Craven Vale Community Association

Heritage Lottery Project Pride of our Valley

Interview with Carol Interviewed by Ruth -5th February 2013. R. Right Carol, do you remember the year you moved in to Craven Vale? C. 1953. R. Right, and can you tell us a little about where you were living before and why your family chose to move in to Craven Vale? C. We lived in Woodingdean in a prefab but my dad worked for the post office and he had to start work early in the morning, so he had to walk from Woodingdean to North Road and the doctor said that he couldnt do it so thats why the council rehoused us down here. R. Oh, thats quite good, isnt it. Very caring council. C. After a lot of hooing and haaing with the doctor, mind you, because he had something wrong with his back and having to walk all around the racecourse in all weathers at 4 oclock in the morning was not good. R. No, absolutely not, so who were the members of your family who were around when you moved in here. C. There was mum, dad, me, my sister, my sister in law, my brother was away. They got married from here just after we moved. My brother was in the navy and was away so she lived with us. R. Oh, right. Full household then. C. Yes. R. And what were your first impressions of Craven Vale. That must be difficult to remember, but. C. It is difficult to remember, there was lots of building going on and we played on building sites. As people moved in it got better because when we first moved in there was only three families. Not for long, but originally. So, yeah, I remember it as a nice place to be. Very open spaces to where we were in Woodingdean and bigger. R. Oh, lovely. And do you remember the kind of heating that was here when you moved in. C. Yeah, we had a coal fire, with a gas poker and that was it. I think we had some electric heaters that we had upstairs when it was really cold and some calor gas heaters; we had a couple of those. R. So was that for the hot water? C. No, for the hot water we had the immersion heater. R. We take so many household appliances for granted nowadays dont we? Can you remember any of the household appliances your mother would have had in those days.

C. She had a twin tub washing machine with a mangle on it. I remember that. We had some sort of fridge but not a freezer, just a fridge. A cooker obviously, but thats about all we had. R. A vacuum cleaner? C. No, because in those days you didnt have the carpets did you, you had lino. I always remember we had lino with a carpet square in the middle. R. And you had to take it outside and hit it. C. Yeah. But to start with we only had lino. R. Right. Craven Vale is built on a hill and there are lot of steps and slopes everywhere. Has this ever been a problem for you, or do you remember it ever being a problem for your mum? C. No, not really the steps were here when we came so not a problem. Yes, walking up the hill was a problem but as far as the steps were concerned, no. My mum and dad were younger and we were younger so you didnt think about hills, you just got on with it, didnt you? R. True. When Craven Vale was built, not many people had a car; did your family have one? C. No, not to start with, I must have been about 15 before we had a car. Dad worked for the post office so he drove a car and when we need to go somewhere, we hired a car. R. So did you use the buses? C. Yeah. Everyone got together and campaigned to get the busses up here. I can remember mum doing that. Everyone got together, signed petitions to get the buses up here because we had no buses, only in Freshfield Road, then. R. I wondered how that happened. C. I remember some sort of petition but I dont remember exactly how it all happened. I expect we were up here a couple of years before the buses started running. My nephew was born here and he was about two before the buses were there, and he is about ten years younger than me, so it must have been about then. R. And what do you think of the bus service now? C. Rubbish! No, I suppose its not too bad but when Im coming home from work in the evening there always seem to be other buses never the number 2. When it is light I dont mind getting the 81 and cutting down, but when its dark I dont (like it). If there is someone on the bus that I know it is different. I suppose it is not bad really. Basically they run to time mostly, dont they. R. The way people communicate has changed over the years, e.g. letters telephones, things like that. Do you remember how people communicated years ago? C. Letters really, because we didnt have a phone for years. My dad was to do with the boxing in Sussex, the amateur boxing, and he ran a boxing club and if he had a show and had to do the matching for a show he had to take all his paperwork to the bottom of Down Terrace. That was the nearest phone box and he used to go down there and get into the phone box and have papers everywhere and do the matching from there. It was years 2

