I’ve come to realise that since becoming a season ticket holder at the Amex, the match day goings on have somewhat taken over a lot of my recent blogs, and I’m not entirely sure if either of you even like football, so this blog shall have not a single mention of the impending fixture this evening, at home to Newcastle, in the FA cup fourth round, oops, well other than that last bit anyway. Seaaaguuullllls!!!
This coming year appears to hold promise, if the phone calls I’ve been having regarding future work are anything to go by, and all interesting stuff too. One lot I’m not even allowed to talk about at the moment, (very hush hush in the old patents pending department), I’m just looking forward to getting the drawings for that little project, and once the product has made it out into the world, then hopefully I can share the pics showing the fruits of my labour. These phone calls have been happening while I am actually working, which is always a good sign in January, so whatever happens in the near or distant future, this will have been a better than expected start to 2012.
Also this week I was lucky enough to be granted access to my neighbour, Allen’s photo collection of his mums family, within which are priceless images of Shoreham Beach from nearly a hundred years back, and with some of the stories that go with the pictures, I hope to be able to paint a scriptual picture to add to the Bungalow Town recollections which we already have, some truly amazing yarns, as well as some lovely humorous tales too. Once you start digging into the history of this little peninsula it’s easy to get drawn in further, lapping up every new bit of info you come across. One small snippet for now, Allen’s Grandad and Grand Uncle used to like to nip into town of an evening when they were here on holiday, but the footbridge back then had a toll keeper, it was a penny to cross, but the toll hut closed at six o clock in the evening, so they’d stand there and wait for the toll keeper to close up, then cross into town toll free. These two used to like a bet too, one time after a good day at a racecourse, they disappeared across the channel to France, without a word to anyone, blew their winnings then came back, this was before the First World War! They were part of a family of publicans from London, and Shoreham Beach was one of their holiday destinations, a completely different world from the East End of London. More to come on this story in the not too distant future. The photograph with this blog was taken at Easter 1933 on Shoreham Beach, Doris, who sadly died some years back now, is second from right in the picture, she was Allen’s mum, and our next door neighbour until she passed away, a really lovely lady with a zest for life, and I can’t wait to tell her story. Between her and her husband, Bill, they lived an amazing life by our standards today, and I know all of us as kids loved having them as neighbours, and as adults too.
I had been led to believe that my short scribe about the maritime history of Shoreham, and the Fort at the harbour entrance, would be getting an airing in the Herald this week, but alas that seems to have been put on hold for the moment at least, but I live in hope it may yet make it into print sometime. There used to be a saying, ‘todays story is tomorrows chip wrapping’, (before the Health and Safety Executive began interfering with every aspect of our lives), but I’d love the opportunity to become somebody’s chip wrapper tomorrow, even if only on a fleeting basis.
In the news this week was mention of one of our great institutions, Hornby toy manufacturers issuing a profit warning, and one of their ploys to attend to this situation in Olympic year, is to knock out cheap models of London buses and taxis, presumeably in the hope that the Olympic tourists will shell out for the iconic toys and bolster sales, then following that story they cheerily inform us that an asteroid soon to be passing close to the Earth, is, conveniently, the size of a bus. As Ken Bruce remarked on the radio, ‘can we then expect two or three more to be following close behind that one?’, you can’t help but think someone is having a bit of fun when compiling some of those news bulletins, I’m surprised ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles’ didn’t get a mention. Whatever the case, it will be a sad day that passes should Hornby ever cease to trade, where will we go for our boyhood dream making kits, always imagined with a small Hummel paint pot, tubes of glue, and collection of tiny paint brushes. I remember well the joy of walking around Gammons toy shop, north of the station, wishing I could have pretty much everything that was in there, if either of you are close to the same age as me, you’ll doubtless be invoking a few similar memories right now just reading this bit, halcyon days.
Tags: 2012, Bungalow Town, Hornby, Shoreham Beach, shoreham by sea
