Petworth Mill

My grandparents Hylands live in the millhouse at Petworth. When I was a child, after moving from a farm at Sutton my grandad Bill worked for the mill driving a flour lorry and nan Olive used to sell tickets to men wnting to fish along the the river. I loved staying there, trying to catch fish in the big millpond with our nets. I remember the millpond used to swell and come up over the road, sandbags were put up to stop it going into the cottage. There was a man who lived in a caravan a bit further down from the mill cottage, I used to think it strange he would empty a bowl into the millpond every morning, lol. When Nan and Grandad moved in there wasn't a bathroom and we had to go down a corridor at the back to use the loo, a wooden seat with a hole in it, and chamberpots at night, until a bedroom was turned into a bathroom. I remember roaming the bluebell woods on my own, about 11 years old, going up to the garage to buy sweets, fishing with my grandad and dad. I have nothing but happy memories of those times. When the mill closed, Nan and Grandad moved to a ground floor flat in Petworth, it must have been hard for them, after living on farms and then the millhouse, to go into a modern flat. I have been back a few times since my grandparents passed away and the millhouse has changed a lot, but I'll never forget all the happy memories of those years they lived there.