Guestbook

Thank you for your prompt despatch of the videos. I was particularly interested in Bexhill West Station, where as a lad 66 years ago, from age 9 to 16, I would collect the newspapers for my paper-round, meeting the train from London with the National newspapers, at about 0530am six days a week for 7 years. I walked on those original flagstones, through that main entrance and under that canopy onto the platforms every day. The papers would normally have been collected by the agents (W H Smith?) for delivery by van to all the newspaper shops, but by special arrangement, I was permitted to collect the papers for our shop early, as the van’s delivery was too late to finish my round before school. I would use my own bike as the shop didn’t have one, and strap one bundle to my bike carrier behind the saddle, and balance another bundle on my handlebars! Each bundle was too heavy for me to carry, and the porter or stationmaster would load me up, and the shopkeeper would catch me at the other end before I fell off! The shop was in the group of terraced housing on the right of your 1959 aerial photo of the station - only about half a mile and mostly downhill, and at that time of day, little other traffic! I lived at the lower half of Belle Hill (marked on your first map, now demolished, and the foundations of which now exist beneath the concrete of the replacement King Offa Way) and cycled through the goods yard straight to the station for the collection. Then it was not an industrial estate, just a goods yard, no metalled road, only a rough track which disappared into the cattle pens and coal dumps. I would have to dismount from my bike to cross some of the rail lines (not the passenger line, I hasten to add!). It was almost a straight line from my house and a lot shorter and quicker than by road. Regarding King Offa Way, my parents' property was in receipt of compulsory purchase order in late 1970s, and they moved to Reginald Road, which is the nearest road to Bexhill West as seen to the east in your 1959 aerial photo - quite coincidental! The newspaper shop was in the next parallel road - Windsor Road. The school shown in the same photo was where I attended as a junior - St Barnabas Junior Boys, now demolished and is a used car lot! I later attended the grammar school in Sidley, crossing the old Woodsgate Park bridge twice daily. Here there is now a new bridge spanning the new Bexhill/Hastings Link Road. The shop has ceased trading and has been returned to its original residential accomodation. As lads, the 17 arches as we called the viaduct, along with Pevensey marsh, was a favourite spot for fishing and bird watching - before the days of TV, PCs and mobile phones etc…they were GOOD days! Happy days! I well remember also the viaduct of 17 arches as we called them, before they blew them up. Best wishes, Phil Lambert