Alf Langrish: A Life in Old Portslade

👶 Alf Langrish: Born in May 1909

So now to begin. Every tale of the past must have a beginning so I hope I do not bore you with my beginning.

Birth and Early Family Life

It was on a stormy night in May 1909, I slipped into this world during a violent thunderstorm at home, aided by the local midwife. No “fancy do’s” in those early days.

You got lifted up by your ankles, a few hearty slaps on your bare rump, a couple of cries, and you were here. Naturally, I am not aware of all this and some time after, I am told most of this, and the bedside talk “Coo look it's a boy, just what we wanted!” Our Doctor lived quite near the top end of St Andrews Road, and it was he who attended to all the family’s ailments.

As time passed on, our family gradually increased by the arrival of Ivy and later George.

I will have to pass over the next few years during which “us three” grew up together and attended the infants' school...

🏡 Grandparents and the Family Home

Returning to my Grandparents and family at Middle Street and Wellington Road. Alf & Jane, Rose & Jessie.

Homemaking Skills and Nature Wisdom

All of these were very good gardeners and very nature-wise, including the old country tips and wrinkles, such as health remedies, nature-grown grown etc. Very good workers and very house-wise.

Making their own mats from serge & wool. The mat backings sewn on with a big, strong treadle machine. Excellent cooks all the year round and especially at Christmas time with the puddings and cakes decorated with marzipan and homemade icing.

Aunt Rose: Dressmaking and Decorating

Rose and Jessie were very good at dressmaking, on their own sewing machines and their own designs, they made up their own clothes, cushion covers, chair backs, table cloths, mantelpiece runners, shelf covers and edgings and many more such items.

Aunt Rose was very good at interior decorating. As I spent a lot of my time at grandma’s, i used to help Rose wallpapering a room and painting the woodwork.

Rose helped my boyhood quite a lot, taking me to local shows, Portslade cinema evenings, country nature walks. Another pastime was trying to teach me to play the piano. With many squares of paper on the keys, eventually i was able to play? The Warsaw concerto with two fingers. This could hardly be said I could ‘play’ the piano. Even this small musical achievement got lost over a period of time.

Salvation Army Hall

Some Sunday evenings, we would go to the Salvation Army hall (North Street) to hear the band and sing songs. Us kids had already been there in the morning and qualified for our Sunday school book prizes. “Young Fur Traders” etc, presented at the end of the year, harvest festival time.

Description of the Houses

The big old house at Wellington Road had a stone balustrade wall and gateway. Stone steps up to the front door. A flight of steps down to the basement, round to the door under the front steps.

Back to Middle Street. The house was close to North Street end, on the left side of the road, facing the coast road. Entering the front door (left side of the house front), you stepped in a long passage (running right to the back door). First on the left was the front room, then the stairway to bedrooms. Dining room and out into the scullery, out the back door into a bricked yard with the WC on the right and by the left wall stood a big old mangle. Passing the mangle, up four back steps, round to the right, under a big Laburnum Tree and up the long garden path (at the end of which was a long wooden shed. Along the garden inside was all the hutches containing rabbits.

🛍️ North Street Commerce and Customs

The Shops and the Garden Wall

This long path was parallel to North Street and a number of shops butted onto the left side of our garden fence.

Some of the shops were ‘Longs’ Gramophone, Marards sweets and tobacco and a long frontage drapers shop and a grocer. Much of their unwanted gear was passed over the garden wall. Wood boxes, crates and much cardboard. This had to be collected before the rain, and I often got the job, still, I didn't mind at all. This enjoyable chore, pawing over the rubbish, picking out all the dummy cigarette boxes (window display) of which I had a jolly good collection. All this burnable rubbish came in very handy on wash day (Mondays).

Wash Day and Grandma's Hobbies

Jane & Rose did the washing, I stoked the fire in the grate of the big copper with the “over the wall” fuel, and turned the big wheel on the old mangle.

Their hobby here was Bantam chickens, another hobby of theirs was winemaking. All kinds of flowers, fruit and vegetables, and later the funny old “Bees?”. Bobbing up and down in jam jars.

