52. Keith Lenham sent this memory

Keith Lenham keithlenham123@btinternet.com



Hello Ray,

A friend suggested that I look at all the reminiscences posted on your blog.

My name is Keith Lenham born in Lancing in 1945, my parents died when I was very young and my brother and I were brought up by an aunt and uncle in Grand Avenue.
I was educated at North Lancing Primary School and then on to Worthing Technical High School. My brother Les being older than me was educated at Worthing High School.

So much has already been written, a significant amount of which is very familiar to me, names, places shops etc with much of my youth spent in the Little Park, Lancing Manor and up on the Downs in the first and second clumps, the chalk pit and also the beach in summer.

Upon leaving school I took up an apprenticeship with F G Miles who at that time was located at River Bank works in Shoreham, Much fun was had working on the design of the Bristol Boxkite which Miles made for the film The Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines. Bob Bushby was also an apprentice at that time. I subsequently worked for several other companies based in the UK.

My brother Les went on to play cricket for Sussex as a professional, he is now of course retired and living in Eastbourne but I’m sure that he will remember Mike Reynolds and Ron Kerridge. His son Neil also played for Sussex and likewise, he lives in Eastbourne.

Horace Duke was mentioned in an article, this character I remember well, in his latter but still active years he was often seen on his Frances Barnet motorcycle around the area.

Just a snippet but hopefully informative


Regards
Keith

51. Mike Reynolds sends this great memory of happy times

In these times of Corina (sic) virus lockdowns, I found myself with time to browse the internet and found your website. I thought I would send you some of my memories of a Lancing childhood


My name is Michael (Mike) Reynolds and I was born in Lancing in June 1937. My parents Eric and Dorothy Reynolds,(I think a year or so before I was born), bought a new bungalow at 14 The Drive, South Lancing, and it was here that I lived with my family for the whole of my childhood. The family consisted of Mum and Dad, my Dad’s father Frank Reynolds (Pop), and my brother Geoff, four years older than me.


Before the war, Dad and Pop had set up in business with a bicycle shop in South Street (number 111 I think),- W.F. and E.F.Reynolds- but when WWII started, Dad was called up into the RAF, and my earliest memories of the shop have Pop in the workshop at the back mending the punctures, and Mum running the shop at the front. The other shops I can recall nearby were the World Stores, a grocery where the front of the counter was lined with glass-topped biscuit boxes, Surfleets Chemist on the corner of Penhill Road, Colbourns Haberdashers, Potter Bailies Grocers, Isteads Hardware shop, and on the other side of South Street was the Co-op, where the money was sent on overhead wires from the counter to the cashier.


I walked each day to South Lancing Primary School, just over the Southern Railways line. I suppose I would have started there in 1943, but I can’t remember the names of my teachers. I remember that afternoon school finished at about the same time that the “Steyning Flier”, one of the last steam trains to run through Lancing, would come puffing through. We boys would run quickly up and onto the footbridge over the railway line and wait for the Flier to pass underneath, shrouding us in a cloud of smoke and steam – we also tried to spit down the funnel!


As others of your correspondents have told, the war years made the beach a no-go zone, but with very little traffic on the roads, The Drive and Chester Avenue were our playgrounds. The horse-drawn cart of Mr Souter the milkman, Lisher’s coal cart, or the rag and bone man’s cart were about all the traffic there was!


I don’t have any clear memories of the air raid on April 25, 1941, in which two houses in The Drive were bombed, but the bombed sites became makeshift (and not very safe) playgrounds.


When I got a bit older I had my own bicycle, and I was able to range further. First, the Cubs, and then the 1st South Lancing Troop of the Boy Scouts kept me out of (most) mischief, and at age 11 in 1948 I started at Worthing High School for Boys in Broadwater.




NEW AI-generated podcast from Mike's Story

If any of the above jogs other memories, I can be contacted by email at reymor@bigpond.com