Jack Rose Recalls

 

Throwback Thursday—Jack Rose Recalls

 

Jack Edmund Rose was born in 1926 and spent his boyhood on and around the Beaches of Lowestoft.  He knew more about 19^th and 20^th century Lowestoft than anyone living and described the community that once flourished along the East Anglian coast. The following excerpt is taken from the book, “Living from the Sea”, by David Butcher.

“If you lived down on The Beach, you dint hafta go inta town for anything because you had everything you wanted down there.  There wuz a barber’s shop, a dairy, two or three sweet shops, a bakehouse, a bicycle place, a greengrocer’s, a butcher’s, a couple o’ grocers, two shoemakers and a tinsmith.  The kids used t’ go in one o’ the sweet shops an’ pinch the ow gal’s sweets an’ cigarettes   They used t’ point t’ summat on the top shelf.  Then as soon as she’d got the steps out an’ climbed up, they used t’ fill their pockets up.  And this went on year after year, so how she ever made a profit, I dun’t know!  But, anyway, like I say, everything you wanted wuz down there.  I mean, at one time o’ day, the only shops there wuz in Low’stoft were down on The Beach an’ up in the High Street.  London Road North wasn’t developed till the early 1900’s.

“There used t’ be 13 pubs on The Beach in the old days, but I dun’t remember them all.  I know the names of ‘em, but the only ones I can remember are the Gas House Tavern, the Rising Sun (We used t’ call that the Japanese Embassy), the East of England and the Princess Royal.  There wuz one called the Fisherman’s Arms.  Bob Hook, the lifeboat cox’n, kept that back in the last century.  Then there wuz the Wagon and Horses, the Dutch Hoy, the Suffolk Fishery, the Flowing Bowl, the Balaclava, the Inkermann Arms, the Sailor’s Return an’ the May Fly.  Some were supplied by Morse’s Brewery in Factory Street an’ some by Youngman & Preston.  Their place wuz at the bottom of Rant Score, where Birds Eye is now.  I’ve seen some o’ the old women go inta the Beach pubs ‘cause the old man wouldn’t come hoom for his dinner.  You know what them old Beach women were like!  They’d take the dinner inta the pub just t’ show the old man up.  ‘Sit here an’ eat it, if you wanta bloody well live here!’  Well, there’s nothin’ more degrading for a man than t’ have the ow gal come in an’ plonk the dinner down on the bar, is there?  So sometimes he’d go hoom an’ thump her for doin’ it.  They were a rough ow lot down there, some of ‘em.’

No doubt they were.  But fishing was a tough way of earning a living, whether voyaging out on the sailing smacks, the steam drifters and trawlers, or sticking close to home and working a longshore boat.  A number of men went longshoring, but most of them found it hard to earn a living in the face of competition from the main fleet and from the low price that fish commanded at market.  Hence the younger men, and those with families to maintain, tended to leave longshoring to the old-timers and seek a berth on board one of the deep-sea vessels.  The Rose family members were fishermen of long-standing and their experience is therefore representative of many Lowestoft people.

“All our family had bin fisherman for generations.  We were known as the Mike Roses, though where the Mike come from I’ve no idea.  Nearly all the Beachmen were fishermen, either longshore or deep-sea.  My father went driftin’ an’ trawlin’ for years an’ years, then in his later life he went longshorin’ with me grandfather.  They’d be in an’ out every day, but there wun’t no money in it.  They used t’ go after shrimps in the summer, then there’d be the sprats an’ herrins come the autumn.  Winter-time they’d do a little bit o’ coddin’.  You know, with a beam trawl; I never knew ‘em t’ do any longlinin’.  They didn’t have crab or lobster pots either, though one or two o’ the old boys did.  Before the war there used t’ be 100 or more longshore boats in the Hamilton Dock, then when all the drifters come in for the Hoom Fishin’ they had t’ git out.  That’s why you see these photographs of ‘em all moored up along the Harbour Beach, because that’s where they had t’ go.

“When my father wuz driftin’, he went waleman an’ that sort o’ thing.  In them days you had t’ stop ashore t’ git a skipper’s ticker an’ that meant there wuz no money comin’ in while you were there.  Well, with a family in them days, they couldn’t afford t’ do it.  That meant you had good men who coulda passed for skipper or mate just not able t’ do it.  That all depended on your family an’ your means.  I know every Friday afternoon the teacher would say, ‘Fishermen’s sons stand up.’ And you’d all stand up in the classroom an’ he’d say, ‘Which ones have gotta go after their mothers’ money?’  And we’d put up our hands an’  he’d say, ‘All right.  Leave the classroom.’  And you’d go an’ git your father’s wages from the company office purposely t’ save the postage money.  Them few pence meant somethin’.  See, a loaf o’ bread then wuz “about twopence.  And all the kids in all the schools done the same thing, every Friday afternoon.  I should think my father’s allotment money, the latter part o’ the time, wuz about 17/6d a week, and there wuz four of us t’ keep (four children) on that, as well as mother.

“Now, my grandfather wun’t originally from orf the Beach; he lived up in Factory Street for a time.  His father had six children an’ then the mother died.  The old boy married agin an’ his second wife had seven children of her own.  That’s 13 kids livin’ in them houses in Factory Street!—two-up an’ two-down.  My grandfather used t’ tell me all this when I wuz young.  He said all the front bedroom wuz filled with straw an’ all the back bedroom wuz filled with straw.  The girls were in the back an’ the boys were in the front.  Every Friday the straw would be chucked out o’ the winders, carted round the back o’ the house an' burnt.  Then they’d go down t’ the stables, git another load o’ straw, bring it up, shoot it in the bedrooms an’ that wuz their bed for another week.  Well, then another baby come along, so what they done wuz make the copper into a cradle.  They just packed the copper out with pillows an’ thass where the baby slept.  The old man an’ the old girl slept downstairs as well.  Oh, there wuz big families in them days!  The dint know nothin’ about birth control.  They dint want t’ know!  When you’ve bin away at sea for a fair ow while, you git hungry when you come hoom!”

Jack Rose was born in 1926 into a longshoring and lifeboat family.  Went fishing himself as a youngster and was also a member of the Lowestoft lifeboat crew.  He spent the latter part of his life collecting his hometown’s history.  Jack was married to Eileen Gertrude Adams (1928-2002) for over 40 years.  They were married in July 1956 after the death of Eileen’s first husband Jack Watson Littlewood in 1954.  Eileen was the daughter of Francis Henry Adams and the granddaughter of William Adams (1848-1907) and Susannah Welsh (1847-1898).