Dormansland, Surrey

Just Lingfield

If you hadn't fallen in the pond, you were not from Lingfield! So says my dad. The building to the right of the cage in this photo was a shop. My memory of this shop only goes back to the mid 1970s. My grandparents' house was behind the shop (the hedge to the right on this photo is the edge of their property), and whilst on holiday visiting them, my brother and I would play cards with Grandad for 5p a hand. He always claimed that he 'was the best pontoon player in the world', although he would always twist on 18+! We always managed to win and when we both got up to 50p we would always run down the garden path and go to the shop and buy a Cornetto. (They were banned from sale on the Isle of Man back then.)  My dad was born in the house and we would go back every 2 or 3 years but now my grandparents are both gone and these pics are great memories. During the late 1970s in the punk era a load of punks used to congregate around the cage. One time my nan had had enough of the noise of them and their bikes, so she threw a bucket of water over one of them. They rode off and my nan made the front page of the East Grinstead Courier. She sent the paper over to us and I ran across the road and showed my auntie from my mother's side. I got a chocolate because we were a brave family. (I wasn't more than 8 years old.)

The Creasey family of Felbridge and East Grinstead

In the nineteenth century my Creasey family were tenant farmers at Gibbshaven Farm near Felbridge. Many of the family lived their entire lives in the area and the church was where they were baptised, married and buried.

It is a beautiful area and many of the family pursued interests in farming, nursery gardening and coach making.

My great great uncle Ernest Creasey ran a wheelwright and coachmaker's business not far away at South Norwood and my grandad, George Creasey Allen, who I remember well, went to work for him as a wheelwright.

Childhood

I lived in Danemore Lane just a few yards from Anglefield Corner from 1939 until I was married in 1961. I remember having to wait for ages to cross the road at weekends because there was so much traffic. As my father was a special constable he would be on duty to direct the traffic at weekends.