Recollections
This part of the story starts about 1800 when a few houses started to be built close to the only building that existed along the causeway, the old Oilmill. By 1835 the village had grown to some 80 dwellings nearly all occupied by Farm workers and Farmers. These times were extremely hard, with the 
workers living in bad conditions, sometimes as many as 10 or 12 in a family living in a two bedroom cottage, with scarcely enough to eat especially in winder. Some of these recollections portray the way in which they survived, making their won amusement, the stories they tell are sometimes handed down and sometimes their own, told through personal experience.
By the turn of the 19th century the village had grown to include four public houses. " The Wheatsheaf", which stood where the Marex Inn now stands. " The Plough", which stood where Dr Rennies house now stands. " The Salutation Inn", which stood at the Pondersbridge end of the village on the left hand side where a bungalow now bears its name the " Red Cow" which stood in no-mans land down Marriotts Drove. There was also a Chapel, a Mission Church, two shops, a butchers, two carpenters shops, an undertakers, a cycle shop, a fish shop and a Reading Room. There were also traders who came to the village as well and also carriers, a term used to describe people who would fetch products from the bitter towns for a fee. At this time many of the people because of the damp and bad conditions suffered from " the shakes and the ague" and a popular cure for this was Laudanam *, It was also said that they dipped their 
babies dummies in it to keep them quiet in the fields whilst their parents worked. A relative of Mr Frank Short who owned Mereside Stores at that time says he remembered it being sold under the counter". It seems to have been consumed in lots of families for various illnesses at this time, and seems to have worked quite well. We must bear in mind that a lot of families could not afford the Doctor or to lose time from work as no work mean no pay, and that meant no food for the family.
These were the days when the men took cold tea and a thumb bit to work for their docky (lunch break), a thumb bit consisted of about a third of a loaf of unsliced bread, with a lump of lard and a piece of fat bacon, or cheese on top. You then put your thumb on top and cut a lump off with your shut-knife. If they ran out of drink they would fill their bottles in the nearest dyke, and sometimes had tadpoles swimming in it.
The Farmers usually walk down to the fields and take their men's cooked tea. It was not uncommon for the man of the family to have the meat as he was the breadwinner and the women and children
often had plain or onion roll. The children sometime had to walk more than two miles up the muddy droves to get to school and very often arrived wet through. Most classrooms only had one coke combustion stove in the centre of the classroom and the children had to stand round this until they dried out.
* Laudanam. A mixture of Opium and Alcohol
There was no water in the village and the only supply came from the rainwater tanks that caught the supply off the houses and the two village pumps. One stood opposite where the Post Office is, at the top of the roadway which is still there, and one stood outside the school. These drew water from the leading dykes for all the cattle and horses. Every smallholder had a horse and many families had a cow as well, and these were moved frequently along the roads, in fact some of the cows were allowed to graze along the road side. It requires very little imagination therefore to visualize the state of the roads as these were mostly only granites at this time. A man was kept employed cleaning up the droppings and piling them in heaps at the side of the road in a vain effort to make the roads passable. Everyday a postman called Mr Lack walked his round from Ramsey Post Office to East view at the 
Pondersbridge end of the village and back. It was said that at Christmas they employed a boy to help him carry the mail because of the extra parcels.
A man called Joe Fisher had a blacksmiths shop opposite the Post Office and he also walked every day from Ramsey, by way of Stocking Fen Road, down brick Kilns Lane and across the footbridge down Sraggs Bank and up the public footpath which ends at the side of 219 Oilmills Road.
These were a breed of people who really ventured to far outside their area, in fact even today there are fen people who have never been to London or many of the other big cities.
These were the people whose ancestors fought the Romans, whose leaders sent a message to Rome to say that they feared these people were ungovernable, who fought for their lands with Canute, who fought with Cromwell against parliament, and then fought Vermuydens men when they tried to drain the Fens and earned themselves the proud name that has been handed down through history they were the "Fen Tibers".