Bommy Building, East Cowes, Isle of Wight

Ever since I could remember, I had always felt comfortable close to the sea, whether in the sea or upon it’s salt kissing spray when you walked its jagged edges. Fishing, sailing, or the distant shipping sounds and the pungent smell of the Solent had always been a second nature to me.

The Isle of Wight in the fifties was not as well known to me as you might expect, particularly when I was young, northern Islanders like myself, knew Cowes and East Cowes. It was very infrequently that you needed to visit Ryde or Newport. Other local areas were Osborne, Whippingham and down along the River Medina was Folly were known to us but as for the back of the island it may as well have been abroad.

As the years went by, we older boys became a little more adventurous, we had all been able to build up bikes from pieces out of the scrap yard or abandoned bombed out building close to the shipyards. My ‘Frankenstein’ was a Stag Horn handled death trap with no mudguards or lights, a fixed wheel and one very squeaky back brake. Bright yellow tape sufficed as the handlebar grips whilst the Sturmey Archer gear cable swinging loose was wound around and tied to the crossbar. As I recall we only had one bicycle pump between us, all us quickly became very proficient at changing wheels and mending punctures. We very seldom took these misfits onto the road choosing instead to ride and jump and dirt slide around the ruinous demolition, known to us as ‘Bomby Building’.

Bomby Building was, we believed, the bombed out remains of a once grand house called Park House on York Avenue blitzed by the German Luftwaffe during the war. It was dangerous and strewn with brick and all the detritus and mangle you might come to expect from bombed out buildings. The once ornamental gardens had overgrown into thick impenetrable jungle interspersed in summer with blooms of roses and tall colourful lupins. It had trees that cried out to be climbed and clambering down further into the darkness was a dank dark pond wherein some dread lurked.