BOWLING GREEN WALK AND FOUNDRY WALK

Top left, Charles as an old man, right, Dorothy Carr, below, Dorothy and Charles.

Charles Carr senior lived at no. 5 Bowling Green Walk in 1927. This was a Victorian terrace off North Quay. The houses faced South with their narrow gardens running in front. No. 5 was towards the west end of the terrace, and there were seven houses in all, but much later, no. 7 was lost in a war time air-raid.

The house at no. 5 had three rooms up, and three down. The kitchen at the back had its range, a shallow sink, and a copper for boiling clothes. There was a middle room, and a front room. Upstairs were three bedrooms, one quite small, which was Roy's. There was electric light there at that time. Grandfather Carr moved to Coniston Square, leaving one of his two sons, Arthur, with the house on Bowling Green Walk, so that he is seen in residence here in the directory in 1937. The other son, Charles, was now living in Lime-kiln Walk (see Lime-Kiln Walk).

Rented Property

Mr. Larn rented these houses out, and did all the necessary repairs. Before world war I, 90% of all property in Britain was rented.*3 Grandfather Carr worked for the corporation, and later died in an accident, falling from a scaffold. Arthur Carr also worked for the Corporation, driving a dustcart. During the war this family was evacuated to Haddenham near Ely, and Arthur at that time worked in pest control.

Foundry Walk was a narrow passage behind those of Bowling Green Walk, and thus ran between Lime-Kiln Walk and Bowling Green Walk. It had its entrance between the public house (now the fish restaurant) and the cafe. There was also a little passage up the backs of the houses of Bowling Green Walk.

The houses in Foundry Walk only had an outside privy (toilet) that served three families. The houses in Bowling Green walk also had outside toilets, but there was one for each house. Consumption was common in those days. Arthur Carr's wife developed consumption. (Tuberculosis) There was no prospect of a cure in those days. In her worry and desperation she took her own life. Arthur had two children by his first marriage, a girl and a boy. Roy was born in 1934, and by the age of fifteen he was hanging around the wharf and started to go out in the little boats there onto Breydon catching eels, something that his grandfather used to do. George Gates, known as "skins", was one of the first of these characters that young Roy went out fishing with. He had a little boat called "Cheerio", and made something of a living by pulling yachts off the mud. He would sit in his boat on Breydon watching them go aground, and then be available for the service of pulling them off!

The Breydoners Jack Harwood and his partner were punt gunners. They had a Breydon or Broads Punt in which they would lie in a hide with a long barrelled half pound or pound gun, (taking half a pound or a pound of shot), used to shoot water fowl. The men who made a living on the Breydon water, whether hunting or fishing, were called the "Breydoners". Roy was married to Doreen in 1956, and they then rented a flat from Mr. Boulton, at 56 North Quay. At that time 56 North Quay was a separate house to the shop, and the lower part was inhabited by Mrs. Chubbock. (see North Quay.)

Roy Carr eel fishing on Breydon, Berney Arms windmill in the background.

Eel Catching

Roy Carr and his pal Donnie Hubbard first bought a boat together when they were about fifteen, for the sum of 50/-. The Hubbards lived in Limekiln walk. Roy and Donnie went babbing for eels.*4 They would first dig for garden worms, and using a copper needle with about ten feet of nylon, threaded the worms onto that from end to end, to produce a continuous line of worms. The two ends were then tied together, bound round a finger, and a piece of cord put through the centre, to produce a bunch of worms. A lead was fixed to one end, the line connected to a pole, and all was ready for the day's eel fishing. The boat was staked down on the edge of the flats in about four or five feet of water. The lead used to find the bottom, was gently bounced on the mud with the worms. The eel would see the disturbance and grab hold of the worms. Eels have very small fine teeth and won't let go. The one bab could be re-used many times, and sometimes it was possible to catch 2 or three stones weight of eels before they finished. Eventually the eels would have pulled the bab completely to pieces, so usually a second bab was ready in the boat. Billy Barber, who lived with Mrs.Hurrell, was an old eel catcher who went out babbing, and would stake his boat perhaps a hundred yards or so away from Roy.

