Peoples Stories - Bevendean History Project
Raymond Bond Memories of Coldean
When I arrived back in Brighton after evacuation, just before D-Day I went to Elm Grove School for 6 weeks, taking my 11 plus exam. I wanted a bike so did the exams for everybody to save for it.
With my birthday money I bought a second-hand 20 inch wheeled bike at the end of that year. There were 15 boys all approximately the same age and we cycled everywhere. 2 main places to go were fishing at Cook’s Bridge ponds and Barcombe Mills so I cycled along the Lewes Road and back over Ditchling Beacon and down Coldean Lane which was little more than farm track then.
The left-hand side of the lane was all barbed wire enclosed from there right over to Lewes racecourse. It was out of bounds, as the War Department trained men there and was not cleared of bombs until 3 or 4 years after the end of the war. I came down the lane one day and there were police and army personnel at the bottom, a boy had climbed through the wire and picked up something, then it exploded and killed him.
My father was on special duties at the beginning of the war and was not called up until May or June 1943 when he went into the Royal Engineers. At the end of the war the London Dockers went on strike, after a very short period, so my father’s unit and one other were brought back urgently to keep the docks moving. When the Dockers went back after many weeks, he was passed the age limit of his unit which was demobilised. So when the prefabs were built (British Steel) he was working on them and I can still remember saying, houses what have they come to, 8 coats of plaster on metal lathering to keep the water out will not last but they have as my daughter lives in one now.
In those days Good Friday was a standard working day, but families would visit the site to see where dad was working, and I went with my young sister and mum to visit the prefabs (steel framed houses) and then we all came home with him.
When I first started working, I plastered a few houses at the end of Rushlake Road, then all up Hawkhurst Road on the right and Selham Road and Close, then on to Saunders Hill. When the houses in Selham Road and Close were finished, the soil pipes and some drainpipes were made of asbestos. All the rainwater guttering and down pipes were made of asbestos but the local authority would not allow asbestos waste pipes to be fitted so lead pipes were used.
The houses were all checked by the clerk of works on the Friday ready to hand over to the housing department on the Monday. When inspected on the Monday the whole of the lead wastes had been cut at the wall and the stack pipes taken, the houses were not handed over for about 4 more weeks while the pipes were all replaced.
At the top of Saunders Hill is a block of 7 houses, rendered outside by my mate Fred and I who put on the base coat. When finished there had been 3 gangs working on the outside as scaffolding in those days was not supplied by an independent company. The scaffolding had putlogs built in the walls as the wall went up. Fred I were on the top level and the scaffolding was moved behind us so that the level below could follow, and at the end of the day, the day joint would be in one line so there was no making good to the putlog holes, the work had to be finished in one go.
When we were on the last side, Fred and I had finished the gable and we were finishing the final area at the top level, the second level was round the corner and finishing that area. The team was made up with a third gang on the bottom, and reaching the corner they stopped for tea. The scaffolder’s were removing the last section on the corner. As they released the corner the sections left fell and pulled the putlogs out of the wall as the whole unit went down.
I jumped into the rear door opening and Bill our labourer came in the front door to see if I was all right. We looked at one another and said “Fred”. We rushed upstairs to where the bathroom was to be to find Fred on the windowsill with one arm in the fanlight. We opened the window and pulled him in. We had tea whilst the scaffolder sorted out everything so that we could finish.
I still shudder when I drive up Coldean Lane and look and see that head wall.
As I said my daughter lives there and her 3 daughters went to school so Pat and I visited often and I still do.
Note. A putlog is a short horizontal pole projecting from a wall, on which scaffold floorboards rest.
Ray Bond
May 2022
When I arrived back in Brighton after evacuation, just before D-Day I went to Elm Grove School for 6 weeks, taking my 11 plus exam. I wanted a bike so did the exams for everybody to save for it.
With my birthday money I bought a second-hand 20 inch wheeled bike at the end of that year. There were 15 boys all approximately the same age and we cycled everywhere. 2 main places to go were fishing at Cook’s Bridge ponds and Barcombe Mills so I cycled along the Lewes Road and back over Ditchling Beacon and down Coldean Lane which was little more than farm track then.
The left-hand side of the lane was all barbed wire enclosed from there right over to Lewes racecourse. It was out of bounds, as the War Department trained men there and was not cleared of bombs until 3 or 4 years after the end of the war. I came down the lane one day and there were police and army personnel at the bottom, a boy had climbed through the wire and picked up something, then it exploded and killed him.
My father was on special duties at the beginning of the war and was not called up until May or June 1943 when he went into the Royal Engineers. At the end of the war the London Dockers went on strike, after a very short period, so my father’s unit and one other were brought back urgently to keep the docks moving. When the Dockers went back after many weeks, he was passed the age limit of his unit which was demobilised. So when the prefabs were built (British Steel) he was working on them and I can still remember saying, houses what have they come to, 8 coats of plaster on metal lathering to keep the water out will not last but they have as my daughter lives in one now.
In those days Good Friday was a standard working day, but families would visit the site to see where dad was working, and I went with my young sister and mum to visit the prefabs (steel framed houses) and then we all came home with him.
When I first started working, I plastered a few houses at the end of Rushlake Road, then all up Hawkhurst Road on the right and Selham Road and Close, then on to Saunders Hill. When the houses in Selham Road and Close were finished, the soil pipes and some drainpipes were made of asbestos. All the rainwater guttering and down pipes were made of asbestos but the local authority would not allow asbestos waste pipes to be fitted so lead pipes were used.
The houses were all checked by the clerk of works on the Friday ready to hand over to the housing department on the Monday. When inspected on the Monday the whole of the lead wastes had been cut at the wall and the stack pipes taken, the houses were not handed over for about 4 more weeks while the pipes were all replaced.
At the top of Saunders Hill is a block of 7 houses, rendered outside by my mate Fred and I who put on the base coat. When finished there had been 3 gangs working on the outside as scaffolding in those days was not supplied by an independent company. The scaffolding had putlogs built in the walls as the wall went up. Fred I were on the top level and the scaffolding was moved behind us so that the level below could follow, and at the end of the day, the day joint would be in one line so there was no making good to the putlog holes, the work had to be finished in one go.
When we were on the last side, Fred and I had finished the gable and we were finishing the final area at the top level, the second level was round the corner and finishing that area. The team was made up with a third gang on the bottom, and reaching the corner they stopped for tea. The scaffolder’s were removing the last section on the corner. As they released the corner the sections left fell and pulled the putlogs out of the wall as the whole unit went down.
I jumped into the rear door opening and Bill our labourer came in the front door to see if I was all right. We looked at one another and said “Fred”. We rushed upstairs to where the bathroom was to be to find Fred on the windowsill with one arm in the fanlight. We opened the window and pulled him in. We had tea whilst the scaffolder sorted out everything so that we could finish.
I still shudder when I drive up Coldean Lane and look and see that head wall.
As I said my daughter lives there and her 3 daughters went to school so Pat and I visited often and I still do.
Note. A putlog is a short horizontal pole projecting from a wall, on which scaffold floorboards rest.
Ray Bond
May 2022
