Old Shoreham Road
Growing up in the 50s
By Mick Wren
I grew up living on the Old Shoreham Road. We moved there in 1959 when I was 18 months old , and I was there until the age of 18 years. If it hadn`t been for that bunch of fascists - the Anti Brighton Bypass Association - ABBA (very apt), the north side of the road would never have had to be demolished, so obliterating a community!
The local shops
I would like to see pictures of the area as it was: the sweetshop at the corner of Trafalgar Road and the Old Shoreham Road, the Southern Cross pub (run by my friend's grandmother), Coughtrey's the cycle shop (I bought my first ever set of derailleur gears there!), the bakery, the fish`n`chip shop (which had a couple of fires), the greengrocer, and then up the hill a little, the hairdresser on the corner of Wolseley Road and the little garden shop just in Wolseley Road where I used to buy bamboo for making bows and plant sticks for arrows, and finally on that side, the sweetshop run by the crippled man that had a choc-ice machine outside.
Shops are now Tates Garage
The other side of the road had another greengrocer, run latterly by the Pickett family, which was almost opposite Wolseley Road. The shop on the corner of the access to the old allotments was a heating / installation company at some time, then up the hill to the parade of shops which now, of course, are all part of Tates garage. In those days, there was a wool shop, another hairdressers (I think) and the newsagent/sweetshop. Garage on the corner as now.
Text sent to website on 16-07-03
This page was added on 22/03/2006.