Start of second homes
Yvonne Cleave: Well, Castles was one of the first to have a second home down here, then Shrimptons, who my mother used to work for.
Interviewer: When would this be, fifties, forties…
Yvonne Cleave: Before that, in the thirties I would say.
Yvonne Cleave: Middle Street was left to run down because the landowners, which was old Captain May, Alby May, wouldn’t pay to do up the cottages, and the council took over and said they were going to bulldoze Middle Street. Joe Saundry told me that he could have bought Middle Street for £800.
Joan Murray: The whole of the street.
Yvonne Cleave: Yes. He said I was just out of the army, so it must have been just after the war. He said I could have bought it because of what I had, my gratuity, from the army, but you needed hundreds more to do them up to the specification of the council. So nothing was done with it, and then, one by one, the visitors started buying these cottages and everyone started doing them up until you have got Middle Street like it is today. And the rest of Port. Now where Apple Tree Cottage is, that was run down terrible, but tis all now done up and thousands of pounds they are making. Well, half a million some of them.