New Money

A Memory of Holmwood Corner.

I travelled to Collyer's School in Horsham from Holmwood between 1967 and 1972. I would leave my bike at a house around the corner after having cycled from Broome Hall, and hopefully be in time for the 8.32. If I missed that, it would be the 8.55 which got me in just after Assembly, and a Late Detention awaited me. The alternative was the 414 bus, which passed by around the same time.

The station master was called Mr Lee, with curly hair like John Steed from the Avengers. He was very proud of his little station, with a fire in the waiting room in winter. He would get up at 6am every morning, and I could not imagine anyone capable of doing that. The back of the station led to a wooden landing with two staircases to the platforms covered with round tin. My first day at school when I made the journey for the first time he showed me around.

On 15th February 1971, Mr Lee showed me all the tubes of new money all wrapped up in polythene ready to be broken open on the day. Every coin was new and shiny and the same date, and it seemed a little like play money after the big coins of my childhood with all the old kings on the back.

One day, I saw the workmen taking down the old green station signs and putting up modern white ones. I managed to get one of them to give me one of the sign boards, which I have to this day.

First thing I did when getting off the train on the way home was to go to a little wooden sweet shop "Uncle Tom's Cabin" across the road, where now is a modern house.

It was sad to see so many of the pretty little Victorian stations being knocked down and replaced by bus shelters in the 1980s. Of the 1909 photo, I do not remember the large house next to it - I remember a leafy back lane from the back lane. I had just seen the Beatles film 'Let it Be' and always think of this lane when I recall the film. The road was also a lot busier in the 1960s and 1970s, since the by-pass had not yet been extended beyond South Holmwood.

We used this road a lot. Our papers were delivered by Mr Garman in an Austin A135 Cambridge. He owned a greengrocer in South Holmwood, and his carrots were always somewhat elderly.

I still remember the announcement at Horsham Station every journey home in a thick Sussex accent: "Waorterloh! Waorterloh! Caorling at Waorn'm-Ockley- 'Olmwood, Daorking, Boxhill, Leather'ed, Ashtead, Epsom, Ewell West, Staohneleigh, Waorcester Park, Motspur Park, Raynes Park, Wimbledon and Waorterloh".