Part 13 Bob Carden's Memoir

 Part 13

Bob Carden’s Memoirs

16/10/2026

What keeps me going at 88 and a half.

This year I have only left home perhaps four or five times, other than the periods that I have spent mainly in Worthing Hospital and, previous to that, the Royal Sussex County. I did spend a short while in a rehabilitation centre called Klienworth at Haywards Heath. My last spell was back to Worthing after suffering a suspected heart attack. I hadn't spent long out of Klienwort when my early morning carer couldn't wake me, and so he pressed my alarm bell and off I went again, this time blues and twos going. Still didn't know what the problem was. I was in there for a few weeks, but there was a COVID epidemic on that kept me there longer than I should have. Still not knowing what my problem was, earlier this year I was home again. My problem now is learning to walk again, which is causing the most problems. What I do now most of the time is play about in the shed or on my PC.

I have a light set up on a rickety shed that I switch on and off from indoors, and a small cine camera set up by my armchair, waiting for whoever comes down for supper put out by my Neighbours.

So to the lady who keeps telling me that nobody likes me and no one wants to see my videos: it represents the last fifty years of my life.

17/10/2026

Just finding something to do was hard

We never went far from home during the war period, and when we did, we had a little brown box with its little Mickey Mouse gas mask in it, even to school. I went to St. Peter's from 1943, and they had their air raid shelter at the eastern end of the playground. I wonder what happened to that magnificent wooden rocking horse that was there; I never saw it when I went back as Mayor in 2005.

We used to play a lot in the street, such things as hopscotch and skipping; I even got around to cricket on one occasion until the ball got put through Mrs Herring's window and was game over after that. We were quite lucky my father had got the lower part of our house wired up, but upstairs was still gas mantles. Do you remember them? We were lucky we had a mains radio, and I can remember two-way family favourites with Cliff Michelmore . Workers' playtime coming from a factory near you. It was found out afterwards that it was CVA in Portland Road and served my Apprenticeship. We did, in later days, get good old Radio Luxembourg.

A pig in the back garden.

I hope that no one minds if I go a bit outside of Portslade for this tale; it started off in Portslade when I was asked by my mother to go to my Uncle Bill Wridleys's butcher's shop to fetch the meat ration. Bearing in mind my age, certainly I was no more than six or seven and a bus ride to take off, I went. I had been with Mum before. The bus ride was from Station Road over the Railway crossing up Carlton Terrace, turning right along Old Shoreham Road to the cemetery bus stop. Alight the bus here and walk through the cemetery to the Elm Drive and Rowan Avenue junctions. There, in the back garden of the house on the left of the footpath, was always a live pig, I suppose being fattened for Christmas. I wonder if you could do that in peacetime.

19/10/2026

I felt for my late brother James last night

Brighton 4 Crystal Palace 0

James was a few years older than me, and he loved his football and as well as being a few years older, he was a dam site bigger. He served his Apprenticeship at the Lancing Carriage Works as a centre lathe turner. If there was something big to be moved, Jim was your boy. He was very canny as well; during August there he was up on the downs blackberrying and off to Caplins green grocers in Boundary Road to earn himself a few bob. He knew where the biggest crop grew as well. On a Saturday during the football season he had another job at the Goldstone Ground. Because of his size and strength, he carried a poster around the ground with the winning number of the Penny on the ball competition.

Like all lads of his age, he got called up for National Service. Like myself, we both attended the Salvation Army for Sunday School, and Jim became an accomplished cornet player, and when his time came, he went into the RAF, and he was put straight into the Station Band.

Before James went into the RAF, he married his sweetheart, and her parents were both blind and, for some reason, moved to Croydon, and his wife moved to Croydon with them. Hence, after he had finished his time in the RAF, Jim also moved to Croydon, where he had more chance of an engineering career.

That's how ardent Brighton supporter James became a PALACE supporter. So I guess he would have been split but not disappointed over yesterday's result.

Rest in Peace, James, Hill’s post office doesn't sell your beloved dinky toys any more.

20/10/2026

Passenger in an International Six Days Chair

One thing about working in a place like CVA you met a large number of people with a variety of interests.

When I was about eighteen, I met a chap named Bob Badman who was nothing like his name implied. I met him through another employee, Frank Cant, who was another regular geezer.

They were both motorcyclists. They were both a bit older than me and chaps who worked on the heavy machine shop that was later to move to Lineside at Littlehampton.

