Crescent Road

A Memory of Brighton.

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 street on a Sunday - and there were NO shops open anywhere.  The Salvation Army band used to come round twice a day and play hymns on the corner of the road.  We lived pretty close to the abbatoir in Hollingdean Lane (soon to be a waste dump - great) and often could hear the animals cries, see the lorries taking them in to be slaughtered - and the smells.  Not nice.  One day a bull escaped and I remember looking out of the lounge window and seeing it running around the corner - with half a dozen blokes chasing after it with sticks!  They shot it in the coal yard at the bottom of Princes Road, I was quite upset about this.  Snow, we used to get snowdrifts right up and over our front door and Dad would have to dig us out!  The Corona man used to come around once a week with bottles of colourful fizzy pop, my favourite was Cherryade!  In those days the local pubs, Victoria and the Roundhill used to have little areas called Off Sales, and my brother and I spent many hours sitting in there with a bag of crisps and a lemonade!  In Ditchling Road I remember the old fashioned chemist shop, it had big glass bottles in the window full of coloured water and inside there were many, many little wooden drawers filled with all kinds of potions and lotions, the shop had a strange smell to it.  The Days had an upholstery shop, choc-a-bloc with material and wool and stuff, the Daltons had the local papershop (my Father married Nancy Dalton after Mum died).  I loved growing up in the area.  The Downs school was our school, and Mum was a lollypop lady for a while.  I had many happy memories of these times - do you?  Some of the friends I made are Lesley and Sally Rowland, Julie Weston (brother Paul and Sean) Patricia who lived in the garage!  Her Dad was a taxi driver!  Penny Crumpler who lived further down the road.  Karen London who lived next door for a time.........and of course I had my first kiss in the doorway of Crescent Road - not saying who with though!!  


Added 26 July 2007

#219525

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