London Road Primary School

Mr Baird I remember, he was Head when I was there from 1961-65. Mr Smith ran the stamp club, Mrs Fernee, Mr Ticehurst, and I remember a Miss Jordan going off to teach in Borneo..most unusual for those day!
I wonder where the memorabilia from LRCPS went after the demolition?
I lived at 154 Chanctonbury Road, with my parents and brother Iain ans sister Fiona, before we emigrated to Tasmania in 1970.
I delivered the Evening Argus to Swaysland the barber!
The Goose Fayre was on the Browe, which we as 1st Burgess Hill scouts used for outdoor pursuits.
Now in Switzerland and attended a Haywards Heath Grammar school mini reunion two weeks ago at the Bent arms in Lindfield.
Keep those
memories coming!!

Lovely memories, I was in Mr Smith's class , and also remember Mr Eliot...... I too was in 1st Burgess a Hill but Cubs, remember taking House Orderly Badge and having to make Akela a cup of tea, which I mistakenly put two tsp of salt instead of sugar. First job was £2 a week in school summer holidays working in Gloucester Cycle Company in the repair shed at the back, until Factory Inspector told owner, Mr Rodgers, I believe I was too young, so I lasted 3-4 weeks.

Great stuff Nigel,

Now throw me a few Burgess Hill names and we can see who we know!

Now let's see, there was Timothy Epps, Geoffrey Richards, Michael Cole on Chanctonbury Road. At London Road Primary, I recall Lyndsay Dann, Lesley Benskin. Andrew Cresswell. At St Peters Court school there was Ian mcNicoll, Breck Coram, Steve Pettman, Ivan Hodder, and Ian McSweeney, whose Mum was doctors receptionist for Dr Thornley.....any good for starters

I think it was John or Kevin Mc Sweeney and i worked with their mother at the doctors surgery There was Doctors De Lacey Thornley when i worked there and Doctor Deering joined later .

Yes it was John McSweeney, who lived near me on Silverdale Road, and Prefect at St Peters Court School., he also had an old Austin or Morris convertable,.

Anyone remember Michelle Kutner,Kevin Gray and his brother Stephen??

My comment seems to be invisible. Went to lrcps from 61-64 when we lived in chanctonbury rd (9). Best friend lived in Queens Crescent where Sankeys was on the corner. Remember Mr Baird, Mrs Parrott and miss cardigan and many others bcos my brother was there from 59-64 when we moved to Patcham nr Brighton. Drove through BH last wkend, brought back wonderful memories..

I think she was Miss Carnaghan - and she scared me because she always looked so fierce. Shame the school has gone. Just houses there now.

Great to see these memories, lucky I looked at the site again after so long! I can't recall any of your names Nigel except for Michael Cole as he lived down the road from us in Chanctonbury Road.
A pity more people from those days are not looking at FF site!

Have seen a couple of people have mentioned Michael Cole. He was still living in Burgess Hill in 2003, not sure after that. Mike was a good friend of my brother, Malcolm Masso. Dave Tanner was also a friend of my brother. I was (and still am) pals with Wendy Green. Other names that spring to mind.......Mike and Nick Pover, Keith Spooner, Pamela Morris, Susie Sharpin, Lorraine Elliot, the Chatfield family, David Richards (older brother Jeff), the Gascoigne family, the Smith family (Tim, Justin, Quentin). Happy days!!

