1. FIND TRANSCRIPTS AND (EXTRA INFO) FOR THE AUDIO VISUAL MAP HERE
2. CADENA – THE SMELL OF COFFEE THROUGH YEOVIL
3. THREE BEAR’S TOYSHOP
4. LIPTON’S ARCH
5. THE OLD COTTAGE IN NINESPRINGS
6. OLD YEOVIL RAILWAY STATION
7. SUNDAY SCHOOL OUTINGS TO WEYMOUTH
8. HOSPITAL SOCIAL CLUB
9. FIVEWAYS PUB – AND THE SWEARING PARROT
10. SCRUMPING APPLES
11. YEOVIL NIGHT LIFE – THE GARDENS
12. WESTLANDS PANTOMIME AND THE SWAN THEATRE
13. YEOVIL OPERATIC SOCIETY AND THE AMATEUR DRAMATIC SOCIETY
14. PARK STREET
15. NINESPRINGS DRY SKI SLOPE
16. WESTLANDS DONATED LAND
17. RICHARD’S WIFE – DUCK LADY
18. MILFORD DIP FLOODING
19. SHEILA HOPKINS – SOUNDS OF YEOVIL
20. NERYS BIRD (AGE 14)
21. JULIEN BIRD – YEOVIL
22. JANE LOWERY – VAGUE MEMORIES
23. NATHAN CRAWFORD (AGE 12)
24. KARA BIGNELL-BIRD – WHERE’S THAT TO?
25. STUART SPEER – YEOVIL – A HIKE IN TIME
26. JILL PRESTON – CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS
27. FREYA SHAMANKA – INTO THE WILD WET WEST
28. JENNA POWELL – SOUNDS OF YEOVIL
29. SOPHIE ROBERTSON – WALKING PAST NINESPRINGS PARK

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO READ MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY FROM YEOVIL’S VIRTUAL MUSEUM!

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A coffee shop called Cadena which emitted a strong smell of coffee. You could buy a pick and mix selection of coffee beans in the shop.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: In the Borough, in the centre of town there used to be a place, called Cadena, that used to be a coffee shop (and it used to smell amazing). It was right opposite the um… What’s the burger place? Burger King. Right opposite Burger King, on the corner, was Cadena and whenever you went past there, it really wafted across the whole top of town- a strong coffee bean smell. They used to do all the grinding and the roasting and everything. And outside they used to have tubs of coffee beans that you could sort of select your own, you could sort of go in there and take a scoop and go in there and pay for it.

INTERVIEWER: And what was that called?

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Cadena

INTERVIEWER: That sounds amazing that wafting smell as well, that’s amazing.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Inside they used to have racks like you do in an ice cream parlour, with all sorts of coffee beans that you could select your own coffee.

INTERVIEWER: That’s my idea of heaven.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Where Blacks is now, or round about that area. 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: That was just below the [unintelligible] – a toy shop, just between them.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: The Three Bears shop, I remember saving up all my pocket money to buy this little gypsy caravan that I’d seen. My father said ‘right so for every so much – I think it was fifteen shillings – for every penny you save and then we’ll go and get it. We went down there… 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It was gone. 

INTERVIEWER: Someone had already got it?! 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: He had! Because I had saved up. 

INTERVIEWER(S): That’s so sweet! / That’s a lovely story!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: I was a child, and I’d keep going there – I’ve still got it. It’s a little worse-for-wear. It’s not big, it’s this little cast iron one you know.

A community member recounting saving up her pocket money to buy a toy caravan in the ‘three bears toy shop’.

There used to be a little shop under Lipton’s arch called Lipton’s store – its namesake.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 4: There was a supermarket store, where the Quedam – the little archway tunnel that goes through between the main streets and the Quedam – there was a Lipton’s store, so that is called Liptons Arch.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It was like a mini supermarket – probably on the lines of little Tesco, going across the back.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: I can remember the little house that was in Ninesprings [unintelligible] There was an elderly couple that lived there and passed away and it was just left there. The last time I went up there, there was a bench there was some [poppies] on. There’s some sort of memorial left there [unintelligible]

INTERVIEWER: Was it a little cottage? I’ve seen pictures of it / Yes it belonged to the manor house we think.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Yeah but as children you always thought a witch lived there you know? In the woods.

