Photos and articles about Brighton and Hove in the time of coronavirus. See our collection and add your own!

The Chimney Sweep

Grandad Russell, the Chimney Sweep of Newick Road.

Chimney sweep of Newick Road, Moulsecoomb
From the private collection of Marlene Hornby

Comments about this page

  • What a lovely photograph. What date is it?

    By Janet (05/03/2009)
  • Hi Janet, I’m not sure what year the photo was taken, I guess it would be before WW2. My earliest memories of my grandad were during the war, by which time I think he had been retired for some while. My aunt Rita [the last Russell sibling] gave me the photo shortly before she died last year, aged almost 90 years old.

    By Marlene Hornby (09/03/2009)
  • Hi Janet and Marlene – It would be about 1937. Before that he had a single bike and carried the brushes over his shoulder, together with a bag slung on the cross bar with additional stuff and a bucket on the handlebar.   What a photo, Marlene. There won’t be many like that anywhere now …. I’m guessing that he was snapped by someone who gave him a copy. None of us easily afforded a private photo session in those days!

    By Ron Spicer (06/04/2009)
  • Interestingly, referring again to the three wheeled bike, the Moppet’s who lived next door to us, and who I’ve mentioned elsewhere herein, probably used the same type of frame from the same source to make up the two sweet tricycle barrows, and the one for fish which didn’t last as long as the sweet ones. I can remember Mr. Moppett making up the tricycles about a couple of years before Mr. Russell’s one appeared. Lord Tebbitt wasn’t around then! As reported elsewhere, the tricycles were just sufficient size to push through the archway between their house and ours.

    By Ron Spicer (20/10/2009)
  • I had a chat with my sister, Bet, (aged 92) just before she died, and she told me that Mr Russell would offer to sweep the chimney for a shilling, knowing how poor was the family.   I suspect he did that on many occasions.  Typical of the circumstances and people in those days.

    By Ron Spicer (20/12/2014)

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.