attend until 1969. was always unhappy due to bullying. my mother would not let me stay for school diners or wear uniform.....nor was I allowed to bring anyone home. I remember Mr Baird and Mrs Ferney and Mr Ticehurst and others. I remember summer terms when we had trainee teachers- one barefoot with a guitar on his back oh and miss Pilkington who was always on strike. I remember British bulldog and the rota to sit by the tree. I never did know what days it was meant to be! hated school. was always it seemed being told I could do well if......had a good friend in the first year called Anne Knox who moved and another the following year Elaine Bays ( then Favile )who moved to ifield. remember the aitkins twins who emergrated to Australia. Mr Baird disliked my mother and wrote her a strongly worded letter after she taught me to read during the summer holidays at the end of the first year when I had not learnt at school. she did a good job and I remained ahead in reading from then on. not in anything else tho'. oh and sports days at Oakmeads. every year I would get into trouble because my parents walked across a bit they were not meant to and every year I would tell them but they never listened. Mrs Lambert reduced me to tears daily, as did another teacher who I can not remember. The teachers were the worst bullies not others in the class. They seemed to think that if they made fun of me with my ribbons and non uniform my mother would 'conform'. and I remember we were the only family not to have a TV so I had never seen the Beatles or even heard most of the music of the 1960's. Made up for that since. However I remember the building fondly with the high windows in the infants so you could not look out. the portacabins - one or two and I am sure there were buckets for leaks in rain. Mr Baird ran an after school reading club and I discovered Jules Verne and John Wydham. He made me read out loud from several books to prove I could read them and questioned me on the story. it was not all bad. names in my class however have been wiped from memory. last time I came to Burgess hill I was shocked as I did not recognise anywhere. the shopping centre had not been built when I left, the school was still open, the park had an open air pool and the department store on the corner opposite the Royal George pub was still there. ( years later I drank my first under age pint in the Royal George) I remember where the American Express building is/was there used to be a farm yard with a hay loft that used to have horses with wagons having things pulled up to the top and opposite where flats were built was a derelict Italian ice creme place- I knew that because the youngest daughter was in her 90's and lived in western rd and used to tell me tales of when she had been young. There was a forge half way up either Livingstone or Fairfield road that I used to like to watch working. oh and does anyone remember the Sandman mansion burning down that was sort of opposite the school? major excitement that was. on the corner by the school was a little sweet shop if I was lucky my mother would buy me a packet of golden wonder plain crisps with a twist salt bag after school. but then they went up from 1 old pence and she stopped. it was a tiny shop and later there was a car showroom on the other side of the road.

Hi Amanda remember me Ruth Harbour we were friends from an early age both at London road school and Burgess Hill School for girls I lived in firtoft close and you often came to tea. I would love to catch up with u after all these years e.mail me kimholledge58@talktalk.net

This is fascinating. I was born in Burgess Hill in 1947. My newly-married parents lived with my Dad's people in Western Road until their newly-built house in West Park Crescent (at the end of Royal George Road was finished). That was the end of the town then. Behind the house was Shelleys' Wood, quite accessible and a wonderful playground before the trees were cut for bungalows to be built. I remember a childhood with very little money, so summer days were spent with my mother at the paddling pool in St John's Park. Occasionally there would be an ice cream from the park pavilion or a shop called The Chocolate Box in Lower Church Road, or The Ice Cream Parlour on the corner of Royal George Road. There was also a very strange place for ice cream and teas called Faccenda's in a wooden, well, shack, really, almost next to the Royal George pub in London Road, run by a very old Italian lady and her two daughters. Later, when I was about eight, I was able to go to the swimming pool on the other side of the park. There didn't seem to be any concern about quite little ones being out on their own; there were very few cars and I, at least, had been told to be wary of strangers or "gypsies" as my mother described them. I went to school at London Road Primary and was taught at first by Miss Buck, soon to be Mrs Smallwood, then Mrs Duckworth (her class was conducted at Wesley Hall, a wooden building eventually replaced by the Methodist Church - still there, I think). Later teachers were Mrs Carnocan, Mr Eliott and, finally the wonderful Mr Buxton. I remember watching the Chanctonbury estate being built from the school windows. The school was largely Victorian and in the infants building was a classroom with a cathedral ceiling. the dark oak beams bearing encouraging religious inscriptions in carved, gilded gothic script.

Miss Long, a retired teacher, rather smelly, used to come to school once a week to sell savings stamps.

I went to school for a time on the bus. We would wait outside St Edwards Chapel, which had then a big lych gate and as the bus toiled up the hill from West Street we would chant "Here comes the biscuit tin" over and over again. I've no idea why.

Burgess Hill was very much smaller in the 1950's than it is now. It had a cinema, the Orion (previously the Scala) but the town from the WI hall up to Cyprus Road was unbuilt until the middle of the decade. Everyone seemed to know everyone, which made it difficult to misbehave.

The town had many ways through it and there was a track that ran from the chapel through "the Brickie" to Colmer Place, across what we called the Rec to the end of Western Road. There was a field there where funfairs would come, and in the corner lived a couple in a single-decker bus. The man said he had bought the bus from Southdown in the 1930's and had lived there since. The field was owned by a man known locally as Lion-Tamer Smith. The town centre was riddled with ways through. There was a way from a point opposite the end of Cyprus Road that would take you to Clifton Road and on to the Catholic Church or the Brow and out on London Road next to the Jaeger factory. All built over now, of course.