INTERVIEWER: Like Hansel and Gretel – a little cottage in the woods.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: Suppose if you tried to [build] it now they’d have to put a fence around it to stop kids going exploring! [laughter]

Community members talking about the cottage in Ninesprings – left by a deceased elderly couple. They mention how, as children, they thought a witch lived there.

Community members recounting the old rail station and getting told off for exploring the engine sheds as children. One member recounting her late father’s photography.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: When we came out of school we used to go down to the town station which is where the [cinema complex] is and just to describe what that was like, […] from Wetherspoons down to where the cinema is that used to be an entrance road down to the station itself. All the buses used to park on the right hand side and you could go down and catch the Royal Blues which would take you out on tours down by the station. When we’d come out of school we used to go down to that station to see the trains. Often we’d go down Newton Road up into Newton Copse, across the bank and on to Summerhouse Hill at the back. And you could jump down and get over the river and go into the engine sheds – we used to go in the engine sheds and look around at the trains. We used to get chased out of there by the chaps that worked there, but it was impossible to, in those days, get up on the footplate on the trains. They’d leave them steaming. We used to go out there and pretend we were [playing] on the trains.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: I’ve got photographs of my late father who was a keen amateur photographer and there’s photographs of him, in his pyjamas, jacket and bowler hat, running- jumping on his bike and he sees the train in the distance. [laughter] Children have got them at the hall now and down at the town station. But you know there was lots of them they used to get quite a lot of [unintelligible] but at the time…

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: I remember at the town station as well was the annual Sunday school outing to weymouth. We’d all be stood there and all of a sudden this massive beast – you’d see the steam coming and it was quite… scary really.

We’d go down to Weymouth to another church hall and have cheese sandwiches and fairy cakes and… good times – simple pleasure eh?

Members recounting Sunday school outings to Weymouth and being scared of how big the steam trains were.

Hospital social club – waiting for the steam trains to come round the corner. Consultants dressing up in costumes.

The old morgue used to be where the hospital grounds are today.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: I used to work in the hospital, so there was a hospital social club in the carpark, a doctors club in the car park. We used to sit there having hotdogs and soup, and waiting for someone to go out and see it coming up the dual carriageway. 

INTERVIEWER: And then they’d go and tell everyone

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Then they’d say “it’s coming up the dual carriageway” so we could run out, all the doctors and nurses. There used to be a doctor’s show as well in the hospital social clubs. We’ve had consultants dress up as the spice girls, we’ve had consultants and that dress up as the thunderbirds… 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: They didn’t need much persuasion though did they? [laughter]

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It didn’t take much persuasion for any of the maintenance men to dress up in a dress funnily enough.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: The old morgue is underneath there

INTERVIEWER: The old morgue?

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: the old morgue is underneath that part […] the hospital ground. That’s what the […] the top of the old morgue.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It was on the 5 ways roundabout that had a parrot in it… It’s still bugging me!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: It used to swear that parrot! 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: That parrot used to swear

COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: Duke of York? 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: No the duke of York was where the [unintelligible] is.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: We used to play skittles there

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: On the main roundabout there was a little pub – where those new flats are – there was a little pub there and it had a parrot – it could swear

INTERVIEWER: Did they teach it to swear? (COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: yes!) or was it just picking up from what was around it?

A popular pub off the fiveways roundabout that the members used to go to with a pet parrot that would swear.

Community members talking about stealing apples from the orchard and holding them in their skirts and farmers shot at them to chase them away.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: We used to play down there [unintelligible] There were a couple of girls and some lads we used to go down there with. We’d climb up the rocks behind the farm, because it was quite a steep climb up to the farm and then there was a bit of field. And there was um, in the gardens of Lyde Farm there was a wall, a hamstone wall which was part broken down and an orchard in the back garden. And we used to climb over, and we used to get the girls to lift up their skirts and we filled up their skirts with the apples from the orchard.

INTERVIEWER: I was really glad that sentence finished!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: One day we went up there, got the girls to lift their skirts, we were shaking the trees trying to get the apples down, and the farmer came out the farm blunderbussing us and he shot this thing at us and we were over that fence and gone!

INTERVIEWER: Leaving a trail of apples behind! [laughter]

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Never went up there again!

