Days Gone By - Do you remember getting the ‘passion wagon’ back to Ipswich after a night at the Pier Pavilion in Felixstowe?

The Pier Pavillion at Felixstowe on opening night when the new building was packed with dancers

Readers have been sharing their memories of dancing and tradesmen who toured the streets of Ipswich this week with David Kindred.

This photo shows the The Pier Pavilion, Felixstowe, around 1980. The Felixstowe Leisure Centre now stands on this site.

Mrs Jacobs, of Kirton, said: “I have wonderful memories of the Pier Pavilion, Felixstowe. Every Saturday evening I caught a train at Derby Road Station, Ipswich. The train left again just after midnight. It had the reputation as the “Passion Wagon”.

“I met my husband at the Pier and we celebrated 60 years of marriage this year.”

Dance Festival at Felixstowe Pier Pavillion in February 1972

Mr B Bennett, of Ipswich said: “How many readers can remember dancing, swaying and drinking beer from steins, to the Amazing Bavarian Stompers at the Pier Pavilion, Felixstowe on Friday and Saturday evenings and occasionally in the gardens on a Sunday?

“They were brilliant times. The Stompers had an excellent way of making sure you enjoyed yourself with lots of fun and laughter.

“I still talk to people who used to go and they say how much they enjoyed themselves. Happy days.”

A picture in Days Gone By of a catch of shrimps at Harwich has recalled memories of shrimp fishing and visiting tradesmen.

A Barham reader saw her mother in a photograph from 1949 published in a recent Days Gone By.

“The Bramford Road School children, in Days Gone By, included my mum, Marlene Heffer,” said Joanne Blomfield. “She was one of eight children and grew up in Newson Street, Ipswich. My mother had a hard life, as they did back then.

“She married my dad, Dennis Hales, from Barham, and lived there all her married life. They had nine children, sadly losing one in the sixties. She was an old fashioned, caring mother and when my dad died suddenly in 1991, with young children still at school, she carried on and was a cleaner at the Claydon Greyhound pub for many years. She sadly died on August 22, 2002, aged 64, after many years of illness. She never saw many of her grandchildren or saw her own children marry. Thank you so much for printing the photo.”

Ipswich Trolley buses featured recently and Bryan Minns emailed to say: “I thought readers might like to see this photograph of some of the lads at the Constantine Road, Ipswich depot, who kept the trolley bus on the roads.

Trolley bus maintenance crew in Ipswich in a photograph from Bryan Minns.

“From memory they are from right to left; Sammy Fenn, Harry Runacles (Forman), Howard Pallant (beret), Bennyworth, Ted Moore, Bill Norman (cap), Charlie Parker (beret) and squatting Dudley who was responsible for maintaining the brakes.”

Dawn Harding, of Ipswich said: “I worked with the Ministry of Supply as a flight test observer (1951-56).

“Aircraft that were flying from Felixstowe included a Sunderland or similar. Before allowing it to land we checked the flight path was clear.

“If we were lucky a shrimp boat might be nearby and after a few cheerful words we could depart with pockets full of fresh cooked shrimps.

Dawn Harding recalls flying boats using Harwich Harbour. This aircraft belonged to Aquila Airways, which ran a service from the harbour. (Image: Dave Kindred)

“I felt very lucky to have my job at RAF Felixstowe, not many young ladies were able to fly in a lumbering great aircraft at sixteen-years-old.”

The yacht pond at Felixstowe has featured in recent Days Gone By, Derek Heffern, of Drayton, Norfolk said: “I never had a model boat to sail on the yacht pond at Felixstowe, but I have happy memories of that pond.

“A neighbour, where I lived in Barrack corner, used to take me and her boys to Felixstowe.

“A lovely treat! It was war time and the beach was closed off by high barbed wire.

Derek Heffer recalls that the beach and promenade was offlimits during World War Two. (Image: Dave Kindred)

“The pond was the best swimming pool available.

“Having no swimming trunks the good neighbour used to sew up the front of my underpants and make me decent before I took my swim. The day out was completed by a visit to the local cafe where rock cakes, (and they were hard), were enjoyed.”

Vic Good, of Harwich, said: “I am third generation fisherman, now retired. In your photo I was with the skipper Frank ‘Cork’ Pells and Bobby Warner. The boat was the ‘Girl Elsie’, named after my mother.

“My father had her built in 1954 at Tollesbury, Essex, by boatbuilders Frost & Drake, who built several boats for Harwich. The other main builder in my time was Kings of Pin Mill.

Vic Good with a catch of shrimps at Harwich around 1960. (Image: Dave Kindred)

“I don’t remember my grandfather shrimping, but there was an article by him in the local ‘Standard’, in September 1960, called ‘Memories of an Old Shrimper’, I have it on my wall in my office. My father was shrimping in his vessel ‘Olive’ before the war, in which he served in the Royal Navy and after.

“My first memory of going with him was when I was 10 or 11 years old. I started work with him in 1955, when he had the ‘Girl Elsie’. My father had a great vision of life. In the Royal Navy he went from Matelot to an officer in command during his service.

