Interview with Miss Lewin about her memories as a schoolmistress and the village of Foxdale
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Date(s): between 1950 and 1970
Scope & Content: Track 1: Miss Lewin (aged 74) talks to Margaret Killip about her time as a schoolmistress in Foxdale and the village of Foxdale. She talks about Harry Quilliam of Ballakillea and his son Edward; George Moore the Forester of the Hope; Foxdale school run by Patrick Commissioners as a Board school; shopkeeper using book pages as sweet bags; tide tables, the weather and moon; concerts in the school building; Lance Kelly and Herbert and Ella Shimmin, pianist; hurdy-gurdy player with a monkey visiting Foxdale; Captain Kitto and Captain Lean and houses built by the mining company; grandmother's account books from her shop; mother, dressmaker who used Looneys for supplies; Lena Clarke; dressmakers and apprentices; Mrs Cubbon, milliner from Peel; Annie Joughin, saleswoman; Shimmins the butcher and Christmas boxes; Kennaughs from Glen Needle making butter; Kermodes selling milk; Kellys of Barrule and Donald Hastings, schoolmaster; Mr Stephen Cubbon, his family and career; Hastings’ horse-driven binding machines and Hastings going to America; Willy Quirk winning prize at the Gaelagh for poetry; mine closing in 1911; Mr Percy Hewett, headmaster from Manchester; children walking in bare feet; discipline; Cowley family of Ramsey; school inspectors from Manchester; baker from Ballasalla called Kennaugh and story about a school inspector; Mrs Hughes, teacher; story about headteacher and Miss Lewin; teaching infants and the discipline of handwriting; hot summers; children making tea and meals sent from Peel organised by Miss Douglas; Bill Jones delivering in his van.
Track 2: Miss Lewin talks about the Castletown to Douglas Road; mine workers who had crofts; mine closing in 1911 and impact on community; wives taking over boarding houses in Douglas; poor relief; prices of coal and food; pay day at the mines and the Miners' institute; George Whitaker, Clerk of the Mines and his children Lesley and Kathleen; her grandfather Thomas Johnson who worked on the mine engine and how she went down in the cages underground; tooth extraction using the engine; railway line to Ramsey and the railway coal trucks; Reverend Cringle who had shares in the Northern Railway; going to Ramsey on school and church picnics; Willie Quirk, Station Master from St Johns; going to Silverdale and Rushen Abbey in summer; Mrs Quine's at Silverdale; Ratcliffe the baker and picnics; configuration of the trains; the chemist Mr Lambert and Willy Looney; Village House in disrepair; slaughter house; food in the village; Fred Clague's bakers; village chapel; Foxdale Mission Hall and the Band of Hope; private school run by Miss Woodend; Jack Ogden, works for Partingtons; chapels in Foxdale and how miners were mostly Methodists, especially the Welsh and Cornish miners who came to the island for work; Kittos and Nicholls; slate Quarry at Barrule and workmen from Wales; miners wages and training; work at the washing floors; Billy Cowin who worked underground and went to America; miners going to Michigan; Captain Lean; cleaning ash pits and water races; mine company joiners and smithies; John Caesar Corris and Tom Johnson, joiners; chief blacksmith Jimmy Shimmin; bark from the pit-prop wood for fires; living with Grandma Bridson from Santon; mine signalling system and waste taken to the refuse mounds; lift cages and miners' helmets with candles fixed with clay; miners' flannel clothing and the changing houses; her mother, dressmaker who served her apprenticeship with the Henry Clagues of Douglas; miners' clothing; working of the engine and the steel ropes; making marbles at the clay pit and picking up needles and pins off the floor at home.
Language: English
Extent: 1 hr. 3 min. 26 sec.
Item name: magnetic recording tape
Collection: Sound Archive
Level: ITEM
ID number: SA 0105
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