Deal High Street The Other End!

A Memory of Deal.

I spent my youth with my family "above the shop" in Deal High Street.  My father, Morris Orchard, first worked in, then inherited, the family shoe shop, which had been in business since my great grandfather's time.  In those days it was F. H. Orchard and Son, Bespoke Bootmaker - we still had stationery lying around with his name on it, and out the back we had the workshop, still with old tools, bits of leather and so on. It passed to my grandfather, M. H. Orchard, whom I remember as a very gruff, frightening old man, who had been injured in the First World War and only got around with difficulty. My father Morris lived his whole life over the shop, except for his war service, his parents moving out after his marriage to Peggy, a library assistant (he proposed on a library reservation card!).  I was born in December 1949, my sister Nic in 1952, and my brother Adrian some time later in 1958. We all attended the parochial school on London Road, headmaster Mr Scholl.  We were allowed out on our own around town from the age of about 7 - I remember being charged with taking my sister to school when she started.   
My sister and I were known by all the other shopkeepers in the High Street. We had a nightly ritual of waving to the jeweller across the street as he put up his shutters. Shining into our bedroom from across the road was a gas street lamp, automated, but regularly manually cleaned.
We were given a day off school, but first had to stand outside and wave a flag, in 1958 when Prince Philip arrived to open the new pier.
Another great memory is seeing the last steam train go through Deal, I think I was 10. We were, of course, standing on the footbridge, to wave to the engine driver, and get covered in smoke.
Some of the other shops and institutions that impinged on our lives:
Kings the toy store.
Meesons, the sweet shop.
Woolworths, next door.
The National Savings Bank, where we saved our pocket money.
The roundabout and later crazy golf, on the seafront, for good behaviour.
The pier, with its old-fashioned penny slot machines - we loved the one where the graves opened and the skeletons looked out.
The Guinness clock, each summer - a large open-air clock with moving mechanical figures - action each quarter hour, just time to get an ice-cream between each quarter's show.
The Regatta - sailing and rowing races for the adults, children's sports on the green,  Forrest's Fun Fair, which is those days was on the sea front in the North End, and best of all, the carnival procession, which came right beneath our windows.