‘Church bells are sort of a thing of the past these days, mostly I think they have recordings and nobody left to ring the bells. But you’d hear the bells on Sunday, and you’d hear the bells on days there was a funeral.’
— Helen
‘When the limestone bins were working and they were loading… I suppose the boat, or the train, the noise they made was terrible. The squeaky, groany noise as the limestone was being loaded. We could hear it from our place, and we lived in Upper Fenton, which is now called Hiller Street, and that would’ve been one, two, three blocks away.’
— Judy
‘The fire brigade consisted of two men, Fire Chief and his Assistant. If you rang the fire brigade it rang at his home… then he would set off a siren, which went over the whole of Devonport. Had to be heard everywhere, because the rest of the fire brigade were all volunteers… Everybody who had a car had to leave their cars parked with the keys in… They’d go down and hop in the nearest car and drive it away, to get to the fire.’
— Janice
‘Oh Haines, yes well every business in Devonport used to operate off that. Eight o’clock old Bruce Orme used to blow the whistle. Then there’s twelve o’clock, one o’clock, see always used to be an hour for dinner in those days, then at five o’clock. All the workshops used to work by that.’
— Arden
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