Fascinating memories of Old Looe


‘We had a good life when we were kids’


Fascinating memories of old Looe have been kept alive by the family of a woman born in the town during the First World War.


Eileen Webb had five children, Diana, Rosemary, Teddy, Danny and Tony, and they each hold copies of their mother’s story of her young days in the town and tales of Trenant Point, a cottage by the river opposite the Millpool.


Eileen would have been 102 years old this summer, if she was still alive.


In the articles, she said: ‘I was born in a small cottage at the top of West Looe Hill.


‘My father was a fisherman. He was also born at Looe and came from a long line of fishermen. My mother was born at Fowey and came from a farming family.


‘My father had been around the world in a sailing ship when he was young. There were five girls in our family and we used to live in a cottage in a big yard.


Singsong


‘There were two more cottages in the back with us and two more in the front of the court.


‘We had to go up some stone steps to our house. We had a big living room, one big front door but no back door. And in the living room there was a big black stove for cooking on and oil lamps to see by at night.


‘There was one big bedroom downstairs and one smaller one upstairs. In the winter time, we would live upstairs because it was warmer.


‘I went to Looe School. It was built on top of a hill and the playground was very cold in the winter time. One part of the school was for the big girls, in the middle was little kids and around the corner was the boys. Boys and girls did not go to school in the same class then.


‘I was not too good at school. I used to like ironing, cookery and singing, and in the spring we would all go in the woods to get flowers, moss and leaves, and do up the windows for May day. We used to love May time, we would have a May fair of Hobby Horses, swing boats and all sorts of things.


‘We had to save up our money for the fair. I had a job before I went to school in the morning, delivering milk in cans. The people would leave the milk jugs on the doorsteps and I would tip the milk from the cans into them.


‘And we would do jobs for people; mostly it would be to take their dinners to the bakehouse or, sometimes, it would be shopping or even taking a dog for a walk.


‘Sundays we had to go to chapel, Sunday school in the afternoon, chapel at night. Mother would give us a penny on Sunday.


Eileen Webb pictured at Trenant Point in Looe


Fishermen mending their nets in Looe


Rowing on an August bank holiday


‘We would put a half-penny in the chapel box and spend the other half-penny in old Bech Hoskin’s shop.


‘Then we would walk over the bridge to East Looe and out on the seafront with the other boys and girls.


‘The boys would play mouth organs and we would all have a singsong. Then back home and take off our best Sunday clothes. Mother would put them away until the next Sunday.


‘We had a good life when we were kids.


Girls and boys were not taught in the same classes at Looe School 30 LOOE NEWS MAY JUNE 2018


‘I remember the August bank holidays. What a day that was?! On Sunday, Mother would bake pasties, saffron cakes, buns, apple pasties and all kinds of things. Then on the Monday morning, early, Mother would put a lovely white table cloth on


the big living room table and put all the food on it with cups, plates and all kinds of things.


‘We would all leave the house early because August bank holiday was one long day of fun. The house was always open, anyone of us could go back home and help ourselves to the food. Nobody minded how many friends you took home.


‘Families from far and wide would come to Looe for August bank holiday.


‘You would see lots of your family and friends that you had not seen for 12 months there.


‘Father would go in the boat rowing races, they would win most of the time.


‘Mother would go in the running races, many is the time she won a saffron cake.


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