Trowbridge And Siequien

It’s the 14th June 2021 and this is an interview with Bob and Lynne in Ventnor Park, for the Carnival Memories Project. Lisa Kerley is the interviewer. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today. Lynne, can we stary with you? Can you tell me your full name please?

Listen to their story below, click the black arrow for audio.

1956 751st US air force band coming up Pier Street (Bob is the child with his head poking through the balustrade above the cafe sign).

Read their story

Lynne: My full name is Lynne Helen Siequien, was Smith.

Lisa: Oh, so your maiden name was Smith. And what’s your date of birth?

Lynne: 27, 1, 50.

Lisa: And where were your born?

Lynne: I was born in Madeira Road, in a Nursing Home.

Lisa: Here in Ventnor?

Lynne: Yes.

Lisa: And Bob, can you tell me your full name?

Bob: Yes, Robert Alfred Trowbridge. Born 1st June 1950 in the same Nursing Home in Madeira Road, Ventnor. We weren’t born on the same day but …

Lynne: Six months apart.

Bob: Six months apart, yeah.

Lisa: Can I ask you how you know each other?

Bob: Well, we’ve grown up together really.

Lynne: We went to school when we were four and a half and we met so …

Bob: But our parents knew each other. My dad went to school with Lynne’s mother and father, so the families were, you know, familiar with each other, let’s put it that way.

Lisa: And where did you both grow up? What part of Ventnor? What road did you live on?

Lynne: Clarence Road.

Lisa: And Bob?

Bob: I started in St Boniface Road, then we moved to Upper Ventnor briefly. When I was five, we moved out to St Lawrence and dad’s still there. He’s 94, still there.

Lisa: Is he still living in the same house that you moved into when you were five?

Bob: Yes, he’s been there since ’55.

Lisa: And what school did you go to together?

Lynne: Longdown.

Bob: Longdown Infants.

Lynne: In South Street.

Bob: We started there and then we went up to Leeson Road for Junior School and then that’s where we separated. Yeah, ‘cos Lynne went to Upper Ventnor to, what was it, then a Secondary Modern …?

Lynne: Then a Secondary Modern.

Bob: … and I went to Carisbrook Grammar, which was a big mistake, but there we are. You can’t turn the clock back can we?

Lisa: So Lynne, growing up in Ventnor then, can you tell me what your first recollections, your first memories of carnivals are?

Lynne: Well really, sitting on the wall at my grandparents in St Catherine Street and the wall between the two properties, and my granddad used to sit me up there. It was too high, I couldn’t get back down, I had to sit and watch all the carnival going down St Catherine Street. That’s my very first memory.

Lisa: And how old do you think you would have been then?

Lynne: Oh, about three.

Lisa: So, they obviously lived along the route then. The Procession route.

Lynne: Yes, ‘cos we lived up in [inaudible] Terrace and they were down in St Catherine Street, so we didn’t have far to go.

Lisa: Somebody told me once that people in Ventnor would decorate their houses for carnival. Is that something you remember?

Lynne: Not really, no. Do you? I don’t remember …

Bob: Yes, some people did and you know, going back further than our time, a lot of the shops would light themselves up for the evening Procession but the Hotels would and you know the wealthier people would decorate their houses and I think there was a prize for the best dressed house. But in our time, it was the bunting across the road …

Lynne: In the Town.

Bob: … in the Town, but yeah, some people decorated their houses. I think down Madeira Road, some of the houses down there they would decorate them.

Lisa: What do you remember about what the carnival looked like when you were that age?

Lynne: The thing that I remember most is horses probably. The Marshalls used to dress up as Cowboys and Indians and I had an uncle who would ride a horse so that was always exciting when we came back past my grandparents. We’d probably stop, and the horse would rear up (laughs).

Bob: Was that Bill [inaudible]?

Lynne: Yeah, and I remember the Bands most of all because they were so good that, you know now it’s just … they’d be smart and loud, and it was exciting because you could hear it coming in the distance and get really excited before they even got to you.

Lisa: And what instruments could you hear in the Band?

Lynne: Probably the drums I think coming.

Bob: You’d hear the drums first wouldn’t you but it was mostly brass.