Interview with Clucas Crellin about his memories of Peel
Audio Player:
Date(s): 1 February 1996
Scope & Content: Track 1: Clucas Crellin talks to Yvonne Cresswell about the Salt House and Peel in the 1920s and 1930s. Clucas talks about his family, including those who emigrated to South Africa and Australia; Reverend Sean Clucas and his son Sir Kenneth Clucas; grandfather’s business in Glen Maye and the move to Peel in 1912 as a grocer and corn merchant in 8 Douglas Street; delivering grocery orders to Glen Maye by horse and cart; his working in the shop, collecting eggs, butter and bartering for goods; sacks of oats kept at the Salt House.
He talks about going to Park Road school by train; his jobs after school; rats in the Salt House; interior of the Salt House and the pulley system and nets; employees including Mrs Wilmot; the Plymouth Brethren Hall; stables for hearse coaches, Keig’s stable yard and Mrs Wilmot’s cottage, St Peter’s lane. Clucas talks about how they barked nets; dried ropes in the fields; the barking pits; measured salt. He mentions Dales and John Garret’s shops; grandfather buying herring which Clucas would salt and pack in barrels; winter diet; weighbridge on the quay; salt by boat from Cheshire; fishing boats and rowing boats; long nets and baiting hooks and how boats would shoot the nets.
He talks about Peel busy with steam trawlers in the 1920s and 30s; his time in the navy during the Second World War as a signal man sent to Lowestoft; his stepfather going to the mackerel fishing as a boy; his father working at Bourneville and dying in 1918 flu epidemic; getting married and becoming a teacher at Ballakermeen. He recalls Scottish herring girls working in Mill Road; Russian ships taking the herring; the quayside by Fenella Beach widened; motor wagons; barrels supplied by ships; coopers including Willie Budge of Peel; timber ships in Douglas; Quayle’s timber yard, Mill Road; his contemporaries including Mrs Astill, Sissy Roberts, Isobel Dawson and Willy Dodd; Archibald Knox teaching him art at the Art School in Kensington Road.
Track 2: He continues to talks about kipper yards in Peel, including Kelsall, Moore, Keig; kipper girls; tourist accommodation in Peel and attractions including golf, swimming, sports in Peel Castle; Imperial restaurant; Albert hall cinema on the promenade playing silent films and his memory of going there in 1918; playing games in the streets as a boy; smithies in Peel; watching the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) races as a boy including at Ballig bridge in 1920 with a description of the riders and motorcycles; marshalling at the TT and accidents he witnessed; superstitions; schooldays in Peel, including the teachers and the location of the schools (now gone); his siblings.
Language: English
Extent: 1 hr. 28 min. 20 sec.
Item name: cassette tape
Collection: Sound Archive
Level: ITEM
ID number: SA 0399
Access conditions: All reasonable attempt has been made by Manx National Heritage to trace and request permission (where needed) from the copyright holder(s) in this sound recording. If however you think you are a rights holder then please contact Manx National Heritage.
Subject tags : #UOSH