Synopsis
This credible memoir starts with a young boy's near death, written from the view point of the author, as he experienced family life in Weymouth, Dorset in the Fifties. There is a strong human element to the story as the author nearly drowns in the harbour when he was a six year old and part of the book deals with his search for the unsung life-saving hero.
The story begins with the author as a three year old boy moving from London with his family at the end of the second world war in 1945, arriving at a large rundown house overlooking the picturesque harbour in Weymouth, Dorset. The large house which only his father had viewed and bought during the latter period of the war, had been used to billet the wartime military, leaving the house in a particularly rundown state. His parents renovate the house for conversion into a summer visitor guest-house named St. Pierre with it's name pronounced 'Som Pee Air' using the Dorset accent as the book title. The house at No, 19 Trinity Road is now a public house/restaurant overlooking the harbour.
The story starts with an incident that happened to the boy, then aged six years old, in the autumn of 1948. Then in later years the writer contemplates this long remembered incident in which he, (the writer,) recalls himself as this six year old boy who was just seconds away from oblivion after falling into the deep harbour and underneath the paddles of a paddle steamer but is saved from this watery grave by a stranger in town. A search is undertaken to find this mystery saviour 58 years after the event, the saviour who, as it transpires, now lives on the other side of the world.
During the course of this search, the writer reflects on his childhood during the late/early Forties and Fifties, living in this large Victorian house in a seaside town. The odd neighbours and the summer visitors in the Fifties, the very fruitfully rewarding playing areas by the sea, the sands, the rocky coast line, setting fire to the house, saving the girl next door from drowning, school times remembered with the King dying, Joseph Stalin dying, the Coronation. It includes memories of the many bomb damaged playing areas where many games were acted out amongst dangerous and derelict houses; the ships that moored in the harbour; misunderstanding of lessons at Sunday school, play friends and foes; watching a local inspired film set, but not for the film itself. There are family tales concerning his father’s jobs to include the tragedy of navy accidents, his rather money-conscious mother, time with his brother, his uncles, one of whom was a conscientious objector during the war. His uncle’s partner who famously beat the panel in the Fifties TV programme, and the black comedy death caused by that same partner. There is a story about a rather dotty uncle who would invent many things but use a second world war air-raid siren to stop a neighbours dog barking, and memories of visits from a befriended German POW, a shot down Luftwaffe officer.
The whole story is written with humour, interwoven with a potted history of Weymouth and the surrounding areas, to include pictures, old and new, and a view of the frailties of friends and family
The epilogue describes the search for the good Samaritan and finding him, now a retired high ranking naval commander of a well known dynasty, and the commander’s subsequent reply which describes the rescue and the realisation of how lucky, in more ways, the rescue was. This causes a strong emotional reaction, not only to the fact that contact has been made but the stark reminder of such a close run thing that rescue really was.
Copyright Edward Page. May 1st 2009
A Ducking and a Dive In.
Chapter One
On the day that I nearly drowned, the summer season had closed, after many busy weeks of tourists visiting Dorset’s scenic coastlines. The splashing paddlers, that had delighted the many visitors, had been moored for their coming winter’s hibernation along the harbour jetties. The town was quiet now that the last of the holiday visitors had departed for home refreshed after a summertime break enjoying the sands, sea and the elegant paddle steamers at Weymouth. Around the harbour the sunny days of summer had been transformed into the changed colours of a cool, coastal autumn.
In the harbour, I lay in the cool water looking up and facing the quayside. My mind was empty and I had no thoughts, none of any kind, as to how or even why I was there. A seemingly short while passed, maybe seconds, minutes or perhaps longer, I don’t know. My attention was drawn to a young woman that I recognised walking by on the unpaved road that bordered the quayside. That’s my Sunday school teacher I began to think as my young mind vaguely adjusted to the beginnings of the equally vague reality returning to me and to where I was. Looking at her I could see she gave just a momentary glance in my direction then she stopped, quite still, comprehending what her eyes were now seeing then the sudden bursting realisation of what she was seeing was real causing her reactive signals to generate an impulsive waving of arms and running around on the same spot. Although my slow transition to an unknown void was without sound, I could see she was shouting in an urgent and panicking way .
I wasn’t really sure how I had fallen in the water. I had come out of the Victorian school entrance as usual expecting my mum to be waiting for myself and my younger brother Frank who had just started school for this new autumn term. Frank, unlike me, had quickly settled into this routine business of learning to read and write. Although at first for me unsettling when I had arrived at the school a year before in 1947, I was now an old hand and knew the ropes of the comings and goings at St. Mary's Infant School which stood near the centre of Weymouth Town.
As I waited for mum, I was happy, thinking about the new game, for me anyway, of hitting the fruit of the horse chestnut tree threaded with string called conkers which I had played with the other boys during the morning break. But, after a while, I became puzzled as there was no sign of mum. Had she forgotten me and just collected my brother, as Frank was not waiting there either?
Whilst waiting and still looking up and down the busy lane I could hear music playing. I had heard this music playing before but was not sure what it was or even where it was coming from. The sound I soon discovered became louder as I walked the short distance away from the school entrance to the other side of the narrow School Lane that formed a short cut from the busy main St Thomas Street to Commercial Road. Walking over to a large door that was slightly ajar, I opened the door a little more and could see musicians on a stage playing, which was now with the door more open, much louder music. Later I learnt that this was a dance band music rehearsal for the Gaumont cinema’s adjacent dance hall. As a six year old I became immediately entranced by these men blowing shining brass instruments, which I later learnt were called trumpets and saxophones, and a man behind a drum-set making some great noises, left me wide-eyed. After a short while of listening, a passing stranger also came over to listen to the band playing and in doing so he prised the door open a little more, so when the band stopped playing somebody inside the ballroom came over and pulled the door hard with a bang. So with the band music now gone I continued to look and feel more anxious for mum and wonder what could have happened to her.
After waiting a little while longer, I suspected that I had now missed her so I started to make my own way home, alone. Walking past the Salvation Army Hostel in School Street and turning right at Whittles, the florist shop, into the busy St Thomas’s Street, I walked passed people, cars and shops heading over the Town Bridge and in sight of home which was No. 19 Trinity Road, Weymouth, a large Victorian terrace house overlooking the Town Bridge and harbour. As a family, we called the house St. Pierre which we pronounced as Som Pee Air, so this was the way in which we affectionately referred to the house. My family, including my parents and my two older sisters, had lived in Som Pee Air since 1945 just a few months after that horrible war had ended.
At home I found the green painted door, with its polished brass knob, locked. I tried reaching up to the big black knocker but it was just out of reach for a six year old. I looked around uncertain what to do next…
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