Any visitors were always greeted with a glass and buttered scones. A long discussion usually took place, then on the taste, colour, age and so on.

🎄 Christmas Treats and Simpler Times

These homemade [items] backed up the bought xmas wines and spirits stood on the sideboards, topped by a wooden keg of ale on its stand, surrounded by the goodies, fruit & nuts, oranges.. 25 for 1 shilling. What a sight it was! Colourful, fancy colonial labels, all gleaming in the lights of the candles and oil lamps. So it was ‘eat, drink and be merry’. Games on the long dining table, the piano or gramophone belting out songs or carols, and us all singing in tune (we hoped). All a good old simple carefree times when a local Copper down our road could belt you round the ear hole and shout, “Hop it cock, or I’ll be along to see your mum and dad”!

Favourite Food: Roly-Poly

One of our favourites at Grandma’s was an after-dinner sweet, which was a Rolypoly or “Spotted dick” wrapped in a cloth, tied up like a hammock, boiled, served hot, sliced and spread with butter and brown or white sugar or jam, treacle syrup. The main course sometimes contained a similar one as bacon roly poly.

🛠️ Alf's Dad's Hobbies

Now we’ll have a look into No.55 Church Road, dad’s hobbies etc.

Woodworking and Entertainments

Making some of the house furniture. (Early Days)

Our early toys, forts, farms, kites etc, iron hoops and the skeeter.

Kids 4 wheel barrows, wooden horses, prams and so on.

He used to entertain our families at festive times with carved wooden dolls and figures on a long stick, dancing on a “sat” on board in tune with record music from records played on a “big” horned wind-up gramophone. Also, we made big sailing yachts (5- 6’ high) and sails, on a special wheel-a-long barrow to transport them to the sailing area.

World War I Mystery Towers

Another hobby was plate photography, one special photo of his was one of the mystery towers being towed out of Shoreham Harbour, these towers (3 in number) seemingly were being made to be strung across the English Channel, the inner chambers filled with liquid concrete to sink it onto the bottom. Wires and nets joined them together. (WW1, of course) To stop the German U-boats from entering the channel (after the war, these old relics made a very useful item for us, so-called, ‘urchins’ to play on.

The Allotment at Kaiser Bond

Grandad, dad, and Uncle George all had one, situated just above our school (Later Kaiser Bond). Grandad had a big shed, well fitted out with a table and seats, a spirit stove & a soil toilet. When the menfolk were up there (in summer) mum would get the eats ready and take us up there for a picnic and to pick the flowers..and help? when required. Sometimes we would be allowed the proud honour of wheeling back home the well-loaded barrow.

Food and Local Workers

In the early days at 55, we had an old couple lodging with us, Spreget by name, man and wife. He spent a lot of his time on the beaches, so our family always had a good supply of fish, sprats, prawns and shrimps and crabs. Veg and flowers from the allotment. Fruit, etc, from the fruit shop where I worked on Saturdays.

There were plenty of good shops about. Some food and meat shops open to 8 or 9 pm. No fridges then, so Saturday evenings it was sold off cheaper. Bread and cake shops sold the surplus bread and cakes on Monday mornings.

My dad and uncle George worked at Butts timber yard, grandad over the canal on the gas works coal boats on the crane hoist. Dad later worked at Parker's scrap metal merchants, cutting up metals, etc, with a carbide torch. In the dinner hour, he could nip up the gasworks steps on the bank into Grandma’s for his cooked dinner.

Later at Church Road, we made a pigeon loft and had a number of pigeons; we didn't bother to race them, just a hobby and amusement.

💼 First Jobs and Local Services

Errand Boy at Price’s Fruit and Veg

After school and on Saturdays, I had a job at Price's Fruit and Veg and Rabbits. Errand boy in the morning on a trade bike, in the yard or shop, assisting where required. The shop was run by the father, his married daughter and husband and another older boy who was an errand boy morning, serving in the shop afternoon and evenings. Saturday was a busy day, and my great day too, for in the evening, when the customers thinned out, the boss would remove his apron and amble down to the nearest pub for his Saturday night refreshment. On his return, he would count out my wages and make me up a bag of fruit, etc, which wouldn’t last over to Monday.

