Skegness Magazine

Source: Skegness Standard 1963

BELIEVED to be the oldest native of Skegness living in the town, Mrs. Elizabeth Crouch, formerly of Firbeck Avenue and now staying with friends in Muirfield Drive following a serious illness, celebrated her 95th birthday on Wednesday.

Mrs. Crouch was Elizabeth Green before her marriage — one of the family that along with the Grunnills and the Moodys, can claim to be the longest established in the Skegness district.
In fact, like any loyal Green, Mrs. Crouch points out that her family even has the edge on the Grunnills and the Moodys. “They came from Winthorpe,” she says when discussing the town’s three original families!

One of eight children, Mrs. Crouch is the only survivor of her branch of the family. She was born in 1868 in one of the two adjoining cottages her parents owned on Roman Bank, near where the traffic lights now are. In her childhood, Skegness was a village where everyone knew everyone else — “There weren’t so many to know! ” — and nearly everyone worked for Squire Everington.

But the Greens, like the Grunnills were seafarers. Mrs. Crouch’s s grandfather had been skipper of the lifeboat, and there was always a Green and a Grunnill in the crew. ” Grandfather often used to tell us of all the wrecks there were along our coast,” says Mrs. Crouch. ” This part was treacherous for the little wooden ships, and as a child I was always seeing wreckage on the beach.”
Her father was skipper and part-owner of a small coaster trading between the east coast and the Continent.

Her father died young, at the age of 44, leaving her mother with a big young family to bring up.

Mrs. Crouch remembers the building of the railway line and the erection of Skegness Pier, and the difference these made to Skegness. “When the excursion trains started coming the town soon began to expand. Everywhere you looked there was a building going up or another road being added. The seafront began to change, too.”
The trains were a double blessing, recalls Mrs. Crouch. Not only did they bring the visitors in: they enabled residents to go out of town easily for the first time. From the days of having to walk to Wainfleet or Burgh to see a doctor and to get medicine, Skegnessians found themselves able to go up to London on a day excursion for 3s. return.

LONDON WORK
The new vista opened by excursions to London encouraged the then-young Elizabeth Green to spread her wings, and she eventually went to work in London.
Although she visited Skegness regularly, she lived in and around London for 40-odd years until, after the death of her husband, she came back to Skegness some 30 years ago to join one of her sisters in retirement. (The sister had been a teacher at the old school on Roman Bank that is now the Mart Salesroom).

When the sister died, and later Mrs Crouch had a long illness that kept her in serious illness hospital 12 months, their home was sold, so now she lives with her friends Mr. and Mrs. Barry, in Muirfield Drive.

In spite of the illness and her age, Mrs. Crouch is still tall, erect, active of mind and body and interested in all around. She talks fluently of the events of 90 years ago — or about the Twist ! She is a keen reader, likes to knit and sew, listens to the radio (when she is alone or with “the family ” she condescends to wear a hearing aid, and occasionally watches television. In good weather, she likes to walk about the town.

” She is a marvel,” say the Barry family, who, although not relatives, look upon Mrs. Crouch as “Grandma.” And anyone meeting this oldest living native Skegnessian would be bound to agree.

(The Twist was a popular dance in the 1960s)