MICHAEL CAWTE - MORE MEMORIES OF A SMALL BOY LIVING IN NEWHAVEN
1943/46
By Michael Cawte
More Memories of a Small Boy living in Newhaven 1943/46
I have mentioned living in my grandmother’s house for these 3 years. Her name was Ada Robinson. My grandfather who I don’t remember was, I believe, a steward on the Dieppe ferry. My mother later told me that my first trip abroad was to Dieppe in 1939. I was 3 years old so can’t confirm it! Did Southern Railway employees get cheap fares? My grandmother had sepia photos of soldiers who were billeted in the house during the first world war. I can’t imagine what sort of landlady she was but being a Queen Alexandra nurse she could at least have dealt with any cuts or bruises.
Coming back to my own memories, running errands was an everyday occurence for any small child. There was the shop across the road, and fish and chips from the chip shop in Elphick Road. A loaf (hot) from the bakers in the same road was 4d if I remember rightly. There were steps up to door of the baker’s but beside the shop was a long flight of steps downward to the road below. Fetching live fish in from the fishmongers cart was another chore. But mostly we were free to roam. We wandered as far as the beach inside the breakwater and learnt to swim there, jumping off the steps at high tide. Playing ‘chicken’ along the breakwater when rough seas thumped against the back and then cascaded over was exciting and no doubt dangerous. Your subscribers have already mentioned this and the other dodgy practice of sliding down the slingrods under Denton bridge and walking across the pipe before climbing up again. If the tide was in the water lapped against the pipe and if it was out you faced a drop into a very unappetisingly muddy river bottom! We did safe things of course. There were the swings in the corner of the rec., a glass of Vimto for a penny or so in a little shop in Bridge Street, going to the cinema, sometimes asking an adult to take us in if the film was unsuitable for kids. I can’t believe we did that! Fishing was always popular, sometimes off the breakwater, under the swing bridge, off the wooden jetties along the Lewes Road river bank and always with hand lines. A few whiting and lots of little crabs was the best we could do except when we ventured to Piddinghoe ponds where with homemade rods were we might get the odd roach.
We made wooden planes with penknives and I can remember once or twice being taken by my mother to Brighton and being bought an Airfix balsawood model plane to make. Covering the airframe with some sort of special paper and coping with sticky fingers from the adhesive are my abiding memories. Saturday morning cinema in Lewes was a must. Tarzan was favourite with The Lone Ranger a close second. The whole cinema cheered when the goodies were beating the baddies. We went to Lewes on the train and trains were of interest because we collected engine numbers with the help of Ian Allen books. Merchant Navy, West Country, and Battle of Britain class locos were great catches. We had a few Dinky toys but they were hard to come by. There was a little shop on the corner of Norman Rd? and Brighton Rd which now and again had some in. I remember a shop window, perhaps in Norman Rd, which featured a model elephant with moving trunk. Was it a Fremlins Ale advert? We admired the Southdown Bedford Duple single decker buses, fascinated by the bucket dredger at work, and also the shearlegs, puzzled by the weather cones on the corner of the harbour and the beach area. Funny how these things stick in one’s mind. We were’nt dressed like the fashion kids of today. In my case it was black lace-up boots complete with as many studs or segs as could be fitted (to facilitate sliding down pavements ), long socks down round the ankles, short trousers, a shirt and jerkin of some sort. I don’t think adults were much concerned with fashion either. We did find time for school. Mr. Glenister and Miss Wheatley come to mind, but apart from playing marbles and cigarette cards against the wall I have no recollection of the lessons. Shape of things to come perhaps. I have a sudden memory of boils and hot poultices. Sadism.
The war impinged on all our lives albeit in rather exciting way for us kids. We knew what it was all about and had, lets say, strong feelings regarding the other side. Being pulled out of bed when the air-raid sounded to crawl into the Morrison shelter was fairly common. Then back to bed with the all-clear. We knew the sound of German bombers because their Junkers Jumo engines made a very distinctive ‘thrumming’ sound. Sometimes while out for the day we would watch an encounter between the RAF and Luftwaffe. I particularly remember the incident referred to by another contributor where a Spitfire, fatally damaged by it’s tangle with a doodlebug, came low over the town, with the pilot struggling to open the canopy, and crashed just beyond the town, saving a lot of lives in the process no doubt. I seem to remember there was a searchlight positioned on the landward end of the breakwater. There was a small exhibition of captured German bits and pieces in a (empty) shop at one point .I recall a large army motorbike and an inflatable dinghy. At another time there was an E-boat tied up in the harbour. Preparations for D-Day were very evident by the convoys of allied army vehicles coming down Lewes Rd. Tracked vehicles churning up the road surface, bren gun carriers, Bedford, Chevrolet, and Reo trucks, US soldiers with sweets and chewing gum, and, highly prized by us, Canadian Sweet Caporal cardboard cigarette packs with silhouettes in three elevations of enemy planes on the back. There was a rumour that Montgomery was in the town one day but perhaps that was his double!
Well that’s my somewhat disjointed memories finished with. There may well be inaccuracies and errors. Put that down to advancing years.