Chapter 1: The Sunday Child
I was born on Sunday, 25th May 1958, in the maternity unit of Southlands Hospital, Shoreham. While much of the old site was cleared for housing around 2006, the modern hospital still dominates the area. Even now, some of the older structures remain; the former nurses' dormitories, for instance, were spared demolition and continue to serve the NHS as departmental offices and units.
The building where my life began was a physical link to a much grimmer period of local history. Long before it became a place of modern medicine, it was the Steyning Union Workhouse. Established under the 1834 Poor Law, it was designed as a place of last resort. Its flint walls were meant to discourage the "undeserving" poor, though in reality, it became the only refuge for the elderly, the infirm, and the destitute of the district.
There is a bittersweet irony in my arrival there. Decades before I was born, that same institution had been the final stop for my paternal great-grandmother. She ended her days within those workhouse walls, passing away from the shock of a domestic fire at her home. I will explore her story more deeply later in this history, but it is a heavy thought to realise that the place of my birth was also the place of her passing.
By 1958, the harshness of the workhouse had faded into the clinical routine of a busy maternity ward. But as a child of the late fifties, I was born into a world that was still very much transitioning from the shadows of the Victorian era into the modern age.
Chapter 2: First Steps and Early Horizons
My first introduction to the world beyond Shoreham came in 1959. I was barely a year old, and though I have no personal memory of the event, the photograph preserves the moment perfectly.
The First Holiday: Westward Ho!
We travelled to Westward Ho! in North Devon to visit my mother’s Uncle and Aunt, Eva and Maurice Field. This connection came through my maternal grandmother, Sarah Jane, and her second marriage to Henry John Field. Sarah Jane had been widowed young when her first husband, Walter Edwin Errett, passed away at the age of only 38.
Visiting the Fields’ guest house was my first experience of the British seaside—a tradition that would become a staple of childhood, though this inaugural trip was a far cry from the more active holidays that followed.
Gemini sai
Rural Interludes
By roughly 1962, the setting changed from the Devon coast to the rustic surroundings of my paternal grandfather’s poultry farm. By then, I was a sturdy four-year-old, old enough to begin taking in the sights and smells of the farm.
The image of me crouching among the white hens captures that early childhood sense of wonder. It was a world of outbuildings and the constant bustle of the birds—a stark contrast to the guest house in Westward Ho!. These two settings represented the different branches of my family: one rooted in the service and hospitality of the coast, the other in the steady, practical rhythm of the land.
Chapter 3: The Garden at Fairfield Gardens
While the wider world of 1959 and 1962 is captured in photographs, my day-to-day life at Fairfield Gardens remains in my mind as a series of vivid, sensory snapshots. To a five-year-old, the back garden was a vast kingdom.
The Tricycle and the Path
I clearly remember my three-wheeled tricycle; it was my pride and joy. I spent hours pedalling it around the path that bordered the central lawn. In my memory, that loop felt like a grand circuit. Beyond the lawn lay the domain of my father: his vegetable plot. One particular post in that area was draped in a Honeysuckle plant. It was a magnet for bees and butterflies—creatures that seemed so much more plentiful in the early sixties than they do today.
Dad also grew rows of Sweet Peas. I can still recall the vibrant colours and their delicate scent, grown specifically so Mum could cut them and bring a bit of the garden indoors to brighten the house.
Digging and Toy Cars
The garden wasn't just for looking at; it was for working. I remember once digging a hole so significant—at least in my eyes—that it actually undercut the central path dividing the vegetable plots. The dry, fine earth of that patch became the perfect landscape for my toy cars. I would spend ages lost in a world of miniature roads and excavations in the Sussex soil.
The Birthday Tea
Not every memory of the garden is a happy one, though. I recall a birthday tea held out there, complete with the traditional spread of sandwiches and cake. Mum had invited a young girl from further down the road whom I had befriended. However, something upset her—the cause long forgotten—and she suddenly bolted, running all the way home. I never saw her again, at least not in the context of friendship. We may have crossed paths later at school, but that afternoon in the garden was the end of our brief childhood alliance.