before we got a phone and in the end he and my mum spoke about it and decided they needed a phone for him doing that. But it was letters more than anything. R. Do you remember how well you were supplied with telephone boxes? C. Well we didnt have any phone boxes down here. The bottom of Down Terrace was the one that we had to go to and then, I suppose, as more people got on to the estate there was one down on Craven Road, then one right at the top of the road and one right down at the bottom of the road. R. Right, so you had a long walk if you wanted to make a phone call. And what sort of changes have you noticed about the way people communicate nowadays. C. Well, now its all computers and that isnt it, emails telephones, mobiles. I mean, Ive got a laptop. Ive got a mobile. Its all so different you very rarely write letters. Some people do but I think the majority of people dont write letters like the used to. It was the only way. Now postage is so expensive and people think Ill make a phone call. R. Do you remember the old prams and pushchairs of the 50s 60s and 70s. C. My sister in law, for my nephew, had one of those big Silver Cross ones. We used to have to push it up the hill. Yes, I remember those. You didnt have the fold up buggies like you do now do you? My sister had two children but her eldest on was disabled so they had a Silver Cross twin pushchair. That was heavy! To get on and off the buses! Nothing like the ones they have nowadays. R. What do you remember about the schools? Obviously you went to school when you were living around here. C. I went to St Lukes. I think I had about a year in the infants and then the juniors. And then I went to Queens Park senior. As far as I was concerned they were all right. I didnt do badly; I got on all right. R. By the sound of it most children from the estate went down to St Lukes anyway, didnt they? C. Yeah, well that was it. You had to go within your catchment area as you do now and St Lukes was the nearest one. And Queens Park was the senior unless you passed your 11 plus and went to Varndean or somewhere like that, but I wasnt that clever. R. Where did you play as a child, once you moved here? C. Well. All round on the estate really, obviously while the buildings were going up it was a bit dangerous although you dont think of danger when you were a kid you just do. I can remember when they were building these flats next door and they had planks and things, for the wheelbarrows, going across the steps and down the steps. I remember twisting my ankle on them, quite badly falling through the boards. Also in those days you could play on the road. We had roller skates and we used to come right round from Tilgate Place to Craven Road, on roller skates and things like that because there wasnt the traffic. You couldnt do it now (although I think they do) but there wasnt the traffic so I dont think parents worried about children playing go outside then. We did used to have kids in the back garden to play but we just played around outside and that was it. There was always something to do. 3

R. Do you think things are different for children nowadays? C, Yes, I do. I dont think they get the enjoyment out of the little things that we did. They have got to have the gadgets and things like that. And I think where we used to amuse ourselves I think the kids today wouldnt amuse themselves like we did. Girls played with their dolls and boys with their cars but I dont think they do that now; they want all of these high tech things. R. If someone in the family wasnt well where did you have to go for chemist or doctors or hospital? C. Chemist was at the top of Islingwood Road. Our doctor was round at Queens Park. It was in a road between the road that goes round Queens Park and Queens Park. That was our doctor, and the hospital was the Sussex County. And the chemist was where Flynns is now at the top of Islingwood Road. R. Can you tell us about where your mother went shopping or you as a child? C. Islingwood Road was where we did most of the shopping. It was quite a treat if we went to Western road. We used to go down to the Market and on the trolley buses as it was then and do the shopping in Sydney Street, as it was then and all that. The butchers in Sydney Street, we used to go to. And then we used to get the 2 (bus) home. R. Did you ever use the local shops? Were there local shops? C. There wasnt to start with. I remember the shops coming there. I cant tell you when they came, but no, we didnt, because mum used to do a weekly shop. R. Was it easy to find work in the 50s or 60s or 70s? C. Yes I think it must have been. Dad worked on the post office. Thats the only job he had and I got a job quite easy. I left school in July August time and started work in September or October. I dont think it was difficult to get a job then. I think it is more difficult to get a job these days than it was then. Well, I know its more difficult for them to get a job these days. R. Right. Was there crime around here when you were a child? C. I dont ever remember it because it was very rare that mum was out when