Well, I got to know Bob through Frank, as he wanted a passenger for his six-day outfit in the Exeter Trial. Before the trial, I got out a lot with Bob and became his regular Passenger. During my Period of riding with Bob, we did a number of these all-night events, the coldest being the Lands End, which was in January and really was the coldest of them all. These trials started in London and went through the night, finishing somewhere in Lands End or, in the case of the Exeter, somewhere in Devon. The Exeter finished up somewhere on the Somerset Coast; I believe Weymouth. If you think you have ever been cold, just try riding across Dartmoor at seventy miles an Hour in an open sidecar on a January Night.

04/11/2026

Bonfire night in Lewes.

I had never been to a bonfire night celebration in Lewes until the year that I became the Mayor of Brighton and Hove, and Portslade. It is the custom of each town with a Mayor to invite fellow mayors from the Sussex county to its main event. In the case of Lewes, what else could it be but the Bonfire Night celebrations?

This was something that families were invited to, so we were picked up by Robert, our Guardian angel and off we went. Well, we didn't get to see the bonfire itself, but we had a super meal in what I believe was the Mayor's Parlour. After our meal, the procession went past where we were dining not once but several times throughout the evening. We could have gone on for the bonfire, but we were all a bit tired, so it was home to bed. I really enjoyed it, but I had no wish to go back again.

Part 12

Part 12

 30/09/2026

Becoming the Mayor.

I first became a councillor in 1991. I suppose I got the taste of political activity when I considered that my solicitor had somewhat let me down when we made the first move to our first home. It was just after we moved home to our present abode that I felt that we had been let down by the legal team.

I suppose I came a little bit bullish when I found out that the new road wasn't too far from my back door; I had always had some element of political activity in my household, my father having been a Labour councillor on Portslade UDC. I had seen the way my good friend Leslie Hamilton and his father operated, and I thought I would give it a go.

By this time, Portslade had joined with Hove, and it was a different ball game to when my dad was on Portslade UDC. At my first attempt, it was for Portslade South, and I got the best Labour vote but failed to get elected. Having failed at the first attempt, I got the chance to go for my own ward, Portslade North, which was in 1991. With success, I got elected thanks to my excellent canvassing team.

It was a bit hard going at first, doing a full-time job as a shift Inspector at Le Carbone; however, it worked out pretty well. I had told my Managing Director, Mr Pound, and I was told not to expect any help from them. It worked out fine, as my immediate superior to me liked a bit of overtime, and I did my overtime when I was required for free in order to attend Council meetings. So 1991 was when my political career took off.

It wasn't too hard, as I was a bit of a new boy at first and the Conservatives had the top positions. Until Tony Blair came on the scene and it changed from Blue to Red overnight. It was only a short time before another change came about, and we became a unitary authority of Brighton, Hove and Portslade. Ivor Caplin, the then leader of Hove, suggested to me that I might like to be Hove’s last Mayor. Again, I was still employed at Le Carbone, so I went cap in hand to Maurice Pound, knowing full well what the answer would be. Yes, I was right. Sorry Bob. No.

7/10/2026

Seeing what's happening to the Post Office takes me back to my childhood. Going back to around 1943, in that week before Christmas, there was a family in North Street, Portslade; I think they were a furniture removal company named Bohanon. At Christmastime, a removal van was hired out to the GPO to deliver the extra Christmas mail.

I remember like it was yesterday, this van with its big, wide brown door at the back, used as a ramp for the students who had been taken on for the seasonal boost in delivery. I see the Post Office are making their own changes, but that's got to be seen to see what that brings; Amazon has seemed to have cornered the market on that one.

The name of Bohanon seems to have been a little bit too prominent to the point. There was an elderly lady opposite who had a second-hand shop, and why does she come into my story? Well, did Mum get our Christmas presents from there, as there was no new stuff available?

I remember one year during the war, just before Christmas, when Mum was out and I was home alone, I was having my usual mooch around the house. I saw a nice box of Windsor and Newton paints, which is what I had from Santa that year, keeping with the Bohanon family.

Moving on a bit to one date I can't forget: the twenty-first day of April, my twenty-first birthday—one day that I will never forget. Along with my mates, so-called, I went into the Windmill Public House for a small one, which was owned by the Bohanon family and their parrot, with their son playing the organ. One of my mates went to the organist and, with the rest of my friends, walked out; whilst on my own, I got " Happy Birthday to you being played to an empty bar, excluding me.