Chapter 4: The Garden and the Great Freeze
While the garden at Fairfield Gardens was usually a place of honeysuckle and summer tea parties, the winter of 1962/63 transformed it into an alien landscape. I was only four or five at the time, but the sheer scale of the "Big Freeze" left a lasting impression.
The Winter of 62/63
The snow began on Boxing Day and essentially didn't leave us until March. Living on a hill in Portslade, the geography worked against us; the roads became treacherous, icy slopes.
The Driveway: I have a mental image of the sheer effort required to clear the driveway. The snow was shovelled into great white walls just to create a narrow path for the car.
The Commute: My father worked in Brighton, and I often wonder how he managed the journey. If the car couldn't handle the incline of the hill, he likely would have walked the distance, tramping through the deep drifts to ensure he reached his place of work.
The Snowman: Like every child that winter, the "inevitable snowman" made an appearance in our garden, standing guard over a buried vegetable plot where Dad’s sweet peas usually grew.
Starting School
As the thaw finally arrived in 1963, I began my school days. It was a time of transition, moving from the private world of my tricycle and the "dry earth" of the garden into the wider social world of Portslade. These were the final few years of our life at Fairfield Gardens before the move that would define much of my youth: the shift to Victoria Road in 1966.
Chapter 4: School Days and the Big Freeze
While the winter of 1962/63 was famously harsh, it provided me with a unique way to get to school. I have a vivid memory of being allowed to sit on our little wooden sledge, held securely as we glided carefully down the hill from Fairfield Gardens. We would reach the bottom at Highlands Road, turn right, and head towards a pathway that cut across what was then a market garden field, bordered on both sides by chain-link fencing.
St Nicolas Infants: 'Chimneys'
That path led us down to the west side of Locks Hill, where I began my education at St Nicolas Infants. The school was known locally as 'Chimneys' due to the tall, distinctive stacks connected to the small coal-burning stoves that heated each classroom. After a year, I progressed to the main infants' building on the east side of Locks Hill at the corner of Southern Cross. I can still feel the bite of those cold mornings, standing on the frosted ground waiting to be led into class.
St Nicolas Juniors and Hannah Brackenbury
The next step was St Nicolas Juniors, located right next door. This was an older, flint-faced building, famously provided years earlier through a generous donation from the wealthy benefactor Hannah Brackenbury. The architecture was typical of its era:
The Windows: The rooms had high windows that let in plenty of light but were far beyond our reach. They had to be opened using a long pole with a hook on the end; being assigned "window duty" was a significant responsibility for a child.
The Classrooms: Large dividing screens separated the rooms, which were drawn back for morning assembly and the singing of hymns. We would follow the lyrics from a large song sheet hung over an easel.
School Milk: At break time, we received our small bottles of milk, drunk through paper straws. In the winter months, the milk would often be frozen solid and had to be placed by the side of the stove to defrost before we could drink it.
Hannah Brackenbury was a Victorian philanthropist and multi-millionaire whose wealth and generosity left a permanent mark on the landscape of Portslade.
Inherited Fortune
Her vast fortune, estimated at around £30 million in Victorian terms, was largely inherited from her brother, James Brackenbury.
James had made a fortune in the railway industry before his untimely death at the age of 50. Hannah lived in some splendour in Adelaide Crescent, Hove, and although she never actually lived in Portslade herself, she developed a close connection to the area, likely through her friendship with the vicar of St Nicolas Church. The St Nicolas Connection
Her contribution to the local community was significant and focused on the welfare of those she termed the "labouring, manufacturing and other poorer classes".
The Schools: In 1871, she purchased land on Locks Hill and donated the funds to construct the new school buildings that became St Nicolas Schools.
