Born in 1936
I was born at my grandparents’ house 89 Ellen Street in 1936 and lived at 109 Conway Street from around 1940 to 1948 when we moved to a new council house at 28 Poynings Drive. I vividly remember having to get up every night to go across the road to a neighbour who had an air raid shelter in their lounge. We eventually had one installed in our lounge I think they were called a Morrison Table Shelter.
The Morrison Shelter was a huge thing made of steel which had a slatted floor and wire sides which you pulled up once you got inside.
Bearings for marbles
I started school at Coleridge Street and then to Ellen Street and later to Connaught Road. I remember the bus sheds very well. We used to nick the old bearings from their rubbish dump and smash them open to get the ball bearings out to play marbles. We also had a kids’ football team called Conway Rovers. I can still remember my friends’ names from that time. I have now lived in Australia since 1964. It was the best move I ever made. But I remember my Brighton childhood; they were wonderful innocent days.
Do you remember?
Have you any memories of Conway Street? Do you remember Coleridge Street School? Maybe you were in the Conway Rovers? If you can share any of your memories with us, please leave a comment below.
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My father, Leslie Phillips, lived in Conway Street for the first few years of his life with his parents, Frank & Lily and elder sister Marguerite (Peg). The family later moved to Ingram Crescent. My father was born in May 1923 and I recall him recounting how my grandmother told him and his sister to stay away from the (always) open front door during the General Strike in 1926 when things became somewhat heated around the bus garage. Unfortunately though I am not sure of the timing of events after that, nor of the house number where they lived.
I also went to Coleridge Street school and can remember the toilets out in the yard full of spiders maybe that’s why they scare me. I also remember my mum leaving me at school I didn’t like it so walked out and went back home. We lived in Princep road so didn’t have to cross any roads. I was probably around 5 years old. I then went on to Cottesmore and was there until I left at 15 years old.
I remember conway street very well. My nan lived at number 32 and we used to go and visit on a Sunday and my grandad in Livingstone Rd. We lived in Brighton, we used to catch the number 3 bus in St James’ St which went out to Hove station and down the steps to Bythe station, which led into Conway Street. On one side were houses.
Apart from the few photos within the James Gray Collection I wonder if anyone knows of photographs taken of the demolitions and the 10 storey blocks of flats under construction along Clarendon Road. Especially of the blocks under construction. The construction methods are of interest.
My first job was at George Freeman Builders Merchants in Conway Street in 1967. We had no tractor or fork lifts in those days everything was loaded and unloaded by hand. It was nothing to shovel up two cubic yards of sand onto the lorry or unload a full lorry load of one cwt bags of cement. When I started we had to men still working there who remembered delivering sand with horse and carts. I can remember the housing department workers pushing hand carts into the depot loading up with a few bricks and sand and cement then pushing it to the job they were doing around Hove. Bricks that built the housing estates in Hangleton etc would arrive by train in large wagons at the goods yard behind Conway St. We had four or five flat bed lorries, the drivers job was to go and unload the bricks onto his lorry by hand and then deliver them to the site, he would be given maybe two or three trucks to do per week. So much technology has been introduced in my working life.
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