Category Personal Accounts

The Radford Story – My Childhood Days at Radford by Colin Stephenson

These are the memoirs of Colin Stephenson and his sister Sheila Coaker who were brought up living in Radford Castle. Colin was seventy seven when he wrote these words, he has now sadly passed on.

My earliest memories of Radford Castle are taken from the time when my parents moved in as Tenants and Gatekeeper in 1931 when I was about eighteen months ' old, along with my ten year old half- sister Edna and half-brother Roy aged twelve. Their mother had died at the age of thirty two and my father was a widower when he married my mother.

Hooelake hulks & wrecks inspire art and memories!

Hooe Lake Wrecks & Hulks
Whilst perusing the pictures at the Plymouth Society of Artists art exhibition in Plymouth Museum Art galleries recently, I came across a pleasing painting of one of the old rotting hulks lying in Hooe Lake. The painting brought back childhood memories of the 50’s when around the age of 14yrs ( I’m now 66) the most rebellious thing I ever did was to steal two cigarettes from my mother’s pack, and with a friend, paddled out to the rotting barges towards the middle...