The original flint-faced Gothic building, designed by architect Edmund Evan Scott, was officially opened on 25th May 1872—coincidentally, the same day and month as my own birthday. The Brackenbury Chapel: She also financed the construction of the Brackenbury Chapel at the north-west corner of St Nicolas Church. This is where the family vault is located and where she was eventually buried following her death on 28th February 1873.
Sellaby House: To the rear of the school, she built Sellaby House in the 1870s for her devoted companion and housekeeper, Alice King.
Wider Philanthropy
Her generosity extended far beyond Sussex. She was a major benefactor for educational causes, famously donating at least £20,000 to Balliol College, Oxford, to fund new buildings and scholarships in law and medicine.
She chose Balliol due to a belief in an ancestral link between her family and the Balliol family. Today, her legacy continues through the Brackenbury Primary School, which was renamed in 2013 to honour her after pupils at the school rediscovered her story through a research project.
Chapter 4: Victoria Road and the Crossing
By 1967, our family had outgrown the bungalow at 47 Fairfield Gardens. I hadn't realised it then, but Mum was expecting another child. With an older brother and sister already sharing a single room with me, the walls were closing in. Dad took us to view a few properties—including one with a tempting garden full of fruit trees—but he ultimately chose 108 Victoria Road. It was a three-bedroom house right by the park, offering the space a growing family desperately needed.
In our new home, my sister, then entering her teens, claimed the small box room. I shared the larger bedroom with my older brother, who was eight years my senior. When my new baby brother arrived and eventually outgrew his cot, we installed bunk beds; I took the top bunk, and he took the lower.
The Saturday Exception
Life in Portslade followed a comfortable rhythm, usually dictated by my friendship with Keith. We had been "street kids" together back at Fairfield Gardens, and despite my move, we kept a strict routine: every other Tuesday I would walk to his house for tea, and on alternate weeks, he would come to mine.
However, the event that changed everything occurred on Saturday, 17th August 1968. Being the height of the summer holidays, our rigid Tuesday schedule had given way to a weekend visit. I left Keith’s around 7:30 PM. As the evening light turned golden and thin, I headed south down Foredown Drive toward the junction with Old Shoreham Road.
The Invisible Hazard
The Old Shoreham Road of 1968 was a narrower, two-lane roadway. At the junction sat a standard Zebra crossing, marked only by the amber pulse of Belisha beacons. There were no red-amber-green lights to stop the traffic.
I reached the kerb and waited. A driver heading toward Brighton slowed to a halt and waved me across. I stepped out, trusting that hand. What I couldn't see in the fading light was that the car was towing a "wreck" of a Hillman. This second car had no engine running and no lights; the tow rope between them was virtually invisible in the dusk. I walked directly into the path of that rope.
Fifty Yards on the Tarmac
I was snagged by the rope and dragged. The driver of the towed car didn't realise I was caught, and I was pulled along the road for approximately fifty yards. This horrific friction against the road surface was the cause of my most lasting injury; the sliding impact abraded the back of my head down to the bone, leaving a permanent bald patch I still carry today. Witnesses later said the towed car was so rusty it "crumbled" when they tried to lift it off me.
Recovery and Red Sweets
The aftermath is a series of surreal flashes: the ambulance ride to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, a fractured leg, a torn eyebrow, and a hairline skull fracture. I spent two weeks at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital on Dyke Road. I remember the "frame tent" over my bed to protect my plaster cast and Mum visiting with bags of Bitter Cherry boiled sweets. We spent hours playing "Sevens" with a deck of cards before I was moved to the Loggia sun terrace to learn how to use wooden crutches.
Returning to Locks Hill
At first, school friends brought my schoolwork to the house—mostly mathematics, if I recall—but soon I began attending for half days before eventually returning full-time. I must admit, I rather enjoyed the extra attention. With my right leg heavily plastered and my new aluminium crutches, I became something of a local celebrity. I soon became surprisingly agile, navigating the steep topography that gave the hill its name.