10/10/2026

Second-hand boots.

I was in Nobby Evans's class the year we moved to Benfield School. Some other person of that vintage must still be around. I am sure that it must have been Easter 1949. I am pretty sure that I had never seen or played with a football at that stage in my life.

Three hearty cheers: the Labour Government had built Portslade its first new school since the war and named it Benfield. I was not too pleased about this; I had just had to go a short distance to the High Street every day.

Anyway, it's football in the story today: my first time in the park with a real football and yes, a pair of boots that had never been on my feet before. Second-hand, of course. Nobby was the organiser, and I was the left wing and was told where to go and to stay there. You have guessed it: nails from the studs were protruding through the sole into my feet.

Well, I didn't get in the school team, that's for sure. Just imagine your son getting his first pair of boots at age 11. No, don't want no more war; I never could play football, that's why I became a referee.

Hon Alderman Bob Carden

08-09-26

I dedicate this to my carer, Sharon, who has looked after me for the last 12 years

12/10/2026

Always a LOO handy.

I was still living in George Street when I left infants' school in 1945 at the age of seven. My next school was St Andrew's at Southern Cross. It was a fair walk for a little lad of that age, always on his own. However, there was always an added advantage: there was no shortage of toilets.

The first one was just before the railway bridge by the council yard at the end of Vale Road. The next one, if it was needed, was in Victoria Road and was part of the Battle of Trafalgar public house; I wonder if that convenience is open to the public today.

It was coincidental that after about two years we moved north to Drove Gardens, almost the same time my next school move was to the senior boys' school at the top of the High Street. I suppose you might call me lucky, Bob, as each move went in my favour.

Football came my way again when I met up with some of the locals, and we were always on the village green. That is when it wasn't raining, as a "no play today" sign would appear and the toilets would be locked. The sign would go over the locked toilet door, and football would commence.

Street shelters.

I believe that it was the intention to put reinforced brick-built shelters in every cul-de-sac. They were long brick buildings taking up large portions of the road. I know that there was one such building in George Street and another in East Street. They were furnished with long wooden benches on either side.

Well, one day I think that we were being given a demonstration when a very old lady was taken ill with some kind of turn. My mother sent someone to our house to pick up the emergency bottle of brandy. When the person came back with the brandy, my mother alleges that the old woman put a curse on her. My mother suffered a severe stroke about the time we moved up to the old village in Drove Gardens. She spent the rest of her life having had a severe stroke. She had home help, but my poor sister spent a good deal of her life looking after our mother.

13/10/2026

Air raid shelters.

I remember George Street and Ellen Street both with two different identities. They were both cul-de-sacs, and I remember them as different places. From my earliest memories, without shelters and because of my very young age, they seem to merge. There were victory parties with the air raid shelters in them.

The house in which we lived throughout the war had a very sturdy prefabricated iron shelter in the dining room, which also served as a dining table. When there was a raid on we would, as a family of five, sleep in this shelter all night if there was a raid on, but we never ever had them join us.

The lady that I was in conversation with lived in a posher area than myself and had an Anderson shelter that was constructed in the back garden of a house with a large garden in Foredown Drive. The shelters that came along towards the end of the war ran down the middle of cul-de-sacs, as to put them elsewhere would block off through traffic.

I only wish I could remember the name of the shelter in our dining room.

Patricia Rattue: They were Morrison shelters. We had one on St Aubyn's Road.

14/10/2026

The end of food rationing.

I came upon a small canvas envelope whilst having a rummage just recently. So, out of curiosity, I took out the contents, which were three ration books dated 1953 to 1954. They had been the property of my late wife's mother. I knew that they were no longer any use, but out of interest, I had a bit of a nose through them. So food rationing ended in 1953, about Easter time. I had gathered from the heavy blue or black marks indicating that the product had been purchased.

Before I stopped writing my Cyclops bit in the North Portslade News a couple of years back, my late friend Betty Figg and I had discussed the black market in the old village. However, it never did get written; I think that it was a relation, maybe an aunt, who had the cafe in the old village. Anyway, the article never did get written, but in my enquiring mind, I had wondered if food was rationed, and how the British restaurants got their supplies. Anyway, from the point of interest, food rationing finished about Easter 1953.