Wrestling And The Fire.

A Memory of Hove.

My earliest memories of the old Hove Town Hall are of a massively impressive red brick building opposite which was a 'Gamleys' toy shop to which I'd be taken by my mother whenever we had enough money!
There used to be professional wrestling bouts held there (the Town Hall, not the toy shop!) and I can recall being taken to see them on occasions by my father as a treat for a birthday or something similar. All of this would have been during the early to mid 1960s.
I can remember the night the old building burnt down quite clearly. I went along the following day to have a look!
I cycled, then motorcycled past that way for some time and can recall the new building seemingly rising from the ashes of the old, the site surrounded by hoardings with holes cut in them so that the public could watch the progress. I spent many happy hours glued to those 'windows', sometimes with a camera, and though I'd love to have them now, I've no idea what happened to the photographs I took.