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The West Dorset Magazine, February 25, 2022
Memory Corner
Sugar soldiers, making dens, shorts Memories of a 75-year growing-up in Bridport in the 1950s & 1960s: an era of innocence By STEVE POOLE
I was born in my grandmother’s house in St Andrew’s Road in March 1946 but lived in a two-up, two-down terraced house in South Street, sharing a bedroom with my sister! Earliest memory is seeing snow falling off the house roof into the back yard, which must have been the winter of 1947, but was I too young to have remembered that? When else did we have bad snow in my formative years? n Travelling by Royal Blue coach from Bridport to Exeter, in the 1950s, to have my scalp zapped with low doses of X-rays, after catching ringworm. I remember seeing the bomb damage in Exeter. Having ‘sugar soldiers’ as a reward for not crying whist sticky plaster was used to remove new growth of hair, before treatment was finished. n Visiting the Chantry, South Street, and being told, and if my memory serves me right, also shown the entry to the ‘tunnel’ to St Mary’s Church – the existence of a tunnel has been debunked over the years, but I still wonder.
MATCH OF HIS DAY: Steve aged 11, second from left front row, with Bridport General School football team and, below, Steve aged 10, third from left back row. Inset below: Steve Poole today
Sore legs in the winter – no long trousers!! Walking to the General School in King Street. n Mid-morning sleep, at the Primary School, on wartime camp beds with rough grey army blankets,
overseen by a ‘large’ lady in a white coat. n Learning the Sword Dance and the Morris Dance at the General School. n Walking the back lane from South Street to the doctors’ surgery in East Street, with my mother, after scalding myself by
pulling a boiling saucepan of water over me. Luckily there was no scarring! n Moving to St Andrew’s Road, and having my own bedroom when I was eight! n Train journeys to Cattistock from Bridport station to pick cowslips.