INTERVIEWER: Yeovil had a really bustling live music scene

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Completely dead now

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: When I first moved here there were all the different nightclubs, like the […] and the […] and the other one. What was that one called? You know where the natwest [fountain] is, going down towards the manor,

COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: Not talking about ‘The Gardens’ are you?

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: The Gardens!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 4: It was the only place that didn’t allow kids

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Like you said, there were few clubs in the afternoon. […] You just went along, if you played something or sang, it would be a right jam. When the pubs all shut, you’d all pile off to somebody’s house.

Members recall going clubbing in their youth – specifically ‘The Gardens’ that was supposedly the best.

Westlands pantomime group that used to be held in a wooden hut. Member talking about making the scenery in a cold storage space on weekends. When Westlands moved to the ballroom space, the actors formed ‘The swan theatre’ together.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Westlands had their own pantomime group and in those days it was in an old wooden hut. There was the bar where you would go for a drink and they used to be a dance hall next to the bar. And the pantomimes would be held in there be held in there and across the other side of the tennis courts there was some, like, storage areas. Well I used to do the scenery for the pantomime and we used to do all the scenery in these bloomin’ store rooms, which you know, were freezing cold! We’d go down all the time you know and the build up to the pantomime was manic, we used to sort of have to spend all weekend painting and when they… 

Anyway they used to hold all the pantomimes in that Dance hall in that. They would erect the stages and everything. And when the sports club […] built the new building, they wouldn’t let us do our pantomimes in there because we were too messy with our paint and scenery and stuff 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: That’s the artistic…

INTERVIEWER: I was gonna say you can’t put a dampener on that! 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: [unintelligible] And a lot of the actors that liked to do the pantomimes got together and they actually formed The Swan theatre.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: I used to be on the Yeovil Operatic Society 

INTERVIEWER: Did you?

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Way back, yeah, in 64′ I think it was

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: I was in ‘the Teahouse of the August Moon’ when I was about… that was the amateur dramatics. 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Amateur dramatics, yes a different one, yes.. 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: I remember my mother dyeing… cutting my bob and dyeing my hair black.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: The more recent shows were shown in the Octagon, in my days they used to be in the Assembly Rooms. Of course it belonged to [unintelligible] I expect you’ve got pictures of these haven’t you?

INTERVIEWER: The Assembly Rooms we do. I’ve heard that there are dancers in the Assembly Rooms now…

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Yeah bands, all sorts there.

Back in the 1960s – members were part of the operatic society. One member who was in the amateur dramatics society, recalls dyeing her hair black for a part in ‘The teahouse of the august moon’.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Course there was one time, for about 5 years when ninesprings had its own dry ski slope

INTERVIEWER(S): Did it? Really? I didn’t know that! We’ve never heard that before!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: There’s still the remains of it 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It was only for about 5 weeks and it disappeared! They claimed it was unsafe.

INTERVIEWER: The Globe (COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: The Globe that’s it. / COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: The Globe […] yeah.)

INTERVIEWER: So when was this ski slope built and operational?

COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: 80s? 70s- 80s?

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: 80s. Gotta be. After I left school – so we gotta be looking at late 80s

COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: Somebody must have something on the internet about the ski slope.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s see if Bob has something – Bob will have something. We always go to Bob, that’s where we go first.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: You know where you drive into ninesprings? You go over the watery bit, well it’s all clear there.

INTERVIEWER: Oh it was there…

COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: And there was a clubhouse there and everything – they’d serve meals. It was quite a bustling place.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Many broken thumbs and things.

INTERVIEWER: The hospital probably got a lot of business!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: That’s what I’m saying – it was a dry ski slope with at least 2 instructors keeping everyone safe, and for some reason they couldn’t keep it.

INTERVIEWER: (reading) 1987, Yeovil alpine village. (COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: That was a mad 5 minutes wasn’t it!)

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Yeah but if you think about it, now they put the pool there (COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: I think the club got used, I remember going to the…) that would’ve… ninesprings.

INTERVIEWER: (looking at photos) So that’s the sight that, the view across, the sight that would become.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 3: Now all that’s still there I think. That’s the garages isn’t it? [unintelligible] That’s the slope there! The clubhouse was sort of around there.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It’s not quite so hidden when you’re on top of it! ‘Cause of course where the camera is… taken at the bottom. It wasn’t that long ago the whole thing… as long as a building.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ski it? 

