Fond
of the birds!
When my parents took me to Great Yarmouth I always plagued to go down to the
Amusements and Penny Arcades!
Regis
Cottage
I was born here in 1941
and left in August 1967
After many years, No. 6 Regis Place has, once again, been reunited with its original name!
AS a ‘Moment in Time’, is intended to portray people and places in Norfolk during the ’40s, ’50 and ’60s, I thought it best to include some pictures of myself – a Norfolk lad – taken during those early years.
I’m proud to say that I’m a Norfolkman, through and through. I was born in Regis Place, Sheringham, on the North Norfolk coast during the early years of World War 2. Now, as some of you may or may not know, sometimes people from Sheringham are called ‘Shannocks’. But to qualify for that distinction, you have to born in Sheringham, of Sheringham-born parents, and in my case I was not.
In fact, to be truthful, I was actually born in Beeston Regis, although we always thought of it as Sheringham. The boundary line ran through Beeston Beck, which was at the bottom of our garden, so we were the wrong side of it, and, to make matters ‘worse’, my father was a Runton man! So much for me being a Shannock!
I was christened at the Wesleyan Station Road Methodist chapel in Sheringham, which is now long gone, swallowed up by shops and houses, but as Methodists our family went to the Beeston Road chapel, a Primitive Methodist establishment, now a private dwelling!
As a five-year-old, in 1946, I attended the Sheringham Infants’ School in Cremer Street, until going up to the big school at the top of the playground – the Primary School. This stretched as far as George Street, I seem to recall.
In
1952, I passed the ‘11-Plus’examination, gaining a scholarship at
a grammar school, and started at The Paston School (on the right) in the September
of that year. I remained there, taking my GCE exams in 1957, leaving during
the summer of that year to study Graphic Design at the Norwich School of Art.
After three years at the Art School I heard that Jarrold Printing were looking for a Graphic Designer, so, following a quick telephone call, found myself starting work the following week, spending the next forty years working for, what was at the time, one of Europe’s leading printers.
Since taking early retirement in 2000, I have written and illustrated a book Albie’s Tales: The Life and Loves of a Sheringham Lad which I hope to have printed soon, but in the meantime I have recently published a small book of poetry: Albie’s Poems: Reflections of a Norfolk Lad!
Finally,
I’ve recently been appointed the editor of The Merry Mawkin,
the Newsletter of the Friends of Norfolk Dialect, and I’m looking forward
to the challenge of designing and producing the quarterly magazine. If
you would like to learn more about the Friends of Norfolk Dialect (FOND) or
would like to know how we are keeping our unique Norfolk dialect alive, click
the Mawkin (for those not in the know, scarecrow!) on the left to visit
the official website. It’s full of interesting items such as how to pronounce
certain placenames (and sound like a local!), and there’s also an old
letter written in ‘broad Norfolk’ – do you try to understand
that, if you can!
Dew yew tearke care tergether!
Ashley
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Copyright © Ashley Gray 2008
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