Julian Jackson, 17/07/2013 Interviewed by Linda Payne (Village Voices Project Volunteer)

LP – So your name is…..? JJ – Julian Jackson LP – So have you always lived in the village, or did I hear you’d gone away? JJ – We went to Tetney for about…… Wife - No that was when we were first married, you went away for school. JJ – Oh yes I went away to school. LP – Oh did you? JJ – Well I was home for holidays. LP – Yes. JJ – I went away to school from eleven then my father died, the money ran out and I went to Waltham Tollbar but that’s that. Is that as far as you want me to go? LP – That’s fine yes. Were your family here before you went to Tetney? JJ – Yes, we lived at Norman Cottage, which is a folly at the other end of the village. LP – Yes by the church. JJ – Yes by the church. And my father bought that. MJ – About 1934 or 5. It was used as a holiday cottage. JJ – To start with it was used as a holiday cottage. They lived in , 3 Park Drive. MJ - They came full time in 38 39 LP – Oh right, yes, yes. JJ – And then there was the war. At four and a half I went to Sutton on Sea away to school. I went with Margery Atkinson. From there I went to a school in Shropshire and they were evacuated. It was meant to be a Yorkshire school and they were evacuated to Shropshire. So I went to Shropshire and I used to come home for the holidays. Then they couldn’t get back into the original place in Yorkhire so they, the whole school, moved to Berkshire. So I went to Berkshire near newbury. LP – You travelled a bit then. JJ – I used to have to find my way from Grimsby Town Station to Kings Cross in care of the guard and they picked me up and took me across and we went to school but as I say the money ran out, my father died and I went to Waltham Tollbar. LP – So have you got any specific memories of living in the village? JJ – yes. I was going to say right from the start that the farming bit. We lived on the corner of the double s bend opposite Cordwell’s yard. That was after 1960 and when we first moved in, there were 30 farm labourers went to work in that yard to get their instructions. There’s nobody in that yard now. The whole farm is now managed from . LP – Oh right. Big change then. JJ – So you know, that is absolutely dead now from being a hive of industry. Pea viners were housed there. There were horses there. They used the horses to plough the corners of the field because they only had drag ploughs. But that’s it. LP – Were you a farmer? Were you involved in farming at all? JJ – No I finished up as a bricklayer. LP – Oh yes LL – I worked with a local firm from about 15 to 17 then that particular firm packed in but I’d already got my indentures signed and I was moved to Taylor and Colbecks’s so I finished my time at Taylor and Colbeck’s which was a big firm in . I worked 20 years for a local builder at Tetney. Started as an ordinary bricklayer and got to be a foreman until they went through and then I worked for another sever years for them self employed and I worked for another local builder at and built some houses in the village. LP – Can I ask you Margery about your background and childhood in the village? MJ – Well my father came in the village in 1930 with the village shop and of course people used the village shop in those days and they supplied everything from overalls to wellies. My father also had a furniture shop at and suppied, well throughout the 50s, people setting up home. He’d supply all the furniture, prams, pushchairs cots and bedding. Anything. He had a sign up on the shop. Cant remember exactly what it said but words to the effect of ‘you’ve only to ask and we’ll get it for you’. The village supported 3 shops at that time and they were all busy. On a Saturday morning you had to queue. LP – Yes that’s right. What about the characters that were in the village or perhaps still are in the village? MJ – There’s always somebody. JJ – There was one I remember lived down Church Lane where I lived. Mrs Atkinson. Her nickname was Mother Ak. She used to come along and say ‘Well I’ve done me chapel and I’ve done me church’. And she used to get her words muddled up a bit. She always called Domestos, Domester and my mother asked her ‘what does your husband do?’ Oh well he’s diseased’. LP – Oh lovely, lovely! Can you remember the lady that used to run the fish and chip shop? MJ – Phyllis or her mother? LP – Her mother. JJ – Phyllis ran it for a long time. MJ – She did for a long time. Her parents. People used to go in and stir them up didn’t they? They were always fighting. LP – Yes they were. It was a pass-time wasn’t it? JJ – The people who owned the post office. It was Sargeant’s at the time and she was quite a forthright sort of woman and… MJ – Oh you played with Alphia. LP – Oh I know Alphia, yes although I haven’t seen her for a long time. JJ – She was quite a forthright sort of a woman and her father was quite timid. He’d be chivvied around the shop. ‘Good Lord Harry you’re like ‘wind’ on a shovel!’ LP – Oh, that’s wonderful! And the other one I remember is Bobby Ball. Do you remember the policeman. We used to call him Bobby Ball. JJ – Oh yes Mr Ball the policeman. LP – He used to pedal up and down on his bike. MJ – Well I think Mrs Ball came to cut my hair. I’m sure she used to come on the bus. Was it Mrs Ball? They retired to eventually. JJ – And he used to come and put his bike at the side of the telephone box but the other place he used to stand was just inside the door of The Greyhound and you always knew when he was in because 2 bottles of barley wine was taken from behind the bar. And of course the other character was of course Johnny Ireland. MJ – He used to come home and say there’ll be a pint with a beer mat in one pub and you’d think he must be in the other one so he’d run up to the other one and there’d be another pint but he’d be at home having a cup of tea with Jess. JJ – If you wanted any game or anything you asked Johnny and Margery wanted a duck once so I went and asked Johnny if he could get me a duck. He said he would and to see him on Saturday afternoon. So Saturday afternoon came. Midge hadn’t got the Sunday dinner in front of her so I was despatched of to see where this duck had got to. I went to The White Horse and asked if Johnny was about. His pint was there with a beer mat on top of it but he wasn’t anywhere so I thought I’d better go to the Greyhound and exactly the same thing, the beer and the beer mat. Turns out he was at home having a cup of tea. MJ – And of course when we were kids a group of us went bush beating with him on the Saturday morning. We got paid half a crown and 2 rabbits. Me and Peter both went and we were sick to death of rabbit. LP – Can you remember that there used to be a blacksmith didn’t there? MJ – Chapman at the other end and Stan at this end. LP – Stan I was thinking of, yes. Can you remember any sort of regular traditions like fairs and things like that in the village. JJ – Oh yes the fair came. The fair came to any small bit of land. Yes they had dodgems, swing boats and the coconut shy. MJ – That was about it. JJ – Yes that was about it. MJ – It would stay a week wouldn’t it? We knew them all by name. JJ – Because they came every year. MJ – Same party Wasn’t it? LP – So over the years the village has changed quite a lot. JJ – Yes its definitely changed hasn’t it? MJ – We’re still running two pubs. JJ – When my mother in law came to the village there wasn’t a single house on that side of the road except Nobby’s. They looked straight out to sea. And your mother said to us. ‘I really thought I’d come to the outback of America or something’. It was just nothing out there except the sea. We’re fairly well closed in now. MJ – I was posted away as a child because the place was full of soldiers during the war. It was absolutely teaming with soldiers and I didn’t come back until I was 8 years old. I was away for 8 years. I went when I was 9 months old. LP - My goodness, where were you during that time? MJ – I was with my grandparents and then I had two new brothers and I didn’t come home. I came here in 57 and of course, the school was run by Mr Ryans and he was there for many years. I’ve got a photo of him from the 1930s and he looks older on that than he did on ours. When I was at the Marshchapel school they split the top group of to go to Sommercotes and we became the top group when we really only juniors or else we would have had to cope with big kids up to 15 in the yard. I think that was the time they put the school leaving age up at the same time as they opened the secondary school. I think that’s when it happened. JJ - I think it was because that’s why I went to Tollbar and not to this one. They were just changing. They hadn’t got to Lurbeck at that time and because I was 11 plus. I had to bike from here to Northcotes to catch the4 school bus. There were 2 of us out of the village that used to go to Tollbar. LP – Do you think you would recognise anyone coming from Marshchapel because of their dialect or…? JJ – I’d know they were from Grimsby but you don’t normally pick up a Marshchapel accent but I can pick up . MJ – It changes here but I wondered if it was the Bus service. The Red Bus stopped at Marshchapel. Marshchapel children went to Cleethorpes Grammar. They might have got mixed up when it was Sommercotes. Grainthorpe went Louth way. LP - Of which there is more of an accent. When I talk to Nigel he has got a definite twang. Did you go to Sommercotes? MJ – No I went to Grimsby. I didn’t go to grammar I was at the convent, St Francis Saviour’s convent. Quite a few went from this way. If you failed the eleven plus it was pick potatoes. LP – And did you do that in the school holidays? Did you work on the land to get pocket money? MJ – Yes, yes turning peas I remember. LP – Chopping spinach? MJ – No I didn’t do that much. I did pick taties I would think only for a week. Mr Evisons down at the…. We all came to Sunday school didn’t we? We remember