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1:Yes! [unintelligible] It wasn’t that far, it just seemed to disappear, [unintelligible]

INTERVIEWER(S): I wonder why it shut down? Money? / Or too many people broke a thumb! / To fit with the car dealership!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Behind the [unintelligible] put the signs up…

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Yeah I know they tried all sorts of things, I know.. I think one of the days it was called ‘Pizza and Piste’ [laughter]

INTERVIEWER: That’s brilliant! (COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It was the nicest bar…) I like the former one. It’s better!

Members recall the dry ski slope, along with a clubhouse, that was active for a short space of time in ninesprings during the 80s/ 90s.

Where Morrisons is now, used to be land with a natural spring that formed a pond – donated by a Westlands director. Turns out it wasn’t supposed to be sold – but was built on anyway.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Stood with my late wife, she used to, well first of all she went to Westlands, and then where the Morrisons supermarket is now and the… McDonalds, there used to be a big field. In there, there was a natural spring which formed a pond. And the land was actually donated by one of the directors, who worked at Westlands, for their leisure purposes and their lunch hours and things like that. 

Dr […] I think his name was, one of the directors, and I don’t know if Westlands had actually gone into the legal aspect, but it wasn’t supposed to have been sold, but they sold it.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: They probably leased it, which covers it. Before selling the main thing.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: And that enabled Morrisons and the other one to build on it.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: My wife used to go down to the pond in the lunch- well we both used to go down to the pond in the lunchtime and it was beautiful. There was a car that they pulled out of there when they filled it in [unintelligible] huge car… And she used to go down and feed the ducks down there – course the ducks used to come in from Ninesprings and she’d be around there feeding them. And when they sold the land, it was fenced off initially and nobody was allowed in there, course all the ducks and the pond was still there and they’d still come down wondering where she was.

INTERVIEWER(S): Awww

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: And she complained along with quite a few other people. Between them they managed to- well they found that this land was donated and shouldn’t have been sold, and they got Westlands to agree to building another pond. Which is in front of the Dallas block which are the new office blocks they’ve got along […] road. We managed to negotiate with the personnel department, that we’d get some- we’d go down there when the workman were there to get the ducks up to the new pond.

INTERVIEWER(S): Awww

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: And we spent about four weekends, they allowed us on site and we took our motor caravan in. We spent days and day there, there was my wife down there trying to get these ducks in and the ducks wouldn’t go! And we ended up… (INTERVIEWER: Tempting them!) We got duck horn and we went out going “quack quack” around try and get her to get these ducks out, and eventually we got a couple up to the, to what was just a paddling pool really and i think they got the message but they eventually all went up there and um then she was able to sort of feed them around the muddy pool that she had. But she often used to get called – in the lead up to that – so often used to get called because she was known as the duck lady.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Mother duck! [laughter]

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: And the personnel department they’d say […] could you go up to [unintelligible] there are some ducks out there in distress. And she’d go out there and she’d – they’d know her straight away. She was renowned for being seen walking along and the duck found her and is walking along behind her [unintelligible].

INTERVIEWER(S): Thats beautiful, thats so lovely.

Member recounting how his wife used to go down and feed the ducks. The land got sold but agreed to make another pond for the ducks, so she moved them.

Milford dip used to flood, so they used to line the road with pink corks. Member recalls taking a few home because of the attractive colours and quantity.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: Do you know where the dip is? Milford dip?

INTERVIEWER: We’ve heard of this haven’t we?

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Go that way, go straight that way to town, go up then you go down -go right then you go up again. At the top of that you go over, you’ll see a pub outside Milford hall.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: That was sort of a late link between the top of Charleston and Goldcroft. When I was a lad they created that lane and then-um – well we used to go down there playing whilst the builder were doing the roads and things and it interested me because they used to line the roads with corks – you remember the pink corks?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: You know how expensive that is when you see the a lump of it…. there was a whole bloomin’ road of this, lined with corks. The same for country lane as well, we used to go up there and pick up these lovely sort of lumps of corks with like um… They had beautiful colours in them.

INTERVIEWER: I wonder what- it must be locally sourced if you can use it in that quantity.

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: It was just somewhere where they were quarrying them and it was just cheap for them. Obviously now it would be a nice little display thing

INTERVIEWER: I wonder if theres any.. I can imagine its the sort of thing that people pick up and take away // yeah! yeah… // borrow!

