DOUG STREET - LIVING ON DENTON ISLAND
Rear of Sefton Terrace
Street family
1931 to early 1940'S
By Doug Street
I was born at No 1 Sefton Terrace, Denton Island in 1931 and I lived on the island for 6 or 7 years. I can remember some of the surnames of my neighbours: Eager, Doyle, Ingram, Lipscombe, Richards, Novis, Peddleston, Saunders, Winder.
As a small boy I had the freedom of playing on the Island, and I didn't wander off the Island as I knew I would be in trouble, although I used to try the 'daredevil' walk along the pipe that ran across the bottom of the bridge at low tide (this used to be the sewerage pipe for the island). Here are some of my memories:
I remember our house had 3 bedrooms (1 was a small box room). My sister and I shared a double bed (as did most of the children in those days). We had a living room downstairs (the only warm room in the winter with a coal fire) and we had to go down a few steps to the scullery, and there was a back door to the toilet, joined on at the back of the house. (You can see the rear of the house in my photograph, also notice the cat, baby in a pram and the tin baths hanging on the wall). Sometimes at high tide the island would flood, and water would seep into our house. I was the only boy that owned a proper leather football, and if I wasn't playing with it, the other boys would come to ask to borrow it. I remember that near bonfire night we would start to build a bonfire, and the boys from Elphick Road would come accross to the island and try to light it, I stood on guard sometimes at my young age. I sometimes played on the roof of the black shed of 'Saunders and Gates Coal Merchants'.
Mum bought most of her small groceries on the island, and she would hand me her red tally book to take to Mrs Ingram's grocery shop, and like many of the other women living on the island, she settled her account at the end of the week when father was paid. I was allowed to buy 1/2d of sweets, or I would try my hand at winning 6d of sweets (you ask how this is possible?). On the counter stood a wooden box, slightly raised with indented round holes, you had to pierce the membrane of the holes to allow a ball to fall to the bottom of the box, they were different colours, if you saw a golden ball then you had won 6d of sweets. I only won 1/2d of sweets, but it was good fun. Toffees were my favourite sweets, and I also remember near the date of the annual boat race that I would buy toffees from Mrs Ingram, she would take them from a jar and place into a paper bag. The toffee wrappers were 2 colours and you had to collect the wrappers for the whole team. We kept chickens as did many of the families and one family (Saunders) kept pigs. I remember seeing Ada Saunders with the yoke and buckets (containing water), going out to feed the pigs. When the pigs were slaughtered some of the meat was shared out amongst the islanders (I think we paid into a kitty for this).
My father (Percy Street) worked on the harbour dredger Testside (photo shows him in one of the Testside Mud Barges, they were about 150 feet long. Also in the photo is the Glen Gower a Pleasure Paddle Steamer that ran to Eastbourne and Brighton). I also remember 'The Soton' being moored alongside the island. Concrete blocks were made in her hold, and taken out to the breakwater.