History

VisitShanklin Media Unit with the help of Shanklin Town Council have produced a vibrant Promotional Video for the annual historic Shanklin Regatta, to assist in expanding the profile and to best illustrate why this event that takes place in August each year, needs your support and needs local sponsors to keep it going. The event in 2012 was captured in a full day shoot with 2 separate camera and audio units.

The 162nd Shanklin Beach Regatta has been moved form the 8th August 2013 to 15th August 2013, so please be sure to put that one in your diary! Based on last years programme, events run from 10.00 am until approximately 10.00 pm.  Key timings inlude:

• Sand modelling competition from 10.00 am
• Woggle the Wizard at 11.15 am
• Artist competition 12.15 pm
• Sports events on beach from 1.30 pm
• Swimming events on beach from 2.00 pm
• Helicopter Search & rescue display – 3.00 pm approx
• Shanklin Regatta Queen – after Helicopter display
• BBQ on pier apron from 6.30pm
• Live music on Pier Apron – from 7.00 pm
• Grand Firework Display – Once dark approx 9.30 pm

The event also showcases the The 61st ‘Pier to Pier’ Sandown to Shanklin Sea Swim starting adjacent to Sandown Pier at 2.15 pm, finishing 1¾ miles later at Shanklin Rowing Club adjacent to the old Shanklin Pier Apron.  There are 120 swimmers (approx) that will register to take part. The date is TBC but check out more info here!

Help us to promote the Resort by sharing this video and inviting your friends and family to visit soon!

In 1940 a very real possibility existed  that the Island would the first target for an invasion by the German Army and preparations were made for this eventuality. In Shanklin the Home Guard stood ready for an onslaught whether it should come by sea or overland. Short of guns and ammunition it certainly had enough to cover the approach from the South and as the picture shows, the rifle positions to cover this are still in existence close to St. Blazius Church.

Shortage of hand grenades did not prevent throwing practice and one group assembled in the upstairs rooms of the Black Cat tea rooms for a simulated attack on a passing lorry using swede turnips.

However it was realised that the Home Guard might not be enough to repel the advancing troops and plan B was prepared. Captain Dick Wheway, the local radio repair man, recruited a clandestine band of local men who were ready to operate as guerrillas should the worst happen. Their operations would centre on a secret underground cavern they had excavated under the cover of darkness in the America woods. In preparation it was stocked explosives and detonators and emergency supplies.

The local army units erected miles of beach defences consisting of a framework of scaffold poles which stretched from Yaverland to Luccombe. The pier was a possible landing point so a cunning strategy was put into action. A vast gap was blown into the pier deck and if a battalion should land there and try to march ashore, disaster would ensue.

After the war the breach in the pier was repaired with reinforced concrete. Ironically this was the only part of the pier to survive after the storm of 1986 when all of the iron structure was washed away.

ROB MARSHALL

Sunny Shanklin seems to be getting quite the reputation as a place to retreat to, if the rumours of Johnny Depp ordering a pint in the Fisherman’s bedecked in a low hat and adopting a dodgy English accent are to be believed. Mr Depp is far from the first famous name to visit our idyllic seaside locale. Indeed centuries ago none other than Charles Darwin, a man who changed our understanding of where we came from, stayed for a while in Norfolk House Hotel, better known nowadays as The Waterfront Inn.

The author of ‘On the Origin of Species’ visited Shanklin and stayed a “short time for health sake” as he wrote in one of several letters sent while on holiday between 17 July and 13 August in 1858. Well within season then! Despite the timing, it would appear that the Darwin family were far from your typical holidaymakers. Indeed, they were actually visiting the Island as an escape from Scarlett Fever “which caused the death of our poor dear little youngest child & was very bad in the village.”

So Charles and the family came seeking the curative powers of the sea, a common idea in Victorian society. However, in a letter to his friend J.S. Henslow, dated Aug 4th Darwin laments “As yet the sea has not done much for us.” A little more than a week later he returned home, with his wife and children following
shortly thereafter.

So, what does a Victorian scientist, perhaps the greatest of his generation, get up to while he and his family are convalescing in sunny Shanklin? He works of course. During this time Darwin was considering whether to publish his magnum opus, and it would seem he wrote at least some of the ‘abstract’ for that work while staying in the comfort of Norfolk House. Certainly he kept very busy, remarking in another of at least five letters sent from Shanklin “I have just finished “variation under domestication” in 44 M.S. pages & that would do for one evening.” A clear demonstration of Darwin’s dedication to his life’s work, 44 pages in seemingly one evening, and of course this was all before the advent of a
word processor!

Say ‘National Service’ to the younger members of the Shanklin community and they might think you are talking about the National Health Service. However, say the same words to the older members and the response might not be printable!! So, what is or was National Service? It was a period of time during which all young men had to serve in the Armed Forces. Registering at the age of 17, a deferment, or delay, may be granted if serving a recognised Apprenticeship or other training such as University thereby entering at the age of 21.

