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.