Page 12 - April - 2018

12 Town & Around April 2018 Tel: 01485 540620 email: editor@townandaround.net
A Page from the Sage

ell hi everybody, the time goes fast day from the 15th of December.
don't it, it is now time for the next On the 30th December 1978 a blizzard hit
Wissue no 150 of the Page from the Norfolk and the King’s Lynn area came off
Sage, in the April 2018 edition of the worse, the A149 from King’s Lynn to
Hunstanton town and around. I have been writ- Hunstanton was blocked at Catsbottom
ing in Town and Around since it started so Babingly and at Tea Pot Corner Heacham with
sometimes I have to repeat what I have written a lot of snow blowing off the fields. Gangs of
so the older residents of Hunstanton will have men were sent out from King’s Lynn at 5am
to forgive me as some of this is for the new- each day to clear the roads.
comers. On 10th January 1987 a blizzard hit
Norfolk and Suffolk and the snow kept on and
The Blue Lagoon
off for a week with many roads blocked by
First this is about the old swimming pool snow, then after a week the weather changed, it
(Blue Lagoon). In 1927 the idea of a bathing by rained and the snow was all gone.
pool was mooted by the Hunstanton Urban Dick Melton So as you see we have had some snowy old
District Council with general approval from winters, but people just took it as it came; not
the ratepayers and residents of the town. The many schools shut as most of the teachers lived
scheme was also to help reclaim that part of the the cold side, but it was a good pool and I spent not far from their schools. Also the council
beach from the old Kit-Kat site along to the many happy hours swimming in there. In the would put up snow fences; these were made of
Waterside and inland as far as Beach Terrace. 1960s I lived opposite the Blue Lagoon in wooden railings joined together with wire,
By early 1928 the pool was well on its way to Seagate which was very handy, then all of a they were in lengths of about 20 feet that could
completion; the site was honoured by a visit sudden in 1967 the pool was demolished in be rolled up after use. They were put up in the
from HM Queen Mary who was staying at favour of a car park. fields a few yards from the highway, and they
Sandringham, she paid a semi-private visit and would stop a lot of the blowing snow going on
was escorted by the town’s VIP’s and the sur- Winter weather to the highway. Why they are not used today I
veyor and the Town Clerk. She walked along We have just had a week or two of rough do not know, also we had no gritters when I
the enclosed corridors and inspected the almost weather with some snow and strong icy winds, was a boy, the farmers would grit the roads
complete pool, which on completion would be but here in Hunstanton we have had worse. In using their tractors and trailers, two men would
200 feet long and 100 feet wide, it would hold 1947 we had snow and ice from the 24th be on the trailer throwing the grit out with a
half a million gallons of sea water pumped in January till the end of March, and many times shovel and doing the pavements at the same
from the sea by centrifugal electric pumps at German prisoners of war from their camp at time; they also did all the roads in the village
the rate of 1,000 gallons per minute. Snettisham were brought in to clear the snow not just the main routes as they do today. There
The water would be changed regularly and drifts from Redgate Hill, this bad winter was is a saying ‘the old ways are best’.
chlorinated by a special apparatus away from followed in Hunstanton by a blazing hot sum-
the pump house. There were 64 changing cubi- mer on the 2nd June that year, 1947, the tem- Ringstead Downs
cles for the bathers and a sun terrace for sun- perature in Hunstanton was 92f (33c) and it A chap was asking me about Ringstead
bathing and socializing. The pool was 8 foot 6 stayed hot in Hunstanton for most of that sum- Downs as he had heard about it but did not
inches at the deepest end and 2 feet 6 inches at mer. know where it was or how to get to it, when I
the shallow end, there were diving boards at In the winter of 1958 between January and told him that he could only go through there on
the deep end and a water slide at the shallow April there was 38 days when snow fell in a Thursday he just laughed at me. Well I said if
end. Norfolk. In February of that year we had two you go there you will see the notice on the gate.
The pool cost £20,000 to build (a lot of days of heavy snow and blizzards in West If you want to go for a nice walk through there
money those days) it was opened by Miss Norfolk and a lot of small villages like (not on a Thursday) you go down Downs Road
Mercedes Gleitze the Channel swimmer on the Shernborne, Anmer and Wolferton were cut off which is the lane that goes east past the
Whit-Saturday of May the 26th 1928. When for two or three days. Ken Milton, a butcher Smithdon School, when you get to the farm on
the pool was first opened it was just called the from Dersingham, delivered meat and gro- your left, Lodge Farm,
Hunstanton swimming pool, then after the war ceries around a lot of villages in the area with a you are out of the parish of New
and also after a new pool floor was laid in place tractor towing a milk cart. Hunstanton and you are in the parish of
of the original one the name was changed to In 1963 we had snow and ice all through Ringstead Parva, when you get further down
the Blue Lagoon. January and February; at Newmarket in the lane you will come to a lodge house
The King’s Lynn Advertiser, the Wisbech Suffolk they had snow on the ground for 66 (Keepers Cottage) if you go through the gate
Constitutional Gazette and the Norfolk and days, I lived in Dersingham at the time and I (only on a Thursday) it will take you to
Cambridgeshire Herald on July 13th 1928 worked down Clenchwarton Marsh riddling Hunstanton Hall, so keep to your right past the
reported that since the Hunstanton swimming tates from an outside clamp, I had a Norton pond and then just follow the lane then you
pool had been opened on may the 26th 1928, motorcycle and sidecar and I never lost a day will come to two cottages a farm house and a
3,812 people had made use of the bathing pool, off work nor was I ever late! This was the year lot of old barns, this is Downs Farm. Just
and that 13,508 people had paid admission to when the sea froze at Hunstanton and before you get to the gate to the Downs on your
the promenade and terrace areas, the receipts at Heacham (it had frozen at Hunstanton once right you will see a pond, near this pond used
the end of June 1928, five weeks after the pool before in 1940) and Hunstanton and Heacham to be a chalybeate spring that people would
opened, amounted to £448. In the summer people walked out on the ice to pick up fish stop and have a drink from, chalybeate means
term, Whitsun to August, when I went to and lobsters that were frozen in the ice. that it is impregnated with or containing salts
Dersingham St George’s School we were In 1970 on Christmas Eve and Christmas of iron. A few years back the water started to
bussed down to Hunstanton for swimming les- Day six inches of snow fell in Hunstanton and go a rusty colour so the spring was covered in
sons once a week; those of us that could there was snow on the beach at 11am on for health reasons, then just go through the gate
already swim were just left to swim about on Christmas Day as a few hardy souls went into and you are in Ringstead Downs.
our own, but we were not allowed to use the the sea for the Christmas Day Swim; this was Well that's your lot for now, keep a troshin’,
water slide or any of the diving boards. As the the first time it had snowed at Christmas in
pool was not heated the water always felt on Hunstanton since 1938 when snow fell every The Boy Dick