in a launch from the Royal
Yacht Britannica - and was later amused at the minor controversy when
Prince Philip described the Ryde councillors' robes as "dressing gowns".
In those days, we often attended the services at Colwell Baptist Church,
where the minister was Mr. Vincent. A more embarrassing memory is of
spilling a bottle of ink in the museum at Carisbrooke Castle, in 1962,
when I was twelve. This was not appreciated by the attendant who had
just cleaned the floor!
As a child I was very keen on the I-SPY books and spent many happy
hours scoring points in such books as "I-SPY At the Seaside" and "I-SPY
History", when on the island. Attractions such as the the Roman Villa at
Brading were much appreciated. Along with my brother, cousin, and the
boy living next door to my grandparents in Frsshwater, I formed a
rudimentary I-SPY "patrol" and we made a "camp" in a nearby field.
Later, home in Essex, I formed a more elaborate local group of I-SPY
enthusiasts, the Red Arrow Patrol, which lasted for some years.
In the 1970s I attended several holidays at the Brighstone Holiday
Camp, organised by the Christian youth organisation, Musical Gospel
Outreach. On those holidays I remember hearing (and meeting) some of the
popular Christian folk and rock musicians of the day, such as the
guitarist Gordon Giltrap, then on the fringes of the Christian scene.
The holidays had some lighter-hearted moments, such as the occasion, in
1972, when we staged a mock "protest march" to save Sandown Pier which
we said was about to be towed away to the United States! Not many people
believed us, but our antics earned us coverage in the local newspaper.
Many years later, in 1995, I was in Yarmouth when the BBC filmed a
black gospel concert in the town square for broadcasting a couple of
weeks later. My visits to the island have continued over the years, and
I generally spend a few days at Sandown each summer, usually at the
Alendel Hotel in Sandown where I enjoy the hospitality of Terry and
Isobel Purdy. Even after 50+ years the island still has the ability to
surprise and delight me. For example, in 2002, I was pleased to re-visit
the parish church at Freshwater and discover the memorial to the poet
Tennyson and the stained glass window of Sir Galahad. As a librarian, I
was pleased to visit the churchyard at Niton for the first time, a
couple of years back, and to see the monument to Edward Edwards,
nineteenth century pioneer of the public library movement.
These memories have probably gone on for long enough - but I would be
pleased to hear from anyone who remembers the Hedges family of
Freshwater or the Barnes family of Lake.