the anniversaries. Very important landmark that was. We got our new outfits and had to learn our Ps and practise all our hymns. Oh yes very important. JJ – I was church of . I Lived right next to the church. I can remember shooting the vicar with a pea shooter. Then there was the Sunday school outings from the two chapels and they used to run a bus from each of the chapels and if there were any spare seats the people from the church used to get on the them so I often went on the chapel Sunday school outings. LP - And where did you used to go on the outings? JJ – . LP – Yes, that’s right! Now, the village pub. They’re still quite an important part of the social life in the village. MJ – We can’t find the people the same as we used to be able to when the hours were fixed. JJ – Well that’s it. When the hours were fixed everybody knew what time the pub was open and everybody went and the pubs were crowded between 7 and 10.30 and now the pubs are open all day nobody knows when anybody’s going and unless you’ve a specific time to go and your mates know when you’re going you don’t meet people like you used to do. I think the long hours did more damage to the local pubs and the fact that it’s so expensive. You’ve got to have somebody there all the time whereas a pub used to be run by the publican’s wife. Now they have to have somebody else or the pubs shut at various times. Both our pubs are shut at add times. One of them doesn’t open in the daytime at all until Friday and the other one can be shut at 9 o’clock at night or as soon as the last customer’s gone. LP – Can you remember the old publicans then? JJ – Yes LP - The one’s that used to be real characters didn’t they. JJ – What, Mac Maguire? MJ – Who was the chap with the dog? Oh Berridge. Berridge and his dog. The dog used to chase the red bus. JJ – He used to bite your bloomin’ tyres on your bycicle as well in fact you didn’t come this end of the village because of Berridges dog. MJ – And of course Frank Whitely. He was another character and he had an Alsatian. Real character LP – What about transport? MJ - it was much easier. We had so many busses. JJ – I used to work with a bricklayer and you’ll most probably tell me who it was. He used to say ‘right boy, its nearly time that we went home’. He used to get his trowel and stuck it in the mortar board and we used to go down to the pub and the next day the trowel was most probably set in the mortar but you’d know who that was won’t you? LP – Not Mr Lovett? JJ – Yes LP – Oh. That lovely!! That’s really good. That gives us a really good insight into the village life. Now can you remember games you used to play? MJ – Well. Kick a tin. There’d be 20 or 30 kids here up and down this lane and we used to go through Atkins or the garage. They could disappear past the shop and come out here and the idea was. If you were it you were guarding the tin and somebody else could kick it away but if you were seen was it you tapped out and spotted and then you were on the catchers side. I think that was it. Whatever prompted these games to take off I do not know. LP – Imagination, perhaps? MJ – Yes I know but there’d only be a certain period of the year that they were played. JJ – Yes I remember that. MJ – I think it was dusk you know, 6-8 o’clock and if it got dark well that’s when you went home. Whether it had to be holiday time I don’t know. JJ – It would be dusk wouldn’t it. Hide and seek dusk. It was more of less hide and seek. MJ – You see you could get through our yard quite a way. Do you remember one of my brothers was chopping sticks in the back yard well everyone in the village came to chop sticks. My mother bandaged up no end of fingers. It was quite a pass time for everybody to come. And I think one of the last things he had was the pews out of this chapel. No it couldn’t have been out of here because these weren’t taken out til the 70s. They must have brought them out from Market Rasen JJ – Oh and the memory I’ve got is that we spend a lot of time down at sea. We used to go buck pricking. LP – What was that buck pricking? MJ – A big fork with prongs on the end. LP – Oh yes of course. JJ – Now nobody goes down there. It was all sand. It was 50 years ago. LP – It was a beautiful place to go, magical. MJ – We spent hours down there swimming. JJ – Its all green shore now. And you can’t get out there. You used to be able to ride a motorbike right out to the tide and swim in the tide and hope that the bike would start. Kick it off in your bare feet and then come back. MJ – We once went paddling at midnight on Boxing Day and there was a high tide and. JJ – A gang of 6 and we used to walk about the village and this particular night we’d all got down to the beach. We’d walked down there and it was Boxing Day and we were sat with our backs to a block house and I remember the tide came up and so we decided to paddle and the water seemed to be warm and then we’d walk back home again. LP – That’s marvellous, lovely!!