As you can imagine, over the years I have been sent a large number of different types of contributions. Many of them were welcome additions to the site. On the other hand, some of them ranged from the inappropriate to the downright weird.
Today’s offering is a wonderful gift, an original artwork! Arthur Gills, the artist used a 1960s photograph of Preston Road viaduct to produce this wonderful interpretation of the local scene. The picture is a very true replication which is full of interesting details. To be able to fully enjoy the view, you must view the picture full screen.
I am so very grateful to the artist Arthur Gill for sharing this wonderful picture, which I am sure will be enjoyed by all our visitors.
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Very evocative of the late 1950s period isn’t it. I like the detailing in the brickwork of the viaduct. Compliments to Mr Gills.
The cars are a c1953 Standard Vanguard and a slightly later Morris Oxford Traveller.
The Eclipse Radiator Co sign also brings back memories and I remember them well; They were a firm who did excellent work repairing motor car radiators for all the garages throughout Sussex and beyond and we still used them after moving to Kent in 1957.
The advertising boards for the Gaiety and Savoy cinemas outside the newsagents too, you got a couple of free tickets to see the film each week for displaying those. And look at all the cigarette advertisments!
The petrol pumps in the far distance are Hartley & Midgley’s garage which very early in the 1960s was completely rebuilt and became Endeavour Motor Company, the well-known Ford agents run by Tommy Sopwith Jr. Quite a lot about EMC elsewhere on the site.
The steam train crossing the viaduct on it’s return to Brighton may even have travelled on the Uckfield to Lewes line which closed in 1969.
Arthur has since started a website for his paintings which can be found at https://arthurgills.co.uk/
This is my ‘home-patch’. For 32 years I lived in Dyke Rd Drive – just beyond the Viaduct on the left. Next to the newsagents in the picture, if you expand the image, the words’ King hairdresser’ can be seen. Mr King cut my hair in the 1950s, me as a small boy sitting on a board across the chair. Some years ago I was part of a project at Fabrica gallery researching the names on their war memorial plaque; Fabrica was once Holy Trinity church. Mr King was listed as having served and safely returned. Other researchers found out he was a hairdresser. It was quite sobering to think that the nice dapper man who cut my six year old hair had been through the hell and trauma of WW1.
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