Watching the house-building
Our family moved to 23 Craignair Avenue, Patcham, around 1932. We used to visit the site of our new home every week while it was being built. I remember walking around the footings, our dog getting into a vat of lye used for laying bricks and going crazy. There was an old school on the old London Road where I went for a year or two then we were moved to Patcham Place where Mr. Wills was our teacher.
A new school in 1936
There were secret rooms and passages in Patcham Place, and we were not allowed to run for fear the ceilings would fall down. There was a huge beech tree we used to climb on in the park, and trains ran through a tunnel under the woods. Around 1936, the new school was opened which backed onto Winfield Avenue with playing fields there.
Do you have any Patcham memories to share? If you have, please leave a comment below.
Varndean School for Girls
By this time war broke out and I was going to Varndean School for Girls. Miss Warmington was Headmisstress, Miss Everdon taught Music, Miss Nevil, Math, Miss Slark, Science, Miss Phare, French, and Miss Nicholson, English. When the school was evacuated to Yorkshire those of us who were left had to take some lessons at the boys’ school.
Emigrated to Canada
Around 1940 the SS Brighton Swimming Pool was converted to an Ice Rink and I learned to skate and watched the hockey games. Later I was to do some pair skating with a Canadian dispatch rider who became my husband, just after the end of the war. My parents Win and Phil Bannister taught ballroom dancing in a hall in Patcham after I came to Canada. I think it must have been at the Ladies Mile Pub across from the Patcham Clock Tower.
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I have lived in Patcham all my life, and bought 23 Craignair Avenue in 1986 so this is very interesting to me!
My mother and father moved into number 13 in June 1956. Me an 8 year old, found few friends, other than the very few in the old and tatty Old London Rd school. It seemed to me that most of the existing residents had few or no children. Most of our closer neighbours were old, even ancient by my young mind. However all were very kind and welcoming.
I do remember a teacher who, if you done something wrong , would slap you on the cheeks with both hands.
I remember his name was Mr Sheppard, my first experience of physical bullying. Great news later as he disappeared when we moved to the * big school* in Ladies mile Road, where the teachers were kind and caring. I think the headmistress was a Miss Horsely or a similar name. All spoilt later by secondary school where bullying was endemic, both from teachers and older children. Yes good old Dotty Stringer!
I researched Ladies Mile Estate (LME)for my doctorate and still have the files of info I collected at the Hove Town Hall offices of Building Control. Although this section is headed as a new house in 1932, the record cards for Craignair Ave show permission to build dated June 1st 1933. The architects plans, by BW Billinge of Farnham,are dated November 10th 1932; there are similar dates for Barrhill Ave and Solway Avenue both adjacent to Craignair and all part of the first phase of building on George Ferguson’s LME. Craignair was one of the first streets built and the semi-detached properties were all on sale for £550.
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