Years later, the circle closed when I shared this story on a local history group. A man who had lived near the park library in 1968 remembered the sirens and the police cars from that very evening. It was a grounding moment to realise that while I was in the back of that ambulance, the neighbourhood had been watching, and they hadn't forgotten.
Chapter 5: Origins on the Hill
Before the move to Victoria Road, and even before my own birth in 1958, my parents' lives were already intersecting on the hilly estates of Southwick.
A Romance on the Downs
My father grew up moving through various houses as my grandfather’s clothing and drapery business expanded, eventually settling on Overhill. It was a location that offered easy access to the sprawling Southwick Downs. On those hills, Dad would walk the family dog, unaware that just a few hundred yards down the road, my future mother was doing exactly the same.
Over time, these chance encounters on the Downs blossomed into a romance. They were married in 1948, entering a post-war Britain where housing was notoriously scarce.
Portland Road and the Transition
With no home of their own, they were forced into a shared living arrangement in a house my grandfather owned on Portland Road. They shared the space with Dad’s sister, Marguerite, and her new husband, Dennis. Living under the same roof as newly-weds—and undoubtedly paying a "fair rent" to my grandfather for the privilege—must have been a test of patience.
The breakthrough came in 1950. With their first child on the way, they secured a brand-new, two-bedroom bungalow at 47 Fairfield Gardens. At that time, the area was a fresh development, a far cry from the crowded family homes they had both left behind—Dad coming from a family of four children, and Mum from a household of three sisters and a brother.
That bungalow represented their first true independence. It was the place where they would raise my older brother and sister, and where—eight years after they first turned the key in the lock—I would eventually join the family.
The Brighton Connection
While my maternal roots reach into the rural landscapes of Hampshire and Kent, it is the paternal line that draws me back toward the urban energy of the coast and the capital. My history was being written in the commercial bustle of Brighton, but its ink was forged much earlier—in the workshops of London and the expanding streets of Leicester. It is here, through the Hamblet(t) name, that a story of craftsmanship and precision truly begins.".
The Patriarch's Progress
My paternal grandfather was an industrious man who built a successful business in Brighton. His professional success dictated the family's geography; as the business grew, so did the quality of their housing. They moved through several houses in Hove before eventually settling in Southwick. It was during their time at Overhill that the "dog-walking romance" between my parents began.
The Portland Road 'Privilege'
By the time my parents married in 1948, my grandfather’s influence was well-established. He owned a property on Portland Road, and it was here that my parents were "allowed" to start their married life. They didn't have the house to themselves, though; they shared it with Dad's sister, Marguerite, and her husband, Dennis The same house that Marguerite had grown up in years earlier. It was the house where Sidney and Annie had lived after moving out of Upper Lewes Road around 1930 and raised their own family.
While it was a roof over their heads in a time of housing shortages, it came at the cost of both privacy and a "fair rent" paid back into the family business. This shared living arrangement undoubtedly fuelled the desire for the independence they finally found at Fairfield Gardens in around 1950.
While my brothers and sister eventually moved on from Victoria Road, I remained there until 1987. That was the year I married Jan, and we moved into a one-bedroom, ground-floor flat in Lancing called The Willows. It was aptly named for the two large willow trees at the roadside—sadly, they are now gone. We chose that area as a sensible middle ground; it kept us close to our parents in Portslade, while providing a convenient commute for my work and for Jan’s job in Durrington.
By this time, I had been steadily building my specialised gardening service, focusing on apartment buildings in Hove alongside some private contracts. It was a busy period, particularly as I offered seasonal bedding plant displays for both spring and summer. This involved sourcing high-quality stock from wholesale nurseries and various retail garden centres.
Eastwood's at Ditchling became my primary supplier for a time, though I later switched to a smaller grower at Dappers Lane, near Poynings. They provided a more bespoke service, taking my specific orders and growing the plants so they were ready for collection by early June. My displays relied on the classic staples of the era: pelargoniums, petunias, lobelia, alyssum, and pansies.
