Roberta Donnan continues.....

"I was always wary of the mud at the Lobster Smack end of the island, as legend had it that a horse and cart had been swallowed up in the mud there. The legend of the horse and cart was told to me verbally, and I recall that two men allegedly had drowned too. There was some sort of story, but I can't remember it all now. Just they were crossing the mud and got stuck in and sunk and the waters came in."

Roberta's dad Robert Plaster at Leigh Beck in 1938

"Of course, in those days few of the roads were made up, they were just grassy lanes sometimes with the odd goat tied up in it or even geese on the loose . Most of the bungalows we stayed in were pretty awful by todays standards, and most didn't have flushing toilets. A wooden, spider infested privy would be at the back of the garden, and my father buried the contents in a "sump" nearby every morning."

Geese in the bungalow garden

"When we were in funds we stayed at the Traveller's Rest. I remember the proprietor bringing cups of tea in to the bedrooms in the morning, and sipping from each cup as he wasn't sure which one he had sugared !

After the flood, the bungalows smelt terribly of damp and furniture and other belongings were piled up by the roadsides where the water had thrown them. One of the deacons at the Baptist Church told my father they had found fish in the baptistry!"

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