Two special years
Chronologically the sixties are a jumble for me. Only two years stand out – 1966, when I was working at the Old Ship Hotel, and bought two tickets for the World Cup final the next day, at £5 a ticket from a guest who could not use them and 1969 when my wife and I were married. I remember my wife and I owned a car, a gift from my parents – a 1958/59 Ford Anglia. It had vacuum-wipers that stopped working as we climbed Elm Grove or Bear Road when we travelled to Woodingdean where we had moved to from a flat in Preston Drove.
The places to be
For entertainment there was the Starlight Rooms, the Florida, the Regent Dance Hall, the Scandinavia, the Zodiac, and the Café Continental. Electricity House was the meeting place for dates. I wore suits made by Stratford-Halland who had premises at the bottom of Franklin Road, or by Bernard Luper. My shirts and pointy handkerchiefs for my suit breast pocket I bought from Sammy Gordon in Trafalgar Street. I sometimes bought tailor made shirts from Cecil Gee. We drank at the Clarence, the Galleon or the Quadrant and ate at the Four Aces, Swevia/Suevia (not sure on the spelling) or Prompt Corner. I saw the Beatles at the Hippodrome, and my wife saw the Rolling Stones.
Do you have any 1960s memories. If you can share them with us, please leave a comment below.
Special memories
I remember the Great Omani being chained and plunging into flaming water on the West Pier. Oh What a Lovely War was filmed there and I remember friends who went to work as extras. I remember the coming of the universities, the Marina, the going of Black Rock swimming pool, the SS Brighton and Brighton Tigers and the Goldstone and the Albion. I remember the fire at the Bedford Hotel and the morning I woke up to the news that the Grand Hotel had been bombed. So many memories have come back through this website. All human life is here. I shall continue to browse its pages
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I remember seeing the Great Omani on one of my visits, but it was a bit of a trial waiting to seem him actually jump!
Yes, I was 18, in 1964. The Quadrant had a bar upstairs that was packed. Then the Galleon next to the Regent, was the place to be, with a great juke box. it was shaped like a ship with port holes. The toilets were joined to the Regent cinema, so you could go in the Galleon, then get in to the the Regent for nothing to watch a film. It was a secret in those days. Men wore suits , and girls dresses or suits. No jeans. The Galleon is now a downstairs taylors. The Queen Anne in West Street was another haunt, a small bar, packed solid. Now it has been opened up into a large area. Has lost its character now like all modernised premises.
I used to cycle over to Brighton in the early sixties to browse the electrical spares shops for valves and ex-service radio parts off of Trafalgar Road, downhill from the Station. When I was eighteen, I had a 1950 Triumph spring hub Thunderbird, in 1966. I used to go over to the King Alfred in Hove for Tenpin Bowling, and to the Top Rank for ice skating. I remember one night late for skating, getting caught for speeding along the Lewes Road for six miles from Lewes, 80mph in the forty limit for two miles. Cost me a fiver. I remember the Mods and Rocker parades along the front. I came over to look at the first Honda GL750 in Redhill Motors showroom in 1969, £750 from memory, a Triumph was £329-10/-. Great shame the Kemp Town Branch was shut down, and Brighton Engine Works.
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