COMMUNITY MEMBER 1: I collected a few pieces but I’ve lost them since..

COMMUNITY MEMBER 2: Whenever it rained heavily Milford dip used to flood for about an hour.

INTERVIEWER: Ah… and then you’d have to wait for it to drain.

As I sit in my kitchen

To the ticking of the clock

And the whirring of the refrigerator,

I hear nothing yet of Yeovil.

It rests in early morning slumber

Still and silent, still

In my part of town.

I stare into the half-light

Of a rain soaked

Mid-March morning.

Ears stretching, 

Memory flexing,

I open the door

In search of the Yeovil sound.

And it’s there,

As the silence frays

And the sounds slide in;

The low murmuring 

Of the electricity sub-station

Humming to itself

As the brook burbles by

And the blackbird pierces the air.

A pigeon coos

And a magpie chatters its reply.

A dog barks 

As its ball hits the ground with a thud. 

Women pause

To gossip on the path.

As children scurry along to school

Their questions and answers

Landing between the footsteps.

It’s later now,

And the quark, quark of seagulls 

Gathering around the secondary school

Marks the start of morning break.

(How do the seagulls know it’s time?)

The chugga, chugga, chopper

Helicopter chorus 

Rises up from the airfield

As flight testing begins

On Saturday afternoon

Or Tuesday evening

The excited cheer of a crowd

As The Glovers

Score a goal.

And traffic.

Always traffic

On the edge of every sound

As the town wakes up

Or settles down.           

Pearls are beaded haphazardly into the thick

Velvet draped over the town.

Autumn leaves are tinted russet,

Swaying sleepily in the beginnings of a hiemal wind.

Every now and then,

A solitary one was torn away from its branch,

It’s final lifeline.

Each seemed to represent a soul,

 A person from the town being ripped away

From the community for one reason or another.

A higher paying job.

A larger town.

Prettier scenery.

I drive for a living, on a daily basis,

I see lots of new things, and familiar faces

I see sunsets and darkness, lots of traffic lights

These are a few of my usual sights

Cars backed up far, waiting for green

Angry faces, horns beeping, eager and keen

Stops and starts, speeding up to then slow

Getting nowhere fast, frustration starts to grow.

Finally it starts moving, it’s great to be free

To see sights of my hometown, I hold dear to me.

I’ll try to describe, some sights that I’ve seen

Like Wyndham hill sitting proud, like a beacon of green-

The hospital roundabout, with the tree in the middle

The low rising moon, that turns out to be Lidl!

The traffic is moving, don’t dilly dally,

I know it’ll be slow, up through takeaway alley.

Once my journey is done, I’m out on my feet

So much to see, I’m in for a treat

It’s the town I grew up in, I’ve been here so long

It has its own bad points, but don’t get me wrong

It has good things to see, wherever you look

But don’t take my word, read a Bob Osborn book.

Yeovil is great, it’s a good place to be

If you go and explore, there is so much to see,

There are woodlands, a lake and an old railway line

Places to meet, and places to dine

There are sports such as football, rugby and bowling

Facebook events, for those who like scrolling

There’s also an old ski slope, I never went down

So much to do, I love Yeovil town.

We moved to Yeovil from London in 1964 when I was three.  My Father was from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, My Mother was originally from Yeovil.  Both of my Parents worked at Westlands and we lived in a house at Westland Road.  I use to refer to it as the house next door to the Tennis Courts.  I use to stand at the front door and watch games of Tennis being played. 

My Father use to take me to a lot of places on a Sunday he would take me to Sidney Gardens and would help me to sail my toy boat in Sidney Gardens Fountain.  In those days the Fountain had water in it.  He took me to the pictures once to see the Disney film of Snow White at the Odeon Cinema, and I remember him comforting me because I got scared of the Witch. 

On a Friday afternoon he use to meet me from the Park School Kindergarten and we use to walk down to Middle Street to the Three Bears Toy shop where he would buy me a Toy.  He bought me a Tambourine which I still have to this day.  One Friday afternoon he didn’t turn up to meet me and I cried. 

From the age of four I only had his grave to visit in Yeovil Cemetery. 

Ghastly, horrible, Yeovil, this is what Yeovil is known to many. However, these people, who comment such despicable vile post, haven’t truly heard Yeovil, tasted Yeovil, see Yeovil, and felt Yeovil.

