Kathleen Kennedy's Memories of Life in Great Yarmouth
Kathleen Dewhurst (as she was then) on Great Yarmouth sea front in 1971
Courtesy of Kathleen Kennedy
Memories of the layout of the town, transport and housing
By Laura Matthews
Housing
I used to live in a bed-sit on Seafield Close just off Queens road, there are flats there now. Off that street there used to be rows of houses, one was Grosvener Road, which was very narrow. I moved to Crown Road where I lived in a guesthouse. A lot of guesthouses took lodgers and students in during the winter. In summer the guesthouses, hotels and flats were full and people in private houses took visitors in, they gave up their bedrooms for them and slept downstairs.
The Market Place and Shops
The Post Office was at the bottom of Regent Street and there was a sub post office in St Peters Road. The buses used to go up Regent Street and round by Burton's to the Bus Stand, which was at the side of the ABC Regal. There were also public toilets there that were kept spotlessly clean by the attendant. In the shops around the market there were Nichols Fish and Chip shop a pub called The Fish Stall House and further down on the same side was Tesco with Tesco Home and Wear next door to it. Finefare was a supermarket at the top of Regent Road. Traffic went up and down Regent Road at that time and there were some lovely shops down there. There were also two department stores round the Market Place one was Palmers the other was Arnolds then it became Debenhams, I think its shops now. Boots the chemist was on the same side of the market place as Palmers and there was a chemist in Regent Road called Tubbs.
Round the back of the town behind Woolworth's on the Quay was the Slipper
Baths, I think this would be where people that did not have baths in their houses would go for a bath. I remember there was like a path like a maze
it turned allot of corners and bought you out at the side of Woolworth's. There
was a Safeway Supermarket called Safeway on King Street. There was a material shop called Stainsberrys (I think) near the top of St Peters Road. St Peters Tavern was also on St Peters Road.
I remember a large family called the Thompson's they had a news paper shop on Deneside, the Park Tavern a pub on Saxon Road and a chip stall on the Market.
Buses
Blue Buses ran over to Gorleston, they were double deckers and ran about every 5-10 minutes between Great Yarmouth and Gorleston. Over the bridge there was a stop outside the post office in Regent Street then they went on to King Street, round by Burtons and a Bank with a clock on the wall to the side of the regal. I think all the other traffic had to go round the Market Place. The Blue Buses also ran to Caister though they were single deckers. The Easton County's Buses were red and they set of from near the Bath Hotel running to Lowestoft.
The Miners Strike
One winter weekend in 1972 Great Yarmouth was full of boys and Men staying in the guesthouses. It was the Miners strike and they took them over to Gorleston on the Saturday to march all the way back to Great Yarmouth where they picketed round the Power Station, it was bitterly cold.They were amazed to see Great Yarmouth in winter with all the attractions closed down as a lot of them came for holidays to the town in summer from Barnsley in Yorkshire.