Pyecombe, the Village c1955

Wayfield Cottages

As a child I lived in the cottages opposite the Post Office, we moved when I was around 9 years old and the houses were later pulled down. My memories of living there were very happy and I remember every year standing out front watching the Old Crocs go by. I now live in Hove and work in Crawley so drive past twice a day, and often try to work out exactly where the houses were. Now both my parents have passed on its lovely to see a picture showing the houses, even if it's not close up. We always went to the Post Office to buy our sweets and I remember once a week getting a heart ice cream, a real treat.

Memory of Clayton

My parents, Alan & Jennifer Ross, moved to Clayton in 1954 when I was one year old and lived there for the next twenty five years. For most of that period Jack & Jill were owned by Henry Longhurst, a celebrated golf journalist of his time and, since my father was writing about cricket in those days, they knew each other as fellow sports journalists. I remember visiting the windmills as a child and, later in life, when I drove down to Clayton for the weekend, the sight of Jack and Jill on top of the Downs always made my heart lift as I approached the end of the journey. The Longhursts lived in Jack, the black mill and in an attached cottage, as far as I remember, while Jill was pretty much in its original working condition. As you can see from the photograph, Jack did not have sails in those days but in the 1970s a movie called The Black Windmill, starring Michael Caine, was filmed there and the film company paid for sails to be added. My father died in 2000 and is buried in Clayton Churchyard, but I intend to have my ashes scattered on the Downs below Jack and Jill as I always loved the view from there. When I was about six or seven my father wrote a children's book called The Onion Man for which the setting was Clayton. The story featured a little boy called Jonathan and his best friend Percy Boyd (in reality based on my childhood friend Jon Lloyd) and was illustrated by an artist who lived down the lane - Raymond Briggs - who later became famous as the author of The Snowman, Fungus the Bogeyman etc. His drawings are very evocative of the area though sadly the book has long been out of print.

Hassocks Primary School in the 1950s

I was at the school from 1948 until 1955, at which point the 11+ sent me to Hove County Grammar. Starting in 1948 in Miss Wood's class I ended with two years in the top class with Miss Nichols. In between I was taught by Miss Lamper, Mr Kilby, Mr Bennett and Miss Bolter. Mrs Lake was headmistress. There was playground segregation in those days, the front playground in the picture being the junior boys playground. Girls and infants had the two back playgrounds. The picture shows the school after some work has been done to the central frontage. Up to the fifties the two side arches to the main front arch had concrete 'ballastrades' which have been replaced by bricks, which above the main entrance the school name 'Clayton and Keymer CP School' was etched in stone, but in the picture has been replaced by a brick topping to the entrance. Inside, in keeping with the design of victorian schools, those high windows ensured that children could not see the outside world, other than the sky, so as not to distract us from our lessons. In the 1950s this school handled all children in Hassocks, Clayton and Keymer aged from 5 to 11. As 'register monitor' in 1955, I remember adding up the attendance numbers each afternoon, and that the total was then just over 200 in 7 classes.

In 1948/49 the school was served by a school bus from the London Road area, where I lived. The bus, a very ancient vehicle, being garaged at Brook Garage, opposite the school, during the day.

At this time, the school did not have its own kitchen, school meals being brought in during the morning from an East Sussex County Council School kitchen (Hassocks then being in East Sussex, not West). My memories of those school meals are not so good - lumpy potato for example - until my mum stopped sending me to school meals after I'd been punished for refusing to eat some exceptionally fatty ham.

With all the initiatives in Education in recent years, its still hard to see that today's children are much better off. In the 50s school held no special fears for us and the education was as good then as it is now, if not in some ways, better.