So now the great moment, I can go home, cock-a-hoop with wages, old boxes of fruits, grapes, oranges and the empty box. Sometimes an ‘already for the table’ rabbit, and often something for the pigeons. Orange boxes made good nesting boxes. Special sawdust and cork granules(from grape tubs) for nesting, etc. So all in all, I think we lived quite well.

Doorstep Vendors and Local Trades

Shopping was so easy, and so many things could be bought on your own doorstep. Cockles, winkles, shrimps and prawns, fish, bread and milk, muffins & crumpets, Spanish onions on a string. Clothes pegs (from gypsies, hokey pokey ice cream. Italian with a barrow, logs, etc. All manner of shops spread around North Street, Station Road and numerous local shops, repair and tool shops. Cut key shops, shoe repairs, chemist, cakes. Maypole home and colonial, and even a blacksmith's shop and forge. Plus many more too numerous to mention.

🛶 The Canal and Leisure Time

Relaxation and Shipping

In those ‘early days’, the canal and its surroundings was a great attraction to all for relaxation and pleasure. Especially weekends and holidays. With the coming and going of many ships and boats, timber, coal, petrol, sailing ships and wheat barges. Most of these could be seen unloading at the various jetties and wharves. Small ferry boats rowing people to and fro to the beaches, home, and by the gas works. Hired rowing boats with families and such like, having a cruise around, wherever they fancied. Having their picnics in the boats or on the banks, wherever their choices took them. In this serene atmosphere of simple work, carefree and easy relaxation. Dressed in their Sunday best clothes, no ragged old jeans in those days. (If you wore jean jackets or trousers, you were a workman of some sort).

Music and song could often be heard drifting across the water.

Local Attractions and 'Seeing the Sights'

Halfway between Fishersgate and Southwick on the bank road stood the pub Schooner Inn with its horse trough standing on the courtyard side of the road. was a great source of attraction to all around about. There were many places one could visit. Beaches, long rides, Norfolk Bridge, Mile Oak, Dyke, walks, along the beach promenade, behind Hove seaside lawns onto Brighton seafront and town. This walk was always referred to as ‘seeing the sights’.

Swimming in the Canal

Now regarding the boys and girls of those times. Both sexes seemed to lead a more active life than those of today. Most could swim quite early. The boys self-taught in the canal. A popular place to learn was the end of Butts Wharf, on the shingle in the shallows, round the edge of the corner into the deep. Next across the canal, next stage to the gas works and the light. Now you could say ‘I can swim’. But the ultimate goal was from Butts to the Southwick lock gates. (about a mile) Many of us did this, and naturally, we found it useful later on in life.

⚽ Boys' and Girls' Sports

Boys played the usual sports, street football, cricket, etc.

Sledging on the hills near the Boys Reformatory School, Mile Oak Road. Summer and winter bike riding and such like.

Girls.. Rounders, hopscotch, skipping, single and long rope. Ball and bat, marbles, cigarette card games, most of these games were played by boys and girls together.

Almost every household had the indoor games, darts, rings, skittles, cards, shove-hapenny and all the board games. I will leave it to you if you want to make a comparison between the boys and girls of then and now, it's up to you.

🎭 The Cinemas

Silent Films and Chaos

Portslade and Southwick were very popular and used by all as a weekly treat. After a walk to Southwick cinema, silent films, on the way home us boys with our toy cowboy guns used to play along the paths along the canal bank home.

Both cinemas open Saturday mornings for children's silent films and serials, Pearl White etc. Accompanied by a lady pounding out a ‘suitable’? tune to match the film.

‘Silent Film’! It was hardly that Saturday morning, the films were usually accompanied by hoots and whistles and shouted advice, catcalls. Much noise of rustling paper bags, much munching of choppers, Foot stomping and the sounds of crushed peanut shells, and when the film broke, it was sheer pandemonium.

