The Ient Family: Family History

On the Sea Shore

Standing on the sea shore Philip continues:

This is the place where I first learnt to swim. I’d be about five years old, I lived up there [pointing] at a place called Dock Street.

Looking down to the sea shore & the breakwater Philip says:

There were no stones here then; there was a mass of sand bags, and we used to dive off the sand bags into the water. We were in woollen bathing costumes. Once you got in the water with your woollen bathing costume on, it absorbed all the water and you’d just sink to the bottom.

There was a time the rockets went up [signalling a shipping emergency]. The ship was visible over there. It came in between these two piers here and grounded just there. The lifeboat and the 'breeches buoy'[i] were out. The ship itself couldn’t be released, it got right into the sand, it was there forever. There’s a marker out there where the ship was grounded. You can still see the skeleton of the ship when the tide is very, very low. I remember that very well.

---