---
title: "Yarmouth and Thorley Voices: earlier work by our team | Discover More"
description: "A small volunteer team gathered residents’ memories of Yarmouth and Thorley, from the 1920s onwards, into a book and a website."
url: https://discover-more.co.uk/projects/yarmouth-and-thorley-voices/
---

Before Discover More · 2013

# Yarmouth and Thorley Voices

A small volunteer team gathered residents’ memories of Yarmouth and Thorley, from the 1920s onwards, into a book and a website.

Before Discover More was formed, Simon Perry was brought in to oversee the project, with Sally Perry as producer. He trained the volunteers to record the interviews and others to transcribe them, specified the equipment and built the website.

![Black-and-white photograph of Yarmouth harbour at low tide, with yachts at their moorings, the old bridge on the left and wooded hills behind.](https://discover-more.co.uk/_astro/yt-harbour.C37LNvTR_1lRfot.webp)

Yarmouth harbour, with the old bridge and the Sandhouse, seen from the castle in the 1940s or 1950s. From the Yarmouth and Thorley Voices archive

## At a glance

Where

Yarmouth and Thorley, West Wight

When

Book and website launched July 2013

Covers

The 1920s to the 2000s

Outputs

A ten-chapter book and a website of memories and photographs

Project site

[voices.onthewight.com ↗](https://voices.onthewight.com/)

## The story

Yarmouth and Thorley Voices set out to capture residents’ reminiscences in print, photographs, video and sound, so the actual voices of local people could be heard by current and future generations.

Simon Perry was brought in to oversee the project. He trained a small team of volunteers to record the interviews and others to transcribe them, and specified the recording equipment. Over several months they gathered memories of school, swimming, carnivals, the harbour, the shops and the Second World War. Peter Scott wrote up the stories, and the book came out in July 2013 in ten chapters, from “Early Days” to “I’m Jolly glad I came to Yarmouth”.

The website was built as a living document. Visitors can explore memories by person, place or decade, hear how people said the words reproduced in the book, and add their own memories and photographs.

> “I remember Billy Doe used to walk by our house at 5.30 every night with a gun under his arm to shoot pigeons to eat.”

Brian Pomroy, born 1937, from the chapter “Early Days”

## From the archive

![Colour photograph of two joined stone cottages with red-brick window surrounds and a yellow porch door, in spring sunshine.](https://discover-more.co.uk/_astro/yt-whitewalls.Dt9Fhlkv_2t4vju.webp)

Whitewalls and Woodmans, Thorley, remembered by Pam Bone in “Thorley 1950s”. Yarmouth and Thorley Voices archive

![Old comic seaside postcard of holidaymakers seen from behind, sitting on a bank looking out to sea under a full moon, captioned “I’m jolly glad I came to Yarmouth”.](https://discover-more.co.uk/_astro/yt-postcard.BbKqN8WC_1dGPbP.webp)

The postcard that gave the book its last chapter title. Yarmouth and Thorley Voices archive

![A hand holding a paperback copy of the Yarmouth and Thorley Voices book, with an aerial photograph of Yarmouth on the cover.](https://discover-more.co.uk/_astro/yt-book.Hfz4h39Z_7uqV2.webp)

The Yarmouth and Thorley Voices book, 2013. Photo by Simon Perry

## What the project made

-   A ten-chapter book, published in July 2013
-   A website of memories, photographs and recordings, open to new contributions
-   Volunteers trained to record oral history interviews and to transcribe them

[Visit voices.onthewight.com ↗](https://voices.onthewight.com/)

### Made for

Yarmouth and Thorley Voices project group, supported by Yarmouth Town Council

### Funded by

A grant from the West Wight Landscape Partnership, topped up by the Delphi Lakeman Memorial Trust.

### Partners

-   Yarmouth Town Council
-   The Yarmouth Trust
-   West Wight Landscape Partnership

## Credits

Simon Perry

Project oversight, interview and transcription training, equipment and website

Sally Perry

Project Producer, handling and preparing assets for the website

Jill Cowley, Margaret Scott, Peter Scott, Diana Cokes and Terry Kelsey

Project core team

Peter Scott

Wrote up the stories for the book

Steve Cowley

Introduction, as Mayor of Yarmouth and Thorley

This project was made before Discover More CIC was formed. Recordings and photographs belong to the project and the people who lent them, and are shown here with credit.

## Have a story like this?

We’d like to hear about the places, jobs and communities the Island and the Solent shouldn’t forget.

[Get in touch](https://discover-more.co.uk/contact/)

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