I remember as a kid in the late 40s and 50s, having street deliveries. In Bennett Road there was the bread van pulled by a horse. Then the electric milk floats from the Coop in Whitehawk Road. Also in Whitehawk Road there was a green grocery shop that had a horse and cart for deliveries. On Sundays there was the cockle and winkle man. And in the summer evenings the same shellfish man came round selling toffee apples. The coalman came once a week to deliver coal to our house. I can always remember my mum saying to the coalman "Mind the washing!". On wet days the washing line was strung across the living room. The coalman had to stoop down to get past it. Later on in life I was a coalman for a while. I worked in Davigdor Road for Hall & Co. After I had been there for a while there was an opening on one of the coke lorries. There were only two coke drivers on the firm. We were on piece work and had to deliver 15 ton of coke a day. Me and the other lad (an ex trolley bus driver from the Brighton Corporation bus garage in Lewes Road) had to go to the depot in Portslade with enough sacks for a 5 ton load. You had to hold the sacks under the scales that automatically weighed out 1 hundredweight of coke. If we were at the depot at the same time we would help each other. If we were on our own we had to do it on our own. There was a knack to getting the sacks up onto the second tier by swinging them. There were two five ton drops in churches and hotels and the like. When the five ton went down a manhole it was bit easier, but you were forever going into the cellar to trim the coke down or you couldn't get any more in. Sometimes you had to carry the five ton one at a time down steps and along a narrow tunnel, stooping all the time. Churches were the worst for this. The other five ton was delivered around the houses. I wonder what health and safety would say today about the way we had to work, but it was normal in those days. The people, years before I was born, had to work even harder than I did. In 1963 we were on top wages in the coal yard, £20 a week which was a grand a year. In the summer I sometimes would go in about four in the morning and bag up a coal truck (12 ton) in the railway sidings for extra money before the day's work. This entailed opening the side of the rail truck shovelling the coal into the scales to exactly 1 hundredweight and then tipping the scales and shooting the coal into a sack. More often than not the coal was 'Sussex Best' which had to be broken up with a hammer as the lumps were so big. The tax man was our main enemy, after all that work he still stole your money as he still does. But I was as fit as a fiddle. We drank gallons of milk to lay the dust, the firm even supplying milk if there was a really dusty coal to be bagged and delivered, especially slack for the blacksmiths. It was a bit annoying in the wet weather. We wore wetbacks to keep us a bit dry. These were leather waistcoasts strapped around us. Lovely days.

In the 1930s a Mr Dyne greengrocer used to deliver in the Coombe Road area with his horse and cart. One day turning into Milner Road from Baden Road, the cart turned over and the horse bolted down the road. I was standing on the corner of Redvers Road watching the horse, when a soldier came out of a house, saw what was happening, took his hat off and skimmed it across the eyes of the horse. It stopped and reared up and he was able to catch it. Had it not been stopped it would have crashed into the houses in Dewe Road and possibly been killed.

My mother was a Pankhurst from Brighton, her father had a coal business and at one time was mayor. Does anyone have any information on the family?

I grew up in Cardiff in the fifties and I remember the coal delivery men,  coming round the back lanes, bent under their hundredweight sacks, so I was interested to read Mick Peirson's account of his days as a coal delivery man. I am now aiming to write some very short stories for my little grandson, revolving around people who made home deliveries - milk, bread, as well as coal. Is there anyway Mr Peirson would be prepared to contact me, or have me contact him, to get really personal stories of his days as a coalman, that could lend colour and authenticity to my "coalman" story, aimed at say the 4-10 age group. I'd be happy to hear from any other 1950s coalman, or relative/friends of one. Thank you very much. I can be contacted at: E-mail:mlewis@netvision.net.il

Grooms Bakery, formerly in Sutherland Road back in the 40s and early 50s, also had horse-drawn bread delivery vans.