More Chapel memories

slide show | 1897 | 1938 | 1949 | 1953 page1| 1953 page2 | 1993 | 1996 |

from a plane | from the church tower | old postcard views (hotspots on village map)| sea and boats

Willy Long in his old age

see Jimmy High's memories of Chapel

Florence Radley (née High)
remembers the Chapel Anniversaries

This is an excerpt from Florrie talking (aged 80), recorded by Eileen High

"The chapel was up in Cross Street first where Mr. Blackburn used to have that shop just opposite the new houses, then they built that one down the road. I was a year old when they built that, in 1891. They collected enough money to pay for it. I still own a clothes brush made from the hairs of our pony’s tail; things like this were made and sold and they built it free of debt. Sunday was a day of rest and for attending chapel. We never had cooked meals, and the only books to be read were the bible and the Christian Herald. No Sunday paper ever came into our house.

The chapel was the centre of our social life. My father and his sister Hannah started the Sunday School, and my father was superintendent there for twenty one years. He had 72 children. Of course every family in those days had seven to nine children.

In this Sunday School Anniversary group, Florrie is one of the older ones — her brother Dick is the Superintendant on the extreme right, and his wife Mary, with their two -year old daughter Freda, is standing extreme left.	"Then there was the Anniversaries. Oh, we used to have to dress up. Mother used to send away and get remnants, and Ethel Dawson (she was a dress-maker) used to come up here and spend a week with us, and make us all new dresses for the Anniversary. We had new hats too. I remember having a black sailor hat, like a boater, with a red ribbon round it."
"We used to have a special Service of Song at the Anniversary. Old Willy Long, do you remember him, the Evangelist fisherman from Sheringham, he always used to come, and he was a beautiful reader; he used to lead our Anniversary. He used to read a story and then we had all special hymns. Oh they could sing! They had some beautiful voices in this village! The singing and beautiful readings would leave hardly a dry eye in the house."

see Mary Dawson's memories ->