The Arrival of the 'Talkies'

Fortunately, all this rowdy behaviour came to an end when the ‘talkies’ arrived. At Portslade cinema, they showed our first ‘talkie’ film, Al Jolson - The Jazz Singer. It is not known the ‘old Joanna’ and its player was removed to Brighton Museum, it must have qualified, at least for a place in film history..

And so began the change.. The foyer got tidied up, a smart booking office,, a snappy-dressed manager and a great improvement in the air and ventilation. No more opening of all doors in the interval for fresh air, especially in wintertime.

Now it had become a much more used family pastime. - But sadly now, changing into Bingo Halls.

🥖 First Job as a Delivery Boy

I must mention my first job as a schoolboy, on Saturdays, I worked at Swaltows The Bakers.

The Horse-Drawn Van Run

Early in the morning, the son and I would load up the van, hitch up the horse, nose bag and bucket. Then drive off en route to Shoreham via Old Shoreham Road. Halfway, we would have lunch. With the canvas front and side screens down. Our backs leaning back on the warm wooden sliding doors. We would enjoy our lunch: bread and cheese, hot currant bread. We really enjoyed especially if it was a bit windy and cold.

At Old Shoreham, we would start our deliveries from a basket to the door. In between stops, I would have the honour to driving the horse and van.

At our usual stop, we fed and watered the horse, the boss putting on the nosebag. (I wasn't tall enough to get the strap over the horse's head) I got the water bucket.

We had customers all around Old Shoreham. Sometimes we came back on the coast road for a change of scenery.

We got to know the families very well over the years.

🏞️ Brighton Attractions and Devil’s Dyke

Piers and Paddle Steamers

Some of our other great attractions were the Brighton Piers and the Paddle Steamers, also the Devil's Dyke.

The Dyke Hotel and Childhood Fun

Much visited by sightseers and early charabancs. Arriving loaded with trippers, out for the day's enjoyment. Rounded off with refreshments at the Dyke Hotel. Us children spent many happy hours there, getting there by bike or sometimes a long walk there.

Many facilities existed there for the children's pleasure; a child's roundabout, swing boats, coconut shies, fortune tellers, hoopla, a look at the ‘penny in the slot’ telescope at the landscapes of interest. I can remember seeing a whale’s skull mounted on a stone base surrounded by a post and chain fence and a notice saying something about a whale being washed up on a local beach in Victorian times.

Relics of the Old Railways

On the top of the big hill hill there lay the remains of the old engine foundations of the old cog and rack railway. Engine parts and a big wheel. The railway tracks could be seen running down the hillside. Sadly, almost forgotten, slowly rusting away. Round and halfway down the valley could be seen another Victorian relic, perched halfway up each side stood the big square stone foundations of the cable car railway which spanned the valley. I don’t remember ever seeing any photographs of either of these two showing them in operation.

🍬 Local Shops and Curious Collections

The Sweet Shops of Old Portslade

There are two shops of Old Portslade i would like to mention, firstly the one which was at the coast road end of Middle Street, of the left side corner. The shop was run by two elderly ladies who sold a range of the most unusual sweetmeats one could find. Homemade sweets, slab toffee in a tray with the following flavours: orange, plum, strawberry, banana and such-like.

Now follows the now mostly forgotten novelty titbits; long straps of black liquorice, bags of sherbet, some with lolly sticks, others with liquorice tubes.

Locust beans, black and shining with sugar granules, tiger nuts, cashew nuts, roasted peas, arrowroot, and many more, mostly forgotten today. All served in a paper square twisted round a finger into a cone shape and twisted at the bottom. As the shop was not far from our schools, us kids kept it a thriving business. We used to scoff this stuff with great relish, and strangely, none of us showed any ill effects.

Joey’s Old Curiosity Shop

The second shop in North Street, Portslade, was something entirely different; it stood on a corner. Two long windows, somewhat dusty and dirty. When you looked into the gloomy glass and saw inside, you were amazed at the miscellaneous collection of oddments you ever saw.

Old rusty nails, screws, tin tacks, old boxes of garters (?), Little liver pills, oil lamp bits, firelighters, horse brasses & decorations. All piled in heaps.