Why? Well the First World War ‘consumed’, and I make no apology for using that word, a lot of men and as there were not enough volunteers, ‘conscription’ or National Service was invoked to bring the numbers up and thus every able bodied man had to go.

Come 1939 and the Second World War. Men already serving and due for release were kept in. Many volunteered ‘just to win the war’, or as it was put on their Service Documents, “For the duration of the present conflict”, meaning ‘when I have won the war for you, I want to be released.’ However there were still not enough men so the 1939 National Service Act came into force. At first it was men aged 19 – 41. In 1941 the age was raised to under 51 and in December of that year unmarried women of 20 – 30 were called up.

‘But the war finished in 1945. Why did National Service continue until 1960?’

With the end of the war, those who should have been released at the end of their term during the war were released as were those who signed ‘for the duration of the present conflict’, and of course those who were called up for the war effort. This left the services very short of men, so the 1947 National Service Act was brought in. Men over 18 had to register for 12 months service with 5 years on Reserve. In 1948 this was extended to 18 months and with the advent of the Korean War, extended to 2 years in 1950. The final call up was in 1960.

Two facts people are not aware of, between 1945 and 1960, 1.1 Million men served in the Army, 433,000 served in the Royal Air Force and about 140,000 served in the Royal Navy. 395 national Servicemen were killed in action and another 200 lost their lives in accidents

And the second? Bevin Boys. What are, or were Bevin Boys? So many men had been taken from the mines to serve in the Armed Forces, the mines were short of men, so Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service at that time devised a method whereby 48,000 men were drafted into the Coal Mines instead of the Armed Services.

National Service now? Find an ex National Serviceman in Shanklin and ask him. If you did your stint in National Service, how about telling us about it?

Key things happened to me on my holidays to the Island – maybe because there were so many. Holidays that is. I learnt to swim, I discovered my favourite animal, I fell in love with Shanklin and decided what I wanted to do when I grew up.

I started coming to the Island 30 years ago when I was about 3 or 4. We always had 2 weeks except one year when we came back again at the end of the summer holidays for a week. I was thrilled, as my parents never did anything crazy like that – oh, no, hold on a second, except making my sister and I walk from Ventnor to Blackgang Chine up a dodgy cliff face. That was the only time my mum ever bought me chips in the afternoon (overlooking the maze) and only through guilt!

My parents also didn’t have a car so every year we’d get a Rover ticket, which were cardboard in those days and we would spend all day just getting to one place. The buses were great. Let’s face it even now we all really want to sit at the front on the top deck and get the tree branches hitting the window, in the dark, the bus getting faster and faster. I always remember the journey to Blackgang and Alum Bay because you had to change at Ventnor at the terminal, which is no longer there. Shame, I used to enjoy swinging on the bars in the queue. The buses were always packed – the Island was always packed. People had to stand on the bus to get to Alum Bay and all the windows would steam up!

When we first started coming as a family we stayed in the flats, which are now above the craft centre between the Holliers and Village Inn. The lady who owned the flats and the house there, Shirley, had a goat. I think his name was Freddie, she did tell me recently. So of course goats are my favourite animal and Shirley is my next door neighbour!

Once we were too old to be entertained by sending us round to get the paper (I was devastated when the paper shop became a pasty shop, but even that’s gone now) we then stayed at Nodes Point in St Helens. The Priory Bay Hotel (next door) wasn’t a hotel then, but Nodes Point was where I learnt to swim and fell in love with the resident band T-Set.

After many years on the East of the Island for reasons known only known to my parents we came back to Shanklin and stayed at Lower Hyde. Things were different then. People didn’t even think about buying their own chalet!

There are certain things about my trips to the Island that I am sure people must remember, but no one seems to. And I ask enough people. Wally the whale on the green half way up the cliff next to the lift? He was inflatable and you’d go inside and bounce!

There was a lady with a ‘Dulux’ dog on Chine Avenue (before the really fancy new houses went up) collecting money, I think for the blind. The lift operator wore a cap and bell boy suit? Discos on Shanklin Pier. dancing to Brown Girl in the Ring. Ah, they were the good old days.

On the coastal walk to Ventnor there used to be tea rooms, but it’s now a private house. I spent my last ever pound note in Blackgang Chine, on some gems. And I had the worst sun burn of my life here – again bad parents!

Some things are still the same. The lift still smells the same, the Old Village still looks like fairy land, the landlord of the Crab Inn is still the same (OK so that was when I was 18) and the beach is still beautiful. St Saviour’s Church is still scary has hell when you walk past it at night and ……..

I have memories upon memories of my time here as a kid. Oh, and what I wanted to do when I grew up? Move to Shanklin of course.