Bohemia Village Voice

Bill and Ellen Hunt outside Freeman the fishmonger.

This wonderful photograph was brought to us by St Leonards resident Janet Jones. The picture was taken ‘some time before the War’, according to Janet, meaning pre-1939, though she concedes that it could date from as early as the First World War, if the couple’s sombre work clothes are anything to go by. The photo shows her grandparents, Bill and Ellen Hunt, who ran Freeman’s the fishmongers at 120 Bohemia Road. It was given this name because when Bill had first arrived in Hastings he’d lived in the Old Town and there got to know the Freeman family. They became friends, and he adopted their name for his shop.
When Bill died suddenly at around the age of 60, his son Fred took over the shop. Fred brought his wife Ivy and three sons Lawrence, John and Bob to live at the premises. This was some time in the 1930s, though Janet is not able to be more specific than that. ‘I was born at the shop in 1940, so we were obviously living there by then, but my next-older brother, Bob, was six years older than me. My younger sister Carol was also born there, on Christmas Day 1942. All the children were evacuated during the war, and then afterwards I lived there until I was 22, when I got married.’
Freeman’s was the only fishmonger in Bohemia Road, which in the same period was home to at least five butchers. As Janet remembers, ‘The shop was always very busy, with queues on a Friday morning waiting for it to open. My dad got up at 4am and went every day to the Old Town fishmarket to buy stock. Then he’d bring it back and start filleting the fish. ‘There were all sorts of fish – crabs and shellfish, skate, turbot, sea bass and even the occasional salmon. We also sold kippers and bloaters. And then there was coley, or coalfish, for the cats to eat. The shop used lots of ice and had a big fridge, one of the wonders of the world to some eyes. People came just to look at it, as no one had fridges in those days.’
The shop also did deliveries – some on a delivery bike with a huge basket and others by delivery van. ‘Sometimes I delivered orders myself, on my own bike,’ says Janet. ‘One of the bigger customers was Summerfields School. The boys were always very polite, and greeted my dad with “Good morning, fishmonger”. They used to get pheasants from home, and they’d ask Dad to prepare them for cooking. He’d always oblige.’
Janet remembers her mother cooking the whelks and shrimps in a large boiler. ‘It was also used to boil up cod roes. They’d be wrapped in greaseproof paper, tied up with string and then boiled, cooled, unwrapped and sliced before we put them in the shop window. We’d also display scallops in the window, always open. Customers were asked if they wanted the scallop shells included.’ Janet re-members her older brothers John and Bob working in the fish shop, and as girls both she and her sister used to sweep up for a bit of pocket money. ‘It was always very busy and the family was prosperous. In fact the business thrived right up until Fred closed it in about 1969. Fred was 65 by then, but having worked hard all his life he didn’t know how to retire. So he got a job at French’s in Robertson Street, while Ivy found work at the Buchanan Hospital.’
Fred’s parents, Bill and Ellen, appear in rude health in this photo. Bill played football until late in life. But he died in a highly unusual way. He’d bought a new pair of boots and as he was wearing them in they rubbed along the back of his foot, causing a blister. As a result, dye from the boots entered his bloodstream, and poor Bill died of blood poisoning.