Part 9

Our daughter was three, and we had managed, with the help of Merle working at home, to squirrel away enough money for a week away at Pontin’s Holiday Camp on the Isle of Wight.

Well, what I think of that particular holiday was brought back when my carer of 12 years, Sharon, came this morning, and I started singing the anthem we always sang at mealtimes:

“Always eat when you are hungry,
always drink when you are dry,
always wash when you are dirty,
don’t stop breathing unless you’ll die.”

Goodness knows what brought that back. It was the year of the first Isle of Wight pop festival, I believe. Anyway, we met a couple from London who helped us out with some photographs of our holiday.

As we left the train at Portsmouth, I helped an elderly couple off the train and, in doing so, left my 35mm camera on the rack with everything — spare film, the lot. It was a pretty good outfit that I had put together, never to be seen again by me. I guess the train was going on to London, and my precious outfit had gone with it. Of course, it wasn’t insured; that was my hobby down the tubes.

When I returned to work at Coombe Road CVA, a chap I had befriended — I’m not too sure of his name now; it was Langridge or Langrish, and he may have been a relation of Ray Hamblett’s — gave me a camera he no longer used, and I still have it in my attic today.

[He was Bernard Langrish, my late father-in-law – Ray]

10/09/2026

Dad's Return from the Army (1945)

When the war was over in 1945, my father, like many other dads, was coming back from the Army, and their first requirement was a job. My Dad before the war was a fitter's mate at the Power Station.

Well, his job had gone to someone who was excused from military service. At that time, there were a number of Rehabilitation Centres set up for guys like himself, so Dad was sent to Isleworth, I think, to a centre to train men as welders.

In those days, the Brighton Corporation controlled a number of bodies such as the Electricity Company, Water Works, and a few others such as the Brighton Corporation Transport Company based at the Lewes Road Depot. One of his first jobs was preparing the Volk's Electric Railway on the Brighton Seafront. His base was at Lewes Road.

He belonged to the social club there, and every year my sister and I were doffed in our glad rags for a bus ride out to get the coach to Chessington Zoo. We got a lot of refreshments on the way up, a trip to the Circus, and, from what I can remember, a bit of a tea party as well. Unfortunately, my father lost that job following an industrial accident. I wonder if that little ritual still happens today. It was a simply fantastic day out full of fun and enjoyment.

11/09/2026

Something Gone and Forgotten

One of the things that I would do either alone or with my friends whilst on school holidays was to cycle out to Newtimber Woods. Most of my friends and myself had pretty cranky old bikes that today would have long since found their way to the scrap yard.

Depending on the season, we would come back with bunches of the flowers that were in season. My usual ones were primroses neatly tied in small bunches swinging from the handlebars of our battered machines. I never managed to find bluebells, though I was told by friends that they were about, but I never seemed to find them. More to the point, the reason that youngsters don't do it is that it's probably not allowed these days, for conservation reasons.

12/09/2026

How We Got Our Milk

When we moved north in about 1947 to Drove Gardens, we had previously had our milk delivered by two different dairies. Our milk for the family came from Hole's & Davigdor with a dairy in North Street, and one solitary half pint from an independent, Mr Harris from Gordon Road, a small shop which was run by his wife.

What a character he was! A rather elderly gentleman who looked as if he should have been well retired. He wore a battered homburg hat and black leather gaiters from his ankles. His bicycle looked as if it was something that had been brought over by the Romans, which had a milk crate tied to the handlebars by string and wire. I asked my mother once why this elderly gentleman called, and she said it was a legacy from rationing when her mother was alive during the war.

Well, it was all changed when we moved north to Drove Gardens, now Valley Road. My parents, for whatever reason, chose a different milk roundsman: that of Hangleton Farm Dairy. A couple operated this van on behalf of the dairy. They were Syd, the driver, and his assistant, Mrs Hayler, who appeared on the face of it to be the cashier. This operation lasted for a year or two until, for some reason, they stopped their deliveries. There were still several milk rounds operating for a year or two, but they have now sadly gone out of business. I last saw Syd, our driver, working in a bike shop at the bottom of Boundary Road, and milk delivery rounds have now gone out of business.

13/09/2026

My Only International Football Match

One of my major interests over the years was in helping to run Mile Oak Football Club. As far as I can remember, I am the last committee man standing of the original committee formed in Bob Howett's house in Sefton Road, back in the fifties, I think. When you get involved in that situation, it usually means you get involved in other aspects of administration of local football.

In my case it was several: I became a referee and also a vice-chair of The Brighton, Hove and Worthing FA. This left me open to go in the hat for tickets to the FA Cup finals and internationals; I was very lucky in that aspect with tickets to two cup finals and the international between England and Scotland.

The one where the Scottish fans went really bonkers, and the poor old Duke of Edinburgh got a right old carpeting, and I believe there may have been damage done to one of the crossbars. With all the hubbub going on, I realised the chap sitting to the left of me was none other than Fulton Mackay, the chief warder in Porridge. He looked very glum.

14/09/2026

I Have Been to Two Cup Finals

Yes, I have been to two cup finals at Wembley. There was Manchester v Leicester and Tottenham v Leicester, both a long time ago. I watched the Brighton v Leicester match on television whilst nursing a double fracture of the right leg (of the tibia and fibula). I can't remember the players, other than the Charlton brothers.

What is worrying me today is the depth in the number of players from overseas filling our English teams. In the next World Cup final I can't see us putting a decent team out. Apart from the number of players from all over the world now packed into teams, with the vast sums our teams get paid now, there is all that money going out of this country. The FA will have to set an allowed number of overseas players in each English team.