Story 8 from Marjorie Lisher

Marjorie Lisher

The Lisher Family
On the 5th of February 2002, I spoke to Marjorie Lisher about her memories of the Market Garden Business her father ran on the land east of the Southern Railway Carriage Works in Lancing.
Marjorie Lisher lived in Lancing all her life, she was born in 1912 in the same house at Salt Lake where her father Frank had been born, in what is now part of Freshbrook Road.
The small modern house where she now lives is on the site of the house her Grandfather lived in when he had set up the Lisher Coal Merchant business.
Frank Lisher set up a Market Garden business on the land surrounding his parent's home.
In 1929 he built himself a house right next door. It was named the Finches.
The Nursery site took up much of what is now Chester Avenue, The Crescent and Finches Close.
On the site, there were sixteen large commercial glasshouses as well as a packing shed and stables for their two horses.
The main produce was Chrysanthemums and Tomatoes, these were taken to the old Market at Brighton via the coast road by horse-drawn van.
Sometimes this trip was made three times a week. Frank Lisher would set off at 8pm in the evening so the produce would be on the market stalls first thing the next morning.
Frank's daughter Marjorie took an active part in the family business, she remembers they also grew runner beans and mushrooms, these did not go to Brighton but were packed onto the train and sent to Covent Garden or Brentford Market.
She recalls that horse manure required for soil improvement used to come by train from racing stables to the goods yard of the railway. There it attracted a great number of rats which became a daily hazard.
To help them to be as self-sufficient as possible the family also kept chickens, pigs and rabbits. It was not wise for the younger members of the family to grow attached to the animals because they would often be on the menu.
One of Frank's two brothers joined his father in the Coal business the other was involved in the local Dairy