During the reigning empire of the lockdown, I had the pleasure of walking through the forest of Ninesprings Park, by Wyndham Park. Despite by be surrounded by a sewage plant, and a housing estate, it offers a wide abundance of flowers and plants, let alone animals.

I clearly remember seeing a little pond. I and my family, eager to see what creature could habit in such environment, went pond dipping and found a few newts.

On our daily exploration, we would go towards the other side of the woodland, to where we would build dens, out of a maze of bushes.

One day we got strings and drills to build dens big enough for us to fit it. Our mother would tell us to be quiet, for we could hear a various amount of birds chipping. I clearly remember seeing a kingfisher, that stood out like a sore thumb, on the dying bank of the river.

At our den, we would always eat dark choccolate, for it is healthy and very filling; and cured meats wrapped in lettuce.

Soon darkness would decide to make its mature presence, and we would finish our 10km walk back home.

I am Nathan Crawford, 12 years old, and I am proud to say my voice of Yeovil.

It’s difficult for me to remember a time before I lived in Yeovil, but there were numerous lives in numerous cities and then I arrived here. My parents moved to Somerset in the early ‘90’s whilst I was at university and I arrived, graduated and degreed up one summer in the bleak town of Shepton Mallet where it felt that time had stood still and 80’s perms were still the height of fashion. 

My first recollection of Yeovil was being driven over from Shepton, parking in Huish car park and trekking over the Tesco footbridge to this pretty, hilly little town. It was like crossing a portal to another world.  I grew up in Northampton and my first thought was how small the town centre was- it was no bigger than the local row of shops in my old town suburb which was affectionately named ‘Kingsley front’. Yeovil then was the land of ‘Gone Potty’ and ‘Caves’ and seemed a miniscule and ‘alternative’ tableau to the mass shopping vistas I was used to. Little did I know then that it would later become my home.

A further year was spent in Shepton where I commuted daily to Bath to complete my teaching qualification. Then came the arduous task of applying for teaching jobs which took me all round the country to no avail, until I landed by bus (green with motion sickness) one sunny day in Yeovil for an interview at Holy Trinity School. Lysander Road was being widened and due to the buses, I was really early for my interview and thus placed in a tiny school library adorned with triple mounted impeccable displays which foreshadowed the trials I would later have at this very school. In my ‘holding bay’, I was joined by another lovely candidate who was so warm and friendly, we later swapped phone numbers after a chance meeting in town and we remain friends to this day.

I was offered a maternity leave post and took it, assured by staff members that it would probably become permanent. It did. Thus my fate was sealed- a permanent job meant financial stability, a mortgage, an ill-fated marriage and later, three beautiful babies.

One of my first hurdles was mastering the Somerset dialect. Northampton certainly had its own idioms but the challenge would come when before a class of thirty 7 years olds with whom I was charged to teach P.E, the Teaching Assistant yelled to them all, ‘go and get your daps’. In Northampton, we called rolls, ‘baps’ and mishearing I wondered why on earth they would all a) need bread rolls and b) why you’d get kids to eat before running around?

The TA looked at me as if I’d landed from the planet Mars and asked me where I’d come from. 

I answered ‘Northampton.’

‘Where’s that to?’

So now I was stumped and in a Little Britainesque exchange I fumbled,’ I’m sorry, can you repeat that?’

Stare of disbelief. ‘Where’s that to?’

‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ 

At this point I literally had no idea what this grammatically incorrect phrase could possibly mean.

Slower and louder- ‘Where’s….. that….. to?’

At last I twigged- ‘Oh, where is it?’

The relief in her face was palpable as folks in Glastonbury heard the penny drop.

‘The Midlands ish’.

And so my induction to the Yeovil dialect began.

It can’t have been that bad as that was 1994 and I’m still here!

Opposite the hotel stands the gated entrance and grassy fields at the bottom of Babylon Hill.

This hill sweeps up a steep incline from East to West. Where it is topped by 4 gorgeous lime trees, which provide wonderful shade from the hot sun, when in full leaf. The green grass on all the slopes is usually semi churned up by the black cattle which inherit the land. 

As I reach the summit, side stepping the cattle on my way up, it is evident the hill also sweeps down the other side similarly, facing the South side of the town. For me, it’s the fantastic view afforded from the summit. As I admire the views, I overlook lots of Victorian old town residences, retail and industrial outlets to the North and West. Open  countryside, out of town retail outlets and the railway dominate to the East and South.

