This is my final year at St Peters. I am 4th from right on the front row. Diane Stevens is to my left (as you look at the picture), and Christine Harber is to my right. Behind Diane is Lee Barber. I recognise nearly all the other faces but can you name them????
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Although its sunny, it looks like all the girls are wearing wellies!
Yes it does. I think the photo was taken on the day of the school outing so perhaps we were off to a farm or something.
Hi Pauline. I can help with one name on your photograph. My nephew Roger Melling is the lad fourth from the right in the second row. I went to St Peter’s a few years earlier in 1949. I lived in Seaford Road, Hove, almost opposite North Street, Portslade.
Thanks Jean. One down, about twenty-one to go!
Hello Pauline! This is going to look like a cheap advertising shot to anybody else but I’ve heard that your book may have now been published. What’s the title and who’s selling, it as I’d really like to buy a copy. Alan
Hi Alan. Sorry, I have only just seen this comment. I’ve been really busy working on another book. The original book is called ‘From Greyscale to Technicolor’ and is available at Lulu.com
Thanks Pauline. I have just ordered my copy. I just hope I didn’t mis-click and order a Lulu CD by mistake. I grew up in Abinger Road through the 50s and 60s with my cousins Julie and Jim right next door. Just through reading the preface for your book I was reminded of the Rag and Bone man who used to keep his horse and cart in part of the ground floor of the handbag factory just over the road from us. I used to race through to my mum and dads’ bedroom window to watch the horse being led out and harnessed (I was only 23 at the time). I remember the guy used to wear pinstripe suit trousers which looked as if he’d slept in them and had winklepicker shoes that were really scuffed with the pointy toes sticking up straight in the air. I always wondered if his feet were actually that shape inside. He used to shout out something sounding like “Any ancoal!”. It’s amazing we grew up so normal.
This photo brought back a lot of memories of my youth. Mass games of Cowboys and Indians organised by the teachers. Happy days! I’m second from the right on the middle row.
Hi Alan and David. It is amazing what a vast amount of memories our combined brains must retain. I honestly couldn’t tell you what attire the rag ‘n bone man wore and I don’t remember playing Cowboys and Indians but I guess us girlies didn’t participate! That’s what makes websites like this so important for future generations. If only our great grandparents had access to the internet we would have a far greater insight into the past than we do based on books written by professionals. I suppose that’s why old diaries are such a good source. Trouble with that is that none of my great grandparents could read or write. The early Victorian working class’s voice would barely have been recorded before compulsory education!
Hi Pauline, I have just finished your book ‘From Greyscale to Technicolor’ which evoked powerful memories of that time and the photograph of St Peter’s School’s class of 64 where my brother Leigh is 4th from the left. The middle row is very poignant as Leigh passed away last October. We lived 24 St Michaels Road and I would like to thank you for a wonderful book.
Hi Russell. So sorry to hear about Leigh. I remember him well because he was in my class all the way through Benfield as well. I remember him as a very quiet and shy little boy. I’m so glad you enjoyed the book. Memories are such wonderful things to share.
Hi everyone, I can help a little with this photo. I was three school years older but my sister Mary Sands is the girl 1st on the right front row. Christine Harber lived next door to us in St Andrew’s Road. Her brother Ian was my age. The grandfather had a plumbing business near the police station. Other children I recognise are Barry Brown 8th from left back row and Guy ? 9th from left. Middle row second from left is Linda Jennings from the police houses, St Andrews Road, 7th from left David Hunt- his Aunt Avril was my Godmother and was my Brown Owl. I believe both Alan Hunt – Davids father and Avril are now deceased. The girl on his left is Pauline Goble, the family kept a greengrocers in North Street There are some familiar faces here which surely may include a Kirby, a Verrall or a Coppard. I think there was an Andre Sacre whose family kept a fish and chip shop. I have a class picture of leavers in 1961 which people may be interested in. I’ll try and post it up here on the site. Mary Sands is married, lives in Worthing and is a mother of two girls and grandmother of three boys. I live in South Wales with my family. The Sands lived in Portslade from about 1918 – 2001 when my elderly mother sold the family home and moved to Worthing. We now have no connections with Portslade sadly.
Hi Martha Haven’t been on here for a while and have only just read your comment. Thanks for filling in some blanks. Now you say the names, I remember almost all of them. I remember you and your sister, although I couldn’t connect the name and the face until you pointed her out. I believe you lived on the end house next to “the pit”. I also now live in Worthing. Some apples don’t fall too far from the nest. Pauline Golds (nee Clark).
Now it has been jogged, my memory is telling me that John Kirby is third from the left on the middle row.
I believe the lad fourth from the right in the back row is Trevor Glease, I spent many happy days collecting slow worms and newts with him, and fishing in Shoreham Harbour when we were a bit older. It’s taken me a while to work out which one he was, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since the 60’s.
Thanks David. All the names sound so familiar now you mention them.
I went to St Peter’s, I started in September 1962. I was one of the oldest, but probably the smallest. I grew up in Gladstone Road, Portslade and remember Trevor Glease, John Kirby, Andre Sacre, remember John Walford, Angela Coppard and you Pauline. My granddaughter goes to St Peter’s now and I have 3 grandsons at Benfield, and 5 of my 6 children went to Portslade Community College. I myself attended Mile Oak Girls School that later changed to PCC, or, as we called it, Portslade Concentration Camp. They were happy days that I remember with great fondness.
Hi Pauline, I’m Dave Jackson that you mentioned in your book!
Myself (Pauline), and my sisters Barbara and Sylvia Tester all went to this school in the 1960s. I recognise the names John Walford (he was the only boy that could knit in Benfield school, brilliant) and Barry Brown (everyone knew of the Browns). Does anyone ever hear of Karen Pratt? She lived in Gladstone Road and had an older brother Robert.
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