I have more information about the pigs from Bill Dainty as there has been some doubt about my memories of pigs being kept in the Park Street Kemp Town area. The Dainty family lived in the area and went to St Mary’s junior school in Mount Street and Queens Park infants and senior schools. Bill says that, before the telephone exchange was built opposite their house in Freshfield Rd; there used to be a flint wall which formed the eastern boundary to what his Dad called the Corporation Dust Yard. The Southdown Coach Depot formed the northern boundary, the rear gardens of Sloane St the south and Park St to the east. The entrance to this site was in Park St. Within this site, at the Freshfield Rd end, were some pig pens which could be seen if you climbed on to the flint wall; The old dust carts had those side sliding doors and the corporation assigned some of these vehicles to be used exclusively to collect pig swill from schools etc. These vehicles were based within this site so it made sense to keep pigs in order to utilize, in a profitable way, the waste food. When the site was later used for the building of the telephone exchange the corporation moved its dust carts to Upper Hollingdean Road where they are still kept. Having received this information from Bill, it does bring back some more memories for me and I do recall this. I think I must have gone someway into the Park Street entrance at one time, possibly with my Dad, and seem the pig pens. But I do remember the smell that was sometimes there when walking past. Does anybody remember the pigs? Or is it “Porkies” in pork St?