What I remember most about my teen-age years was the time I spent outside with my friends. I seemed to always saying to my mum “I’m off out now “ She would ask me where I was going and I would usually say that a group of us were going to meet across the fields.

The term ‘across the fields’ was our description for the path which went past the back gardens of houses in New Seaton Road and on the opposite side, Preston Grove.

Many happy hours were spent there just nattering, messing about half heartedly playing daft games and challenges or simply enjoying our mutual friendships. We even sometimes took along some cold drinks and snacks to have a bit of a picnic. We would climb through the Westland protective fence somehow and hide in the longer grass at the Seaton Road end, feeling very bold and adventurous.

When we weren’t there, we would probably wander around the town window shopping or grabbing a cheap cold drink or a snack. In my later teenage years a few of us would arrange to meet up in the Cadena Cafe for a drink and one or two of their delicious cream cakes. We couldn’t do this very often though because we first had to save up to pay the bill. So it has remained in my mind as a ‘special treat’.

Saturday 25^th March

I am sitting in the Wetherspoon’s in Yeovil having dropped the car off to get the exhaust fixed and being told three of my tyres are dangerously bald and need replacing! Yikes, with all the driving we have been doing, that is truly terrifying. I had a wonderful morning by myself wandering the country lanes and footpaths around our house. I was out for about an hour and a half and have investigated routes into Ninesprings Country Park and town. Then we went out for our first ‘farm café breakfast’ together which was great. We really are living in the countryside! 

Driving around Yeovil’s trading estates and garages has been pretty soul destroying, but on the whole, people seem pretty friendly and helpful and… I even found some Spanish people while waiting in the Weatherspoon’s. I introduced myself to them and they have told me about the ‘Spanish in Yeovil’ Facebook page so I think that will cheer Juan up. All in all it has been a very nice day and am looking forward to going home and unpacking, which I can’t believe I have still not yet finished…

My wife works part time as a cleaner. 

When she first started, she started work at 6am. I used to get up at 5am, make her a cup of tea and make sure she got off safely. 

This was pre-COVID. 

Even at 5:30 in the morning the sounds made by traffic were plain to hear. Cars, lorries, motorbikes, you could hear the sounds, carried from across Yeovil.

Then COVID was upon us, and we found ourselves in Lockdown. Going out for a half an hour exercise was allowed but travelling distances to do it was frowned upon. Travelling away from home, unless there was a very good reason, could see the Police stopping you and sending you back home. 

My wife still had to work. She was seen as a key worker, with the result that getting up at 5am and seeing her off to work at 5:30 was still part of our life. 

But it was different now. 

The mornings were quieter. Much, much quieter. Some days there was a complete absence of traffic noise. Some days, there was the faint noise of a car or motorbike traversing the streets of Yeovil but most days there was nothing. Well almost nothing. 

There was the sound of Seagulls and other birds. Calling to each other and to any human who was awake to hear them. With the absence of human sounds, the natural world exerted its presence. 

Not just in Yeovil but all over, nature made it presence felt in places where it had been absent for so long. 

I wonder if Yeovil sounded like this in Louisa’s day. Her diary covers the period when another pandemic, Spanish Flu, showed that humans are not all powerful. 

Did Louisa ever find herself standing outside her home, at 5am, listening to the sounds of Yeovil? 

One hundred years, and two pandemics separate us from Louisa, but did COVID, and the restrictions it imposed upon us, let us pull aside the veil of time and experience what Yeovil was like when the world was affected by another pandemic and millions were dying. 

Glancing up from my phone 

Down the path I used to know 

The sand still preserves my young footprints 

The screams and the laughter 

The ones that used to be ours 

Back in the 2010 summer heat 

Those moments when the fun

Felt eternal, never undone

But in reality were obsolete

Such a short walk by 

To look back on a lifetime

To feel such a soothing hue of grief

But we all end up here

Once we’ve lived 18 years

Hold hands in spirit by that old gate

And as I listen to the laughter

With an untainted mind

It suddenly feels ok

I’ve let go of the regret for things that are over

I look out for the others now I’m older

And when the child is crying, the one still alive in myself,

It’s my job now to hold her.