I have a vast store of memories of Burgess Hill in the 1950's. Not a very interesting place to anyone else, perhaps, but I was brought up there and of course a child notices and remembers everything.

Eventually I started to get out of the town on my bike and visited Lindfield, Ditchling, Hurstpierpoint, Jack and Jill mills on the downs at Clayton, or I'd go to Brighton, redolent of sin, on the 32, 34 or 36 bus.

In 1959 I passed the 11+ and went to Haywards Heath Grammar School, there to suffer the trials of adolescence. I might write about that if anyone's interested.

Hi Amanda
i remember you and those lovely plaits. I had forgotten about the prac teachers but your comments brought it all back.
Thanks for remembering Iain and I - we did emigrate to Australia. He lives in Sydney and i Live in Hobart. Hopefully coming to UK for 50 year LRCPS reunion. If you have FB check our the Memories of Burgess Hill group and join the closed page for LRoad.

Hi Fiona,

are you my sister?

Further to my comment about HHGS re-union, if there is anyone out there who went to HHGS in the late 60's please come along to the Bent Arms in Lindfield on Saturday, July 13th 2019 where some of us are having a combined 65th .Confirmed attendees to date are Dave Reeves, Chris Cook, John White, myself Michael Atkins, and Mick 'Bonzo' Carr.

Re the HHGS re-union on July 13th....I attended from 1957-62...do you ever get anyone from my era at these reunions. I live near Perth in Western Australia these days but I will be back in Sussex in July and August this year. If there is anyone who would like to meet up to talk about the old times it could be fun...especially if you traveled up from Burgess Hill on the train. I also went to London Road Primary and especially remember Mr Butcher who took us for the final two years of primary....great teacher....loved cricket and used to take groups of boys to the Sussex grounds for coaching after school. My mother was Daisy Street and my grandfather Edwin was the butcher on the corner of Church Road and London Road. I lived next to the butchers shop for the first 14 years of my life and spent many happy years playing over the brow and also Streets lake before it got swallowed up by the factory estate....love to hear from anyone of the same vintage!

I was at school with John McSweeney, his father was a doctor along with Dr DeLacey. and his son also went to St Peters. McSweeney lived in upper Church Road opposite Holes bicycle shop. There was a private lane behind the house where at the age of 10 we taught ourselves to drive Dr McSweeneys car (without his knowledge. Johns brother had a Beratta 9mm pistol and would try and shoot the chickens in the garden from the bedroom window. Dr McSweeny was my doctor and he sent me to Brighton hospital for an appendix operation but they found that I only had a stitch, Dr bought me a plastic airfix kit to say sorry. John and I snuck in through the side doors at the Orion to see Goldfinger, Mrs McSweeny found out and called my mother to say the boys had been watching a filthy film. Happy Days - Charles Clarke

I was at school with John McSweeney, his father was a doctor along with Dr DeLacey. and his son also went to St Peters. McSweeney lived in upper Church Road opposite Holes bicycle shop. There was a private lane behind the house where at the age of 10 we taught ourselves to drive Dr McSweeneys car (without his knowledge. Johns brother had a Beratta 9mm pistol and would try and shoot the chickens in the garden from the bedroom window. Dr McSweeny was my doctor and he sent me to Brighton hospital for an appendix operation but they found that I only had a stitch, Dr bought me a plastic airfix kit to say sorry. John and I snuck in through the side doors at the Orion to see Goldfinger, Mrs McSweeny found out and called my mother to say the boys had been watching a filthy film. Happy Days - Charles Clarke

I too was at St Peters Court, from 1963 and left in 1965 I believe and the school closed after that no Mr Gent, headmaster, then taught Latin at Brighton College Junior School.

John and Kevin McSweeney both went to St Peters. Their father was Doctor McSweeney and they lived at Church Villas in upper Church Road opposite Holes Cycles. Doctor McSweeney was my doctor

I was at the school 1963, name susan Tibbals . Mrs fearney was the best teacher ever she changed my life as well as getting me in the netball and stool ball teams . Does any one know if she is still alive and where she is . Please contact me sue_wain@btinternet.com