Southdown Bus Station And Clair Meadow

A Memory of Haywards Heath.

I used to play in the old Clair Meadow and remember the drinks machine which sold pink milk in a wax carton by the tree at the footpath entrance to 'the rec' on Perrymount Road which is still there...I spent many a happy afternoon there and remember well the lovely old green and cream buses going in and out of the old bus station, which to me at age 9 epitomised Haywards Heath as we had just moved from Bristol. I remember seeing 'Jungle Book' and 'Battle of Britain' but was never allowed to go to the Saturday morning kids cinema at 'the Perrymount'. Our house was the first up from the current Tesco metro in Hazelgrove Road and we had a vegetable patch which is now occupied by the rear service road. We had to sell to the developers of 'The Orchards' in 1978/9 under threat of compulsory purchase along with our neighbours. We moved to a town house on the site of the pair of very tall houses in Sydney Road, knocked down in 1974 for Park View, and where my father and uncle were bought up before the family then moved to a flat above Edward Hodges shop at 5x Commercial Square. Memories indeed!