Day Out Shopping

A Memory of Brighton.

As a child during the 1970s I used to live in Burgess Hill (10 miles away) with my parents and younger brother David. I remember being very small and my mother taking us to Brighton on the stagecoach bus with our next door neighbours. Both women loved to shop and us four children had to go along for the ride.

As we passed Preston Park we always counted the 'pudding trees' (because they were shaped like christmas puddings!) which ran along the side of the road. Also I remember that the rock gardens on the right always looked like a magical place to me as a child and I imagined fairies and such like, but we never got off the bus there. We got off the bus at the old Churchill Square and that is where we stayed all day being dragged around a variety of shops.. I did use to like the big old Gamleys in the arcade though (great for Sindy stuff!). We went to the same place everytime for a snack, I think it was Forfars at the side of the square.

I remember once tearing around the square of benches that were by Western Road with my neighbour, and tripping. I very nearly broke my nose on the paving slabs and there was blood everywhere! Never seen my Mum panic so much but it all calmed down evenually after the bleeding abated.

After our day we all piled back onto the bus so that the women would be home in time to make tea for our Dads when they got in from work.

I absolutely love shopping now, must have inherited that from my mother.

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