Peoples Stories - Bevendean History Project
Marjorie Phillips further memories of Bevendean
I was born on 10 October 1946 in Buckingham Road maternity hospital and at first I lived in Nesbit Road.
We lived in Nesbit Road in the house next door to Nan, my dad’s mum, and 2 of his 3 sisters until 1954 when we moved to a bungalow in Plymouth Avenue, Lower Bevendean. I have lived in Lower Bevendean for 61 years as when John and I married we bought a house in Lower Bevendean. We had lots of disappointments when we were trying to buy our home because it was at the time when there was a lot of gazumping and many of the houses we considered buying became out of our financial reach. The house we still live in was previously owned by a relation of my mother who knew about the difficulties we were having and the sale was arranged before the house was advertised by the estate agent.
My mother died when I was 4 and in 1954 after Nan died we moved to a bungalow in Plymouth Avenue and Dad’s 2 unmarried sisters moved with us and they helped Dad look after me. I was told it had been very difficult moving the contents of two houses into one bungalow. We moved there because Dad’s third sister was married and lived in Manton Road and I went to her for lunch and after-school until my other aunties got home from work. On Thursday auntie always gave me pilchard sandwiches for tea, she thought was a great treat but I hated them and I still can’t face pilchards even now. But our family was close and looked out for one another, and although my mother had died I was always well cared for. In the early 1950’s it was unusual for a child to have no one to call mum and on reflection it made me feel excluded from many things.
I’m told that Dad had difficulty finding work when he left school and had various casual jobs one of which was walking round the streets with a barrow selling and promoting Kellogg’s Cornflakes, it was a time when many people were out of work. When he was out of work Dad spent a lot of time with Mr. Dine who was a greengrocer among other things. Mr Dine had a smallholding behind Colbourne (Road) Avenue, in the same area as Dad’s allotment as well and Dad helped out and was paid in kind. Dad loved animals and he liked working with Mr. Dine’s horse. I suppose it was Mr. Dine who introduced Dad to fishing, and also to poaching.
I will tell you a story that Dad had about poaching. One night he and Mr. Dine had been out to set nets to catch rabbits in Wild Park and they were returning home under the railway bridge behind Moulsecoomb Place. The fire flies were everywhere and they were very active and when they met a policeman who was patrolling rather than let him find out what they were doing in the blackout they told him that they were so relieved to see him because they believed the IRA was about to blow up the railway bridge because they had seen the fuses burning on the walls. As they had hoped, the policeman rushed to see if he could put out the fuses which were burning on the wall of the bridge in the hope of preventing a massive explosion, but Dad and Mr. Dine just ran!
Dads job you asked me about, well eventually he took a job in the Pathology Laboratory at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, he didn’t want to go there but to please his mum he agreed to stay 2 weeks, however he actually stayed for 40 years until he retired. My mother was a postmistress in Coombe road, but as I said before she died when I was 4 years old and I don’t remember her.
I remember Dad was going fishing and coming back at night with fish. He had a boat called Seagull and it was on the beach near the Palace pier and he went fishing very regularly and I have got a photo of me waiting for him to pull his boat up out of the beach. When we were young we ate a great deal of fish because they didn't cost much other than fuel for the boat engine and that was shared with Mr Dine. The extra fish were given to neighbours, because neighbours helped each other. Dad had got a trawl net and a drift net or a drift line for catching mackerel and herring and he had a shrimp net, but I was not to go shrimping because it was not for children because you had to walk along in the sea pushing the net in front of you and I was not tall enough. But we did go over the hill to Rottingdean and Ovingdean and we collected winkles and sometimes we caught prawns in the rock pools. Dad also had an allotment where he grew his chrysanthemums which he showed and it had a grape vine in it and we always had plenty of vegetables.
What I remember about Nesbitt Road was there was a black leaded range for cooking and I sat next to it with my Gran and I listened to ‘Listen with Mother’. I don’t think they ever cooked in the range because there was a gas cooker in the scullery which was very advanced for the time but the hot plate on the range was always used to heat the kettle and there were always irons on it because aunties still ironed with an iron iron, not an electric one.
We had a big ‘copper’ in the scullery and that was used and was filled using buckets and heated from underneath but I don’t know how, I don't know how, if they use wood or coal or I don't know. The copper was used to do the washing and then the washing was rinsed in the sink and folded and put through the mangle, the mangle was kept in the backyard and sometimes I was allowed to turn the handle, it was a treat.
I don’t think we bathed in the water heated for washing clothes but we didn't have a bathroom and we only had an outside toilet. The water for the weekly bath was heated in the copper and then it was put into a tin bath on the scullery floor. We had two baths which hung in a shed next to the yard. One was a small oval shaped one and the other was long more like a modern bath. Dad sometimes had the long bath but mostly dad and aunties and gran had the oval one. I never knew how they fitted into the oval bath I tried to look out by looking through the keyhole but I never found out.
I know that No. 30 Nesbitt Road was always busy there were always people coming in and out and I can remember playing with the parachutes which they bought, aunties and gran bought. They unstitched them and then the silk was washed and then they made it into items which were luxury items then such as petticoats, camisoles and even knickers. I have still got the sewing machine my Aunties used and which I used until Dad bought me an electric machine for my 18th birthday. The hand machine still works, but the electric one has been replaced a long time ago.
Another way they used material was aunties worked for school meals and the flour was delivered in big sacks, so they used the sacks, they bleached them to remove the lettering and then they made dresses for me. They were always the same pattern. When I was small they had a narrow band of smocking and then by the time I went to Bevendean School the smocking stretched from my neck to my waist, and sometimes auntie would embroider animals and flowers and little creatures all-round the bottom. These dresses were white though so there was a problem and I am told that when I was very young I often had several clean dresses a day! The dresses were very hard wearing and they were passed on and on to other people in the street when I grew out of them.