“By the time I was 17 years old, he and my mother had a fish shop in Harwich. He asked me if I would like to take the boat he bought, the ‘Boy Fred’. I jumped at the chance, my aim was to catch fish for the shop whilst he was shrimping. He was later elected to the local council, when Tendring District Council was formed, he was their first Chairman. He also had a second term in later years.

“Eventually we had another vessel, the ‘Alpha’, we were both shrimping until our roles reversed, he went after fish and I remained shrimping. The last year I have records for is 1964, after which it was difficult to earn enough, so we turned to trawling for fish, sole, skate and cod. I have details of the shrimps we caught and who we sold them to, local and Ipswich mainly.”

Vic Good on board the Girl Elsie at Harwich with skipper Frank Cork Pells and Bobby Warner. (Image: Dave Kindred)

Mrs D Abbott, of Somersham, said: “I grew up in Alexandra Road, Ipswich and remember the milkman coming round with his cart and we would take out a jug to be filled up.

“I also can recall the Harwich shrimp man calling out and ringing his bell.

“At Easter time the Hot Cross Bun man also visited the street shouting and ringing a bell.

I remember the brewery horses being kept in Key Street, Ipswich, they were lovely. This was in the early 1940s.

A milkman from the Alnesbourne Priory Dairy on his round in Ipswich from a time when milk was sold by the jug (Image: Dave Kindred)

Kenneth Levett, emailed to say: “The picture in Days Gone By, at the Victor Silvester Ballroom in Ipswich, was probably from the very popular Bob and Rita Morley era when they had people queuing out of the door most nights. I believe they emigrated to the USA in the mid sixties.

“I joined “Vics” in March 1966 at the time Mr Kim Crawford was the manager, after he moved on in came Dennis Page a highly respected teacher from the Leiston area, to be succeeded by Tony and Pauline Searle. I eventually went in for dancing medals, moving up to assist in teaching along side Roslyn Baker, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights were very popular as over 21s dances DJ’d by Martin Risby and Derek.

“I eventually qualified as a teacher in between times helping out Tom and Pat Lait at their Friday night classes and also at their present school in Clarkson Street, Ipswich.

I ran several dancing classes over the years in and around Ipswich. I came out of retirement in 2004 to raise funds for the cancer ward at Ipswich Hospital. Over a period of eight winters I raised £15,000. When ever I go to a show at the Regent I always pop into the old dance studio. The original dance floor is still there and memories come flooding back. Vic’s was truly a very magical place.”

Kenneth Levett responded to this photograph of a packed Victor Silvesters ballroom, Ipswich in February 1964. (Photo by Ivan Smith/Archant). (Image: Archant)

Regular contributor, Rod Cross, said: “Running down the road to intercept the shrimp seller was part and parcel of everyday life when I was growing up in Ipswich in the 50s and 60s.

“It would be about 2 o’clock in the afternoon when we would be alerted by the vigorous ringing of a hand-bell and the call of ‘Harwich Shrimps – fresh off the boat’. At that, I would be given 9d and a pint mug and sent off to get that evening’s tea for the family.

“Our ‘shrimp boy’ who served the Wellesley Road area of town, Monday to Saturday, throughout the spring and summer, was fresh-faced and in his early 20s. His bike had a deep wicker basket at the front, full of pink (and a few brown) shrimps that seemed to glisten in the sunlight. He had his own pint mug that he used for measuring out the correct quantity of shrimps which, would then be emptied into a brown paper bag, or in my case, into the mug I had brought.

“Later in the afternoon, a second shrimp seller toured the area. He was much older, red-faced and wore a brown overall and a cap. Much of his trade must have already been taken earlier in the day, but he was a useful back-up and occasionally we would buy from him.

“The price of a pint of shrimps later went up to a shilling, but with bread and butter and a bit of salad, it was still a ridiculously cheap way to feed a family of four!

“As well as the shrimp sellers, there was also a newspaperman who used to visit our streets around seven o’clock every Saturday evening during the football season. He rode an upright bicycle and had an almost musical chant, ‘Green Un, Green Un, Wanna Green Un’. As soon as I heard him, I’d dash out of the house clutching a threepenny bit, then stand still and listen so as to locate the place from where the call was coming. By the time I’d got there, he had often ridden off again and I had to repeat the process, chasing around in the dark, until I eventually caught up with him.

“On the few occasions I failed to locate him, I’d run down to Taylor’s news agency at the bottom of Wellesley Road. Although the shop would be closed, a few Green Uns would be left in the rack outside and people were entrusted to take a paper and post the money through the letter box.

“A voice heard a little less frequently was that of the rag and bone man, who toured the streets Steptoe-style, with his horse and flat-bed cart. He didn’t seem to collect much in the way of bones but his cry of, ‘Any old rags’ often brought us running and he made some sort of a living from the rags and scrap metal provided. At one time, he paid us by way of a goldfish in a little polythene bag. I doubt whether he’d get away with that today!

“Shrimp boys, newspaper sellers and rag and bone men, all plying for trade around the streets. It sounds like life in a bygone era. But my mother remembered the days of the door-to-door water-cress seller, the knife grinder and the ‘hearthstone man’ who carried a heavy sack over his shoulder containing blocks of soft, white stone for scouring window ledges and door steps. Now that really does sound Dickensian!”

If you have memories or photographs you would like to share, email David Kindred.