£12.00
Bembridge is often described as ‘the largest village in England’. By the end of the 19th century, it had become very fashionable and was attracting large swathes of the aristocracy to move there.
This volume presents a collection of interviews with fifteen villagers who, when recorded in the 1970s and 80s, were all in their eighties and nineties, and their collective memories of Old Bembridge stretch back to the latter years of the nineteenth century and turn of the twentieth. Their quality, age and humour make them totally unique.
Topics covered include: schooldays, ‘characters’, old village shops, fishing, farming, coastguards, smuggling, lifeboats, entertainments, pubs, piloting, and many more.
As well as detailing the interplay between local residents and the upper class, these reminiscences provide insights into the resilience of ordinary individuals in a rural village on the Isle of Wight in the Victorian and Edwardian period, while the stories and larger-than-life characters are always recalled with affection and genial good humour, and an obvious love of the old village.
The volume is supplemented with old press reports and scrapbook entries.
All photos are courtesy of Bembridge Heritage.
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