We lived in Nesbit Road in the house next door to Nan, my dad’s mum, and 2 of his 3 sisters until 1954 when we moved to a bungalow in Plymouth Avenue, Lower Bevendean. I have lived in Lower Bevendean for 61 years as when John and I married we bought a house in Lower Bevendean. We had lots of disappointments when we were trying to buy our home because it was at the time when there was a lot of gazumping and many of the houses we considered buying became out of our financial reach. The house we still live in was previously owned by a relation of my mother who knew about the difficulties we were having and the sale was arranged before the house was advertised by the estate agent.
My mother died when I was 4 and in 1954 after Nan died we moved to a bungalow in Plymouth Avenue and Dad’s 2 unmarried sisters moved with us and they helped Dad look after me. I was told it had been very difficult moving the contents of two houses into one bungalow. We moved there because Dad’s third sister was married and lived in Manton Road and I went to her for lunch and after-school until my other aunties got home from work. On Thursday auntie always gave me pilchard sandwiches for tea, she thought was a great treat but I hated them and I still can’t face pilchards even now. But our family was close and looked out for one another, and although my mother had died I was always well cared for. In the early 1950’s it was unusual for a child to have no one to call mum and on reflection it made me feel excluded from many things.
I’m told that Dad had difficulty finding work when he left school and had various casual jobs one of which was walking round the streets with a barrow selling and promoting Kellogg’s Cornflakes, it was a time when many people were out of work. When he was out of work Dad spent a lot of time with Mr. Dine who was a greengrocer among other things. Mr Dine had a smallholding behind Colbourne (Road) Avenue, in the same area as Dad’s allotment as well and Dad helped out and was paid in kind. Dad loved animals and he liked working with Mr. Dine’s horse. I suppose it was Mr. Dine who introduced Dad to fishing, and also to poaching.
I will tell you a story that Dad had about poaching. One night he and Mr. Dine had been out to set nets to catch rabbits in Wild Park and they were returning home under the railway bridge behind Moulsecoomb Place. The fire flies were everywhere and they were very active and when they met a policeman who was patrolling rather than let him find out what they were doing in the blackout they told him that they were so relieved to see him because they believed the IRA was about to blow up the railway bridge because they had seen the fuses burning on the walls. As they had hoped, the policeman rushed to see if he could put out the fuses which were burning on the wall of the bridge in the hope of preventing a massive explosion, but Dad and Mr. Dine just ran!
Dads job you asked me about, well eventually he took a job in the Pathology Laboratory at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, he didn’t want to go there but to please his mum he agreed to stay 2 weeks, however he actually stayed for 40 years until he retired. My mother was a postmistress in Coombe road, but as I said before she died when I was 4 years old and I don’t remember her.
I remember Dad was going fishing and coming back at night with fish. He had a boat called Seagull and it was on the beach near the Palace pier and he went fishing very regularly and I have got a photo of me waiting for him to pull his boat up out of the beach. When we were young we ate a great deal of fish because they didn't cost much other than fuel for the boat engine and that was shared with Mr Dine. The extra fish were given to neighbours, because neighbours helped each other. Dad had got a trawl net and a drift net or a drift line for catching mackerel and herring and he had a shrimp net, but I was not to go shrimping because it was not for children because you had to walk along in the sea pushing the net in front of you and I was not tall enough. But we did go over the hill to Rottingdean and Ovingdean and we collected winkles and sometimes we caught prawns in the rock pools. Dad also had an allotment where he grew his chrysanthemums which he showed and it had a grape vine in it and we always had plenty of vegetables.
What I remember about Nesbitt Road was there was a black leaded range for cooking and I sat next to it with my Gran and I listened to ‘Listen with Mother’. I don’t think they ever cooked in the range because there was a gas cooker in the scullery which was very advanced for the time but the hot plate on the range was always used to heat the kettle and there were always irons on it because aunties still ironed with an iron iron, not an electric one.
We had a big ‘copper’ in the scullery and that was used and was filled using buckets and heated from underneath but I don’t know how, I don't know how, if they use wood or coal or I don't know. The copper was used to do the washing and then the washing was rinsed in the sink and folded and put through the mangle, the mangle was kept in the backyard and sometimes I was allowed to turn the handle, it was a treat.
I don’t think we bathed in the water heated for washing clothes but we didn't have a bathroom and we only had an outside toilet. The water for the weekly bath was heated in the copper and then it was put into a tin bath on the scullery floor. We had two baths which hung in a shed next to the yard. One was a small oval shaped one and the other was long more like a modern bath. Dad sometimes had the long bath but mostly dad and aunties and gran had the oval one. I never knew how they fitted into the oval bath I tried to look out by looking through the keyhole but I never found out.
I know that No. 30 Nesbitt Road was always busy there were always people coming in and out and I can remember playing with the parachutes which they bought, aunties and gran bought. They unstitched them and then the silk was washed and then they made it into items which were luxury items then such as petticoats, camisoles and even knickers. I have still got the sewing machine my Aunties used and which I used until Dad bought me an electric machine for my 18th birthday. The hand machine still works, but the electric one has been replaced a long time ago.
Another way they used material was aunties worked for school meals and the flour was delivered in big sacks, so they used the sacks, they bleached them to remove the lettering and then they made dresses for me. They were always the same pattern. When I was small they had a narrow band of smocking and then by the time I went to Bevendean School the smocking stretched from my neck to my waist, and sometimes auntie would embroider animals and flowers and little creatures all-round the bottom. These dresses were white though so there was a problem and I am told that when I was very young I often had several clean dresses a day! The dresses were very hard wearing and they were passed on and on to other people in the street when I grew out of them.
20th May 2015
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