As the business grew, I also sourced plants from other local suppliers, such as Country Fayre at Durrington. For soil health, which was vital for the fertility of the various gardens I maintained, I relied on a small business called Debellis Brothers. I believe the owner was Italian; he was a specialist in his craft.
From him, I would collect bags of mushroom compost to improve the soil, but he also produced his own John Innes compost. This was a precise blend of soil and sedge peat with added fertiliser. I found this mixture particularly effective, using it for filling large plant pots and as a high-quality topdressing for lawns across my various jobs.
Reaching Peak Capacity in Hove
The reputation of my gardening service continued to spread through word of mouth, particularly among the apartment blocks in Hove. Eventually, the workload grew until I reached the absolute maximum I could cope with. Between the seasonal bedding displays, the regular maintenance, and the constant sourcing of materials from Debellis Brothers and Country Fayre, my schedule was completely full.
Managing these various jobs required a high level of organisation. I was often balancing the timing of the John Innes topdressing for lawns with the early June collection of bespoke plants from Dappers Lane. It was a rewarding but demanding period of my life, as I provided a consistent, high-standard service to my clients while navigating the logistics of being a sole trader across the Portslade and Hove area.
Managing the Prestige Portfolios of Hove
At my peak, I was managing the gardens of some of the most prominent apartment buildings in Hove. My round included Wilbury Lodge on Eaton Road, The Drive Lodge in The Drive, and the expansive grounds of Coombe Lea. I also held the contracts for No. 4 Grand Avenue, Kings Gardens, Ashley Court, and Warnham Court in Grand Avenue. Beyond these, there were Flag Court and Fairlawns on the Kingsway.
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| Ashley Court in early summer with the Salt tolerant Yucca plants and bedding pelargoniums |
These were all prestige positions to have, and they required a consistently high standard of care. While I did not topdress every single lawn, I used the John Innes blend from Debellis Brothers to improve the quality where it was most needed. The gardens always looked their best immediately after mowing, with the seasonal bedding from Dappers Lane adding the necessary colour.
However, maintaining such a vast portfolio to that standard was exhausting. It was a relentless cycle of physical labour, and eventually, the sheer volume of work began to take a toll on my health.
Transitioning to a Local Pace
I had to get into Hove almost every day, and it was a blessing that I could call in to my mother’s and father’s home in Portslade at lunchtime for a sandwich, a cup of tea, and a short rest. However, in time, the physical demands and the travel took their toll. I began to lose some of the work in Hove that I simply couldn't keep up with, but I had already begun to explore opportunities closer to home in Lancing.
As the Hove contracts reduced, I stepped up my work within the village. These were generally smaller apartment buildings that didn't require the intense, twice-yearly planting cycles of spring and autumn. Eventually, I stopped all the work in Hove entirely, maintaining only the sites in Lancing.
This shift allowed me to continue working for several more years. By my early sixties, I had finished work and began to draw on a pension I had carefully saved for. It provided the security I needed to keep contributing to the domestic bills, just as I had done throughout my working life.
Looking back, the shift from the high-pressure "prestige" contracts of Hove to the smaller, more manageable gardens in Lancing was a necessary and welcome change. While I missed the daily lunchtime "pit-stops" at my parents' home in Portslade for a sandwich and a cup of tea, the reduced travel allowed me to focus my remaining energy on the village where I lived.
There was a quiet satisfaction in maintaining the grounds of these smaller apartment blocks without the relentless demand of the large-scale spring and autumn planting cycles. It allowed me to stay active in the trade I loved for several more years, right up until my early sixties.
Transitioning into retirement and drawing on the pension I had carefully set aside felt like the natural conclusion to a long career. It provided the security to keep on top of the domestic bills, just as I had always done, while finally giving my health the rest it required. I had moved from the steep topography of Locks Hill as a boy to the coastal flats of Lancing as a man, and I was content to finally hang up my gardening tools in the village I called home.
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