If anything small, it was there somewhere under the layer of dust, rust and cobwebs. You may have spotted some tatty old butterflies, some old bird's eggs & a bunch of keys. One could spend hours looking in. The elderly owner was reputed to be a Jew, named Joey, having the reputation of being something of a miser. If the shop had a name, surely it would be called ‘Joey’s Old Curiosity Shop’.

The Apprehensive Transaction

Us kids would enter this shop with some apprehension. You would open the latch and as you pushed open the door it would squeal on its hinges, a big brass bell would swing about, clanging, and inside through the gloom and flickering light of a small oil lamp, you saw in the back partition, a small shutter slide open and a pair of bespeckled eyes would squint through and a gruff voice would shout “Well!! What do you want?” He would then suddenly appear through a half-hidden door and shuffle towards you, clad in a skullcap, glasses and scuffy old clothes. You stated what you wanted, all is well, he would struggle to get it out, mumble it’s price, it was shoved into your hand. Take your money and with much muttering, laboriously count out your change, turn and shuffle back to his ‘hidey-hole’, while you quickly got out of the door into the fresh air and heaved a great sigh of relief.

👒 Visiting the Fashionable Aunts

My next memory (having left the unusual old shop), is much more happy and cheerful - Aunt Pay, who lived in Henfield, companion to a Miss Mills (retired school teacher, headmistress).

Country Ladies and High Fashion

Now and again in the summer, they would pay us a visit; they always appeared to me to be two well-groomed country ladies, dressed in their smart blouses, complete with their dainty little watches, pinned on by a smart ribbon. A fashionable hat and sometimes a veil, thin rimmed ‘pince-nez’ spectacles on a chain. Victorian brooch, smart skirt, gloves (muff in winter) and high buttoned-up boots. A well-filled handbag containing all the paraphernalia carried by fashionable ladies of those times: Smelling salts, eau-de cologne, frilly handkerchiefs, safety pins, fold-up scissors, nail file, mirror and comb. and perhaps a bag of lemon barley sweets.

A Visit to Henfield

Sometimes I would bike out to Henfield to visit them at home, to be greeted by cooling drinks, small homemade ice cakes and much attention. Then we would all be seated and chat away. All the local news. With all the little tasty tidbits were being offered, “do try this” or “have some of that”. Time seemed to pass quickly and you were on your bike peddling home with bulging pockets and a recipe note, feeling like Billy Bunter; he was a very fat boy in one of my weekly books, “The Boys of Greyfriar School”. Not the hero but the butt of the school, always eating and hanging around the tuckshop.

Also, we had our comics each week and our pocket money.

🧨 Church Road Customs

Guy Fawkes and Christmas Hoarding

Now we will have another look at No. 55 Church Road. Today is a Sunday afternoon, it's raining outside, so the children should be in. We find them upstairs in a bedroom, gathered around the bed, young Alf, Ivy, and George, on the bed lay some biscuit tins and cardboard boxes. They are talking, and this is what we hear: “I've one of these Thunder Flashes, two Mine of Serpents, a Banger, and look at this Sky Rocket. The other two lay some of their out on show and say what they have bought with their saved-up pocket money. This little ritual will be repeated up to Bonfire Night, when they have a bonfire and burn the ‘Guy’ (They have made) and the firework display by them and dad.

Later in the year, all this will be repeated but with big bars of chocolates, sweets, chocolate cream bars and such like. This time hoarded up for Christmas. A touch of “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, here no doubt!. Our dad is out in the scullery making something or other, our mum is darning or doing needlework.

The Street and Play Area

It may be worth our while to have a look outside the front door, straight in front, we will see the pavement, a gravel road, the dust laid in the summer by the water cart. (Later tarred and gravelled). Another inferior paving, then a wide and long hill up a stretch of rough grass. Some rings of grass turves - our castles and forts. In Winter time, the slope was ideal for some rough sledging and rolling snow down into a big snowball. We played our football there too. No proper goal posts, no corner flag and no referee and whoever the ball belonged to was the captain of one side. The game played until the ball owner got in a dispute or was tired and went home with his ball!.