When they returned, the eels were sent to Billingsgate, in boxes about 3 feet by 2 feet, and 2 feet tall. There were trays in the box, and about 20 pounds of eels on a tray. If the weather was hot, ice would go on the top tray. The Boxes were despatched from Vauxhall Station, and Dutch firms Braemar and Mork, or Salamunsen, bought the fish. During the rail-strike Roy and Donnie took a car load to Billingsgate themselves. The price used to vary between as little as sixpence a pound and perhaps at most 2/9 per pound, depending on size and condition. They only fished eels commercially, but grandfather Carr had fished for Smelts, as had Billy Barber. Smelts are an exceedingly malodorous fish. Eels come all the way from the Sargasso sea, and return there for breeding. Occasionally an eel gets landlocked in the Broads, and grows to an exceedingly large size. When fishing for smelts they used a net, and had one man on the shore, and one man on the stern of the boat, who would row the boat away and round in a circle, shooting the net out all the way. The net was 6 or 8 feet deep, with leads on the bottom and corks on the top. At each end was a trammel stick, a long pole, the depth of the net. Again there was a lead at the bottom. The pole was about four feet long to the top of the net, from that was a bridle to the rope on the shore, for the shoreman to hold onto. The boatman would row out and "do a rounder" back to the shore. Then they both came together and hauled the net into the shore up to the bite at the end. They might catch eels, smelts, mullet, flounder, or mudbuts. Before they started they would wait for low water, so that the flats were uncovered, then they could put a stick in the water to mark their position, and wait for the water to start to cover the stick. Then they were ready to shoot their net. There might be several boats waiting to do their rounder, and sometimes there was fighting as to who should go first. Babbing was always best on the start of the tide, and along the edge of the flats. After the tide got through and there was too much water, it was a job to keep the bab on the bottom. Now, in 1991, Roy uses the fight nets - Dutch fight nets- like a keep net, but the mesh is a different size, and stronger. These are about twelve foot long, each net, and they are joined by a leader- being a flat piece of lint with corks on the top, and pieces of lead at the bottom. One net leads to another so that they are fished in pairs. In the net there are three funnels, the first is a big one, the next one is smaller, and the third is smaller still. Once the fish get in they can't get out again. Roy usually shoots ten pairs of nets, all joined end to end, and works about 120 single ends in various places - sixty paired nets in all. This is without assistance, and everything worked from the boat. After five pairs of nets have gone over the side, there is a fifty-six pound weight as an anchor. At the other end is another anchor. He is now the only man doing this for a living on Breydon, using a 18 foot longshore boat with an inboard diesel engine, called "Brot 2". In the old days, he and Donnie would row to the top of Breydon, which is nearly four miles in both directions, and sometimes even against the tide!

Donnie Hubbard.

This at that time was only in their spare time so that they went every evening whatever the tide (Every other week the tide would be the other way of course). During the fifties they rebuilt an ex-ship's lifeboat with a wet hole in the centre to store the fish. This was called "The Brot". They had a year at it, having given up other work, but there was not sufficient money in it for two. The boat was purchased at Peterborough for £90, which was rebuilt by them over on "suspension yard"(a boat-building yard opposite the White Swan). The photo of the old shrimp boats shows the nearest boat to be that belonging to Jack Jarvis, no. 435. The next was that of an old shrimping family- the Liffens, who can be found in the directory of 1886 to have lived at no.6 North Quay.

Charlie Liffen and Chrissie Liffen were brothers, who also used to go onto Breydon collecting Samfer. The Samfer beds are still there. Samfer is a small plant that can be boiled and pickled. The boat belonging to Liffen was called the "Coronation", and Benny Barber's was called the "King.....". Ike Chapman went with Billy Barber in a house boat eeling over a weekend or so in the old days. The old houseboat in the picture used to belong to an old eel-catcher called Jode. Roy was once doing a small job for Liffen, putting some gunwales round his small boat, after which he asked what Roy would like for payment. As a result Roy was given an old eel-pick made by Flaxman, one of the top eel-pick makers, from Southtown, and which used to belong to Jode. The eel-pick has four staves which are flat slightly flexible blades with two barbs on each side that hold the eels without damage when they get caught between them. The old eel-pick, last used in the 1950's, was used in freezing weather, with ice and snow on the ground, and the men wore pieces of rag around their arms to prevent the water running down as the pole came up and down out of the freezing mud where the eels were lying dormant. Nowadays a Dutch "Fyke" net is used, (tubular) getting narrower toward the cod end. The eels swim with the tide, and run along the leader- a flat section of net, into the funnel of the net. Roy Carr was born in 1934, and first went to school at the St. Andrew's Infants School, later going to the Priory School. The St.Andrew's School, erected in 1859, was demolished in May 1964. Roy remembers the Blue House at the bottom of Market Row being “always full of Yanks at the end of the war”. Tommy Leak, who used to drive a taxi, and his wife kept the "Blue House" pub, and Mrs. Leak was well known for her "enormous bristols". The young lads used to deliberately ask for an item from the bottom shelf so that she would have to bend forward. There was frequent fighting in this pub between the Yanks and the Scots. A favourite pub crawl in those days was "the crooked mile". This started at the Duke's Head, then to the Blue House, then off to the Great Eastern, up King Street to the Wine Vaults, kept by "Pussy" Wilson, down the row to Allens in Greyfriars Way, winding up in the Britannia pier Pub.

*3 Ref. A.J.P.Taylor, Oxford History.

*4 Babbing was also described by Arthur Patterson, in his little book called "Seaside Scribblings".

The Occupants of Bowling Green Walk, 1938.

from 82 North Quay

1. Martins, Fred

2. Pratt, Charles

3. Hurrell, Mrs.

4. Bates, Mrs.

5. Carr, Arthur

6. Larn, Arthur John

7. Harris, Mrs.

West and Son, (Yarmouth) Ltd.,

builders merchants (registered office)

Barber, John Lee, and Co., warehouse.