I hesitated to write about this because I do not think that the School was directly involved in it, except for attending the events as spectators, but Roger Pott certainly was. He was, in fact, the brains behind it all, without him there would have been no holiday week.
I am going to stick my neck out here at the risk of being flatly contradicted but I do not think that any other village in the Country has ever staged anything quite like it either before or since. Even some much bigger places can not do as well, it is something they go for on the Continent, but there, it is mainly confined to jollifications rather than serious events.
On looking at my diary I gather that there were two holiday weeks, one in 1993 followed by another in 1964, so that the 40th anniversary of both will soon be passed. It appears that the first one was a financial success otherwise it is doubtful if another would have been held. I do not know if this second one made a profit or not, nor do I know why this was the last year the event was held, I guess it must have been a very great deal of work to organise and I assume many people involved in it had had enough. I doubt thought that Roger Pott was one of these. Another thing I do not know is how much money was raised or which Charities benefited, it was all so long ago!
The weather was not very kind on either occasion although the rain kept off for some of the time. There was a traction engine rally (more of this later), wrestling in a large marquee and I think that there was boating but I am not sure. There was a football match on Heacham recreation ground, Norwich City played King’s Lynn and beat them but by what margin I cannot remember.
There was a cricket match and a horticultural show and a fishing match was staged in which about 60 people, me included sat on a freezing cold Heacham beach with rod and line. About 6 fish were caught but that did mean that there was a winner!!
There was a carnival on the Saturday, dances whist drives and a gymkhana, also an event which had to be cancelled because of the illness of the organiser who I Think was Susan Torrey. I cannot remember what the event was only that a poster saying it was cancelled was posted in the village.
To come back to the traction engine rally, it rained all day. (I knew the driver of one of the engines, Jack Spinks from Ringstead. I used to call on his wife with ‘Betterwear Household Goods’. In those days there were still engine drivers around who had driven them as real working engines and not as a hobby, I doubt that there are many left today. The St. Michael’s AEC double-decker bus (this would be a veteran now) became stuck in the mud and one of the traction engines successfully
pulled it out but in the meantime they had to get the ‘CHIEFTAIN’ bus out to ferry passengers to their various destinations. The Chieftain was a Scottish bus from the highlands hence the name. Inside there was a notice saying ‘no spitting’ the Scots are a rather unsophisticated lot. (The editor disassociates himself entirely from this sentiment which is a slur on our cousins up north who have produced poets such as William McGonagall and variety acts like ‘The Krankies’!!!!)
Roger Pott himself mostly drove the bus but it was occasionally driven by Percy Auker who was an ex-PSV driver. My ‘Betterwear’ delivery driver, he drove me all over the country, once saw the Chieftain and remarked that it was a Scottish bus and I had difficulty in explaining the circumstances of how it got to Norfolk.
It was always St Michael’s School, Ingoldisthorpe (or Pott’s circus to the locals), it might just as easily have been St. Michael’s, Heacham or Hunstanton latterly because they bought an old nursing home there and turned it into classrooms. I used to supply them with Betterwear brushes.
Does anyone remember HMS Rampart coming to Hunstanton? The public were invited aboard and I took the opportunity.
In 1963 there were icebergs on the pier (which is no more) and I still have one of the prints that Swains produced.
Robin Adams