This close of play also applied to cricket; some time later, this ground was made into allotments. We look right to see a street of houses, and on the corner is our grocer's shop. Around the corner is St Andrews Road.

Behind the houses left side is a large area of sandpits, some half-filled with water, populated with frogs, toads and newts, including the big crested species.

The Gaslighter

Looking left was next door with a lamp post, a short cul-de-sac and on the corner stood the Cricketers Arms, and several more houses. The pavement was finished, and the rest of the houses down the road to North Street had small gardens with a front wall. The lamp post was a very important part of the landscape; to climb up, a Maypole, a target for some bow and arrow sport. Late evenings it resumed its proper use. The Gaslighter would light the gas with his long pole, and our front bedroom was provided with some cheap all-night illumination.

On the other side of the road, further down with the bakers, a couple of shops, including the post office and even a few more houses, down to the road up to the infants' school. Then on down to the Britannia Flour Mills and garage for the steam wagons.

🏫 Education and School Days

St Andrews School Layout (Seniors 1912 Onwards)

St Andrews, School Girls and Boys, seniors 1912 onwards. Situated on the coast road (Infant's school behind), I am up there now. So I can tell you more about it.

In front was a brick and iron fence with two gates with locks. Three or four steps up into the playground facing the school. The girls gate on the left, the boys on the right. You crossed the playground and entered the entrance on the school end.

Behind at the boys' end was our allotment plots below the infants' school.

System of Teaching and Discipline

Looking back, the school's system of teaching was extremely good and efficient. Class ran from no.1 up to 7. Final leaving exam, you could stay on then in class 8. You could swat up on your own subject until school leaving time. Each class at the end of term had an exam, you passed and moved up into the next. If you failed, you stayed and moved up later. We had a headmaster, a Mr Miles and teachers for each class. The headmaster had an office the teachers had a recreation or rest room. In all classes and HM’s room, the cane was in use, in moderation, but it didn't do much harm, and I expect we deserved it.

Each class had a monitor (no ballpoint pens then), he served out and collected the books, assisted the teacher and daily filled the inkwells.

Our toilets were outside covered ones, and inside we were warmed by numerous radiators, coal-fired.

Daily Routine and Curriculum

We usually started our day with a singing lesson, our teacher out in the front of the blackboard, waving the tuning fork in time.

One song I remember was “Hail, smiling morn”, always got sung with great gusto!. A scripture lesson followed, taken by my favourite teacher, Mr Figgins, whose drawings of the holy lands I greatly admired.

Then various lessons, different subjects, then the school bell and home for dinner (roller skates often used). In summer, some of us nipped down the canal for a swim, then back to school. The idea then was to teach you the requirements to leave school with sufficient basic knowledge to be able to do all the things a man or woman should know and do, thus making them capable of running a home. Girls: cooking, needlework & etc. The boys, the manly tasks encountered in the home and outside, both he and she having already the elementary use and training of the various tools needed for the job.

🏆 Team Sports and Leaving School

The team spirit was greatly encouraged; we both had our sports, and the boys had their football teams. Even the team names were quite intriguing; Greek. I remember “The Arcadians”, “The Macedonians” and such like. We had a school team too. All the local firms and works had their own football teams and cricket and heroes. We used to watch playing locally. Our play in the playground was in keeping with the times. A few knives could be in there, penknives, scout knives and the odd army one. Nothing sinister, though, as these seemed only to be used for what they were made for.

Still in knickerbockers (no patches now, though), and our thoughts were of long trousers and the great day of leaving school.

Finally, it arrived, and you left school, without, I might add, the aid of ballpoints, computers and calculators. Able to read and write and do sums. Girls are going to their jobs, and the boys being absorbed in the manual work of their choice.

⚙️ A Changing World

The Value of Local Trades and Bartering

Talking of jobs and trades, almost every street or road housed various tradesmen, skilled at their jobs. Many lifelong jobs are handed over to their sons on retirement. You could ask one of these to do a job for you, and on completion, something grown, reared, and such-like would be bartered in exchange. Money wasn't quite so important in those old days as it is today. -So who would want to be a millionaire!?

