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Photographed in 1960s

This was photographed in the mid 1960s.

It looks very different today

If you know where it was, please leave a comment below.

Mystery street 1960s
Image reproduced with kind permission of The Regency Society and The James Gray Collection

Comments about this page

  • Is this Jubilee Street?.

    By Mick Peirson (23/10/2017)
  • Yes, I’m sure it is Mick, looking south towards the pub in the distance, which is now the Mash Tun, on the corner of Church Street and New Road.

    Somewhere on the left hand side in the photo was a car body repairers and sprayers, where I took my Triumph Herald passenger door to be re-painted in the early 1970s! 

    By Alan Hobden (23/10/2017)
  • Jubilee Street definitely. Alan, the sprayers may have been Arnold & Marshall, motor body builders, who were at 52 & 60. I recall a fibreglass kayak maker[GayBoats?]that was along on the left hand side the smell of the cellulose[?] was overpowering!

    By Geoffrey Mead (24/10/2017)
  • The doors on the immediate right of the photo are where P. Panto & Co. of Crown Street had two of their vans garaged overnight. I was a van boy in the late 50s and this is where I came every morning. Myself and two drivers then would have a cup of tea in a little cafe along the road.

    By Mick Peirson (25/10/2017)
  • In the dim and distant past when I used to spray cars and vans etc with cellulose I would leave the job all prepared until the evening when there was nobody about. Then I would set to work and probably put two or three coats of cellulose on. I can confirm what Geoffrey says about the smell but more so; After a couple of hours spraying you got quite pissed on the fumes! We had no special breathing equipment in those days like you MUST use today for spraying some of these modern paints which are quite poisonous. Just used those paper masks which weren’t particularly effective but when you took them off you could see what you might have been breathing in! Of course Geoffrey you could also have had the smell of the fibreglass resin which was used when ‘laying up’ fibreglass. That smelt just as bad if not worse than cellulose and the trouble was it went home with you too! You just couldn’t get rid of it. Gay Boats? I don’t suppose they are still in business in Brighton. Panto & Co seems to be a familiar Brighton name to me Mick. What did they do?

    By Tim Sargeant (25/10/2017)
  • Geoffrey, the firm that made the fibreglass kayaks was Gaybo Ltd; formed by and named after brothers Graham and Robert Goldsmith. My husband used to be a keen canoeist and often helped out in their workshop. He says the stuff that gave off the pungent smell was the resin, but he got used to it after a while. Gaybo is still going strong and based in Uckfield.

     

    By Janet Beal (25/10/2017)
  • Hi Janet, I was a member of the Brighton canoeing club in the early 60’s & the name Robert Goldsmith rings a bell. He may have been a member at the same time. We stored our canoes in one of the arches just West of the groyne below East Street.

    By Peter Wood (27/10/2017)
  • Hi Peter. Robert Goldsmith may very well have been a member of the Brighton Canoe Club. My husband, Stan, was a member of Hove Canoe Club (run by Alan Duncan). He loved canoeing. He once canoed up the Adur from Shoreham to it’s source (he can’t remember where), ran seven miles pulling the canoe on a trolley, and then raced from Pulborough to Littlehampton on the Arun. He won first place in his class for that one. Exhausts me just thinking about it.

    By Janet Beal (27/10/2017)
  • Hi Janet, the name Alan Duncan rings a bell too. If he is the guy I am thinking of then he was president of the Brighton Canoeing Club while I was there. As I recall, he had a slight deformity on one of his arms which caused it to hang at an odd angle. That must have been a great trip up the Adur for your husband. I once did the trip from the old timber road bridge near the by-pass fly-over, out through the harbour & back along the coast to the Palace Pier. Nearly capsized & scared myself silly. I have had a look at the website for Gaybo Ltd but they don’t appear to have an e-mail address & I feel it’s a bit extreme phoning them from Australia, maybe I’ll try using snail mail, just have to learn how to write again!!

     

    By Peter Wood (30/10/2017)
  • Yes, it’s the same Alan Duncan. A childhood accident resulted in the injured arm. Never stopped him canoeing, though. I can’t find an email address for Gaybo either, I’m afraid. You could try Facebook. Best wishes.

    By Janet Beal (31/10/2017)
  • I remember the Goldsmith brothers well from the 60s and 70s. We were almost pioneers of the surfing movement back then and used to store our boards in the Brighton Swimming Club Arch underneath the ramp going down to the beach next to the Palace Pier. Some of the older guys also had canoes and we all used to mix together whenever there was surf. Some of those canoeists were crazy guys. I remember whenever the sea was really rough at high tide we would go body surfing and get dumped on the pebbles. Sometime there would be a few canoes out too riding the shorebreak which was really dangerous. These guys were either really brave or nuts. Trying to remember their names, Robert and Graham and Pat Gurr whom we used to call Gruff. Those were such great times. I still surf whenever I can even at 61. Who knew then that canoeing and surfing would reach the great heights of competition and commercial interest that we have today.

    By Peter Paolella (14/11/2017)
  • The Goldsmith brothers, Bob and Graham, started building roto-moulded plastic kayaks as Perception UK, now Perception Europe. I believe Graham’s son has taken over. I used to keep my kayak at Brighton Canoe Club, a great start for all I’ve done in kayaking since.

    By Nigel Foster (09/01/2018)
  • Wow Gaybo.  Totally forgot about them.  I bought a kayak from them in 1973 – I think they’d been repairing it, rather than making it – a Pavel Bone Funa, whitewater kayak that was perfect for sea-surfing by Palace Pier.

     

    By Marc Turner (23/03/2018)

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