Lancing Village Memories

Hear Malcolm's Story Those Were The Days My Friends . . Malcolm G Hill's Memoirs of Lancing Life 1947-1963 Introduction and Early Origins Like many of the people whose reminiscences of Lancing life appear here, I too came across this fascinating website by pure chance whilst trawling references on the internet to the Lancing/Sompting/Worthing area. So I trust my few recollections of growing up there will prompt further reflections among those of us scattered around the globe, and of course, those of you still resident in the area, and also prompt others to write accounts of our early lives and even perhaps engage in mutual correspondence whilst we still have time before our all too soon inevitable demise. My name is Malcolm Gerald Hill. I was born in 1940, not in Lancing actually but in Hayes, Middlesex, but within a few weeks of my birth was taken to live with my grandmother, Mrs Gertrude Perkins at her home in First Avenue, Lancing on account of my mother's premature deat...

  Alan Marshall said... Hello from Lancing to Alan Marshall in Tasmania. Thank you for sharing these wonderful memories. I have formatted your text with subheadings and corrected some punctuation to make it easier to read. School Days David, thanks for all those wonderful memories you have brought back to me. I am somewhat younger than yourself (I was born in 1941), but I do remember the old schoolroom, and Mrs Thomas used to teach there. The name Miss Allman, I think she became Mrs Horne. At that age, I had no idea of people getting married and changing their name! Michael Ayling was in my class at school. I attended there from about 1946 to 1952. The "new" dining room and kitchen were built at the top northern side of the playground, close to the bicycle shed. I will always remember the horrible smell of grease and food waste oozing out of the waste pipe from the kitchen, and that horrible minced meat, hard potatoes, and spinach! It was an awful taste for a 7 or 8-year-old....

Hear the story Early School Days at South Lancing I was born in Lancing and attended South Lancing Junior School, where the Headmistress was Miss Cates. I didn't dislike school, but the only thing that bothered me was my eyesight. My desk was always in the fron,t and then I couldn't always see the small writing on the blackboard. Wartime Memories and Family Fundraising I do remember some very cold winters with the school milk popping out of the bottles, so that we tried to thaw them out on the school hot pipes. In that freezing weather, we all wore homemade clothes, which luckily our mother could always manage. She was very good at knitting and sewing, so that in 1944 my sisters: Averill, Frieda and Veronica Gascoyne, our cousin Peter Voice and his friend Derek Denyer went out to sell tea cosies, bed socks, kettle holders and anything Mother had made to raise the princely sum of £21 for the Red Cross. Anything over went to the hospital. A newspaper cutting of 1944 has a phot...

Dear Ray, [Re:] Post 15 Alan John Marshall Hear Gary's Story I have just found your website and was very interested in Alan's Post, particularly regarding his experiences at the South Lancing Primary School, which I attended for a short time in the immediate post-war period. The headmistress was Miss Birch, who was a strict disciplinarian and who wasn't averse to administering the cane to any pupils who committed a misdemeanour. My situation was a bit special as my aunt, known as Miss Gardner, was a teacher at the school, which I interpreted as meaning the school rules didn't apply to me! One day, I climbed on top of the grassy air-raid shelters which as Alan rightly pointed out, were strictly out of bounds. I was duly dragged off to face Miss Birch, from whom I got a severe reprimand from her, culminating in her bringing her cane down on the arm of a rather old upholstered chair, which resulted in a cloud of dust flying into the air. My response to her asking me what I...

Hear Jenny's story Jenny writes... I have just read all the memories of people on your website. Early Life in Lancing I was born in Lancing in 1947 at 8 Tower Road. My Dad used to work for Frank Lisher and, in fact, looked after the shire horses referred to in one of George Forrest’s comments. My sisters (of which there were 4) used to go to the stables to watch the horses being fed or mucked out, or get ready to go out. My dad loved these horses dearly, and whilst I don’t recall, he must have been heartbroken when he did not look after them any more. School Days I went to South Lancing School, both infants and juniors and then on to Irene Ave for one year and then on to Boundstone Comprehensive when it was brand new. Oh, how privileged we did feel with that school. I had Mr Jones as my first form teacher, and he said to me, “Are there more of you Charmans at home?” as apparently, he knew the rest of the family. I stopped on for an extra year to do GCE and was sad to leave the...