Brighton

Day out shopping.

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 ...read more here
Contributed by angela green

growing up in World War II

I was born to Jewish parents whom had a ladies clothes shop in Kensington Gardens (The Lanes) my Father died in 1941, My Mother now a very young widow decided she wanted us all to live above the shop because of bombs etc, it had 2 rooms upstairs which we used as bedrooms, a small room we used as a dining/living room, with gas fire which she told us if the Germans invaded we would sit in front of it and turn it on, she was terrified as we were all girls and Jewish, NO bathroom, we went once a week to the public baths How Awful UGH!, toilet out side ...read more here
Contributed by Anita lewis

Crescent Road

We moved to Brighton in 1959 and my parents Pat and Jim Webb bought a house here after spending their honeymoon here (lived in Dulwich).   I remember when there were very few cars parked in the road and we could always play safely out on the street.  Nowadays cars are parked top to tail in both directions!   We lived at no 3 and there used to be a big field behind our house and my brother and I would go scrumping for apples!  Sorry if they were your apples!  We also hid in the long grass in that field and made camps with other kids from the area.  Back in the 60's we were not allowed to play out on the ...read more here
Contributed by Anne Webb

Family tree information

My grandfather's family lived in Brighton/Hove near Seven Dials and attended Belgrave Road Congregational Church.  Their surname was WOOD and his forenames were WALTER EDWARD.  He had a brother PERCY and sisters ADA, POLLY and AGNES.  His father (my great grandfather) was reputed to have been very tall and also to have held the position of Head Postmaster in Brighton/Hove.  This would have been around 1890 onwards approx.


Contributed by Frances Curwood (nee Wood)

Teacher Training College

The building at right angles in the distance was a hotel.  My mother Florence Starkey was studying in the Teacher Training College top floor and looked out of the window across the angle into an open hotel window to see a woman hovering strangely at the back of the room. Their eyes met. She looked away and as she did so the woman threw herself from the window and was impaled on the area railings below, directly next to the College's entrance.  All the students were confined to the College for hours whilst she was prised off the railings. One small anonymous tragedy.
Contributed by Wolstan Dixie

Brighton Teacher Training College.

The house on the far right of the terrace was no 9 which together with no 8 formed the premises of Brighton Teacher Training College, which I attended in 1956-58. The road on the left hand side of the picture (just visible) is Paston Place. This eastern area of Brighton is known as Kemp Town.
Contributed by Frances Curwood (nee Wood)