Memories of Bembridge and 27 Lincoln Way

27 Lincoln Way 1977

At first, when I moved to the Isle of Wight, I lived in the staff quarters of hotels. Then I rented a 1970s bungalow for a year at 27 Lincoln Way, Bembridge. My landlords were in a police house and had purchased it because they wanted to get on the property ladder, ready for when they retired.

It was fully furnished with a living room and two bedrooms but I added bookcases. There was a particularly revolting plastic, mustard coloured three piece suite and weird, black and white, fibre-glass curtains. The landlord provided me with leylandii to plant down the left-hand wire fence. This I did during a very dry spell and every single one died. To be fair, although I am sure I was partly to blame for not digging the holes large enough, the soil was solid clay. I did successfully plant some daffodils and I bought some plants to put in pots, a yellow Potentilla and an Escalonia, both of which followed me to three more homes. I remember, as I was moving out, spilling a box of grass seed (purchased from the nearby garden centre for my next home) on the door mat. I always wondered if it grew!

The Living Room at Lincoln Way

The Bedroom at Lincoln Way

Bembridge brings to mind the smell of the roads after rain and of seaweed on the cliff path. Bembridge itself had a few shops. One was Wrays, the general store who ordered Heinz chunky soup especially for me and where I brought 2lb of bacon, not realising quite how much this was. I had bacon three times a day for quite a few days! There was a newsagent, a greengrocers, the library and the Maritime Museum. There were also shops to appeal to the tourists. In one of these I bought decorations for my first Christmas tree in a home of my own. In a parade of shops near the estate where I lived was David’s, a Spar supermarket. All my initial cleaning stuffs came from here. Some of these products lasted four decades, despite reasonably regular use. There was also a garden centre nearby.

There were pubs - the Crab and Lobster by the lifeboat station and The Pilot Boat Inn by the harbour. Bembridge was also home to a private school and a somewhat dodgy art college that was mainly patronised by foreign students. The windmill, owned by the National Trust, was always interesting to visit. Walks along the cliff path to St. Helen’s or, in the other direction, to Sandown via Culver Cliff were the usual ‘days out’. I especially remember one walk with mum on a sunny November day when the sky was particularly blue and the white bryony had brilliant red berries.

White Bryony on the Cliff Path November 1977