Brants

Our family moved to 46 The Crossways in 1951. Mum was a telephonist in the Telephone Exchange on Brighton Road, south of Coulsdon and Dad worked in the Croydon Town Hall. I was a paper boy for the Brants throughout the 50's until I joined The Armed Services in 1960. I 'm sure that the less sociable of the Brant brothers had been a pilot during WW2. I returned to Old Coulsdon two years ago (2013) on a flying visit. The Parade is a sorry reflection of what was once a hive of shopping activity - milliners shop, florist, iron mongers, butchers, veg shop, Brants newsagents etc. The Tudor Bakery is still there albeit owned by a different family and I recall the Lyons Tea Rooms on the corner of the Parade (the old dance hall was just around the corner). I went to Keston Primary, failed my Eleven Plus and then attended Caterham Hill and lastly Caterham Valley Secondary Moderns. I recall large swathes of Old Coulsdon that had yet to be built on - particularly the top end of Mead Way and the small wood that became the C of E Primary School on Bradmore Way. I also recall an air raid siren was tested at 3 pm (on a Wednesday I think) for several years in the 50's.
Iain Fergusson iainfergusson1@hotmail.com

Stanley Brant was indeed a WW2 pilot; he flew Dakotas in the Far East, and later was a member of the Tiger Club at Redhill, flying Tiger Moths.
As a kid at Purley County at the start of the '70s I got to fly in GACAK, the oldest flying Tiger Moth, then based at Redhill. I told Stanley and he gave me his old WW2 'C'-type flying helmet, with Mk8 goggles and G-type oxygen mask, as he had crashed that very aeroplane many years earlier! I still have them.....

(Sorry; the Tiger was GACDC, not GACAK as I said above. Old age creeping in! ACDC was the third Tiger built and is the oldest still flying.)