Old Ways and New Inventions

Times were moving on. - but still to be seen in use, two steam engines, cross-field ploughing, steam wagons, cranes, and early locos. Fields of veg, cabbages, sprouts, etc, stretching for great areas. - and in the houses, candles and oil lamps. Ice boxes, hay boxes, open fires, kitchen ranges with a large oven - Middle fire and one on the right. A hot water tank with a brass top, a long brass rail in the front. On the top, saucepans and kettles, -and pride of place, the hot pot, boiled and added to, daily.

Slowly but surely, the ‘industrial age’ was moving in and DIY was coming into its own. Everywhere people were learning new skills, building crystal sets, sticking up aerials and soon came in the coils and valves. All magazines contained instructions how to build all manner of sets, as new words could be heard in the conversation, “I'm making a Marconi set”, “I am making a Furranti ‘four valve’ and so it spread to most areas. Aerials shot up everywhere on the skyline and soon the sound of music and jazz could be heard everywhere.

The Money-Box Trolley System

Some interesting information about the area.

In a few of the big shops, the following system was installed, much to the merriment of children. The ceiling was criss-crossed with a network of wires, from the various serving counters along the ceiling to a main station office. Running along each wire was a small trolley, complete with a money box. In operation, the counter assistant would take your money (the price of the goods you had bought), reach up and put it into the box, pull a lever, and it sped away to the main station. After a short wait, it swished back to the assistant, who unloaded it and gave you the bill and change. This greatly amused the children watching these objects shooting along overhead, tinkling with the coins inside.

👻 Local Legends and Landmarks

Spooky Houses

Two houses, one on Old Shoreham Road on the corner of Carlton Terrace (long since gone). The other on the way to the Dyke, called the The Dyke Hotel. Walking to the Dyke, us youngsters would have a nosey round, but never saw or heard anything strange, mind you, it was in the daylight. The sound of the wind whistling through the rotting rafters, sounds, rattles, squeaks and groans. Would we have been quite so brave alone on a full moon night and in the dark?

The Canal Crab House and Smugglers' Tunnel

Another place of some interest was the canal Crab House. Close by, cut into the grass bank was the entrance to a smuggler's tunnel. Our curiosity aroused, we boys thought it worth exploring, but to our great disappointment, the opening was bricked off, and the Crab House chickens and their chicken run blocked the entrance. This tunnel was reputed to lead into a well, coming up into a garden somewhere in Southwick and to my knowledge, never explored.

An Old Army Horse's Grave

Another old ruin we explored was located on the corner, right-hand side of Hangleton Road and Old Shoreham Road. At the bottom of a deep, overgrown hollow stood the old ruins of a water pumping station and the deep well. Close by it was an old grave, said to be buried therein was the body of an old army officer's favourite horse. True or not, I can not say.

🗑️ Canal Shore Rubbish Dump

Another location of particular interest to us boys was the canal shore, right side of Britannia Flour Mills Jetty (where wheat barges unloaded). This area was being filled in with rubbish, and many a load of glass was dumped there. Including hundreds of old cod bottles, so plenty of glass marbles supplemented our collection of ordinary clays.

As the edge crept further into the water, the reclaimed ground was used to site Fairs and such-like.

Another site for Fairs was the Sand-pits side of the railway and the edge of the pits.

This one, on summer late evenings, as we lay in bed at Church Road, we could hear the music from the organs.

Shipwreck Treasures

Another location of some interest lay behind the gasworks, in the sea exposed at low tides, lay numerous boulder-shaped lumps of coal, covered by algae but quite burnable. - Shipwreck cargo?

Two separate shipwrecks (later) littered Southwick beaches, one with hundreds of oranges, the other, thousands of candles, washed up on the beaches.

The End

Alf’s notes end here. We don’t know if he intended to write more. Read about Alf's artistic creation, a Map of Portslade 1910 - 1920

Sunday, 28 December 2025

Alf Langrish: Born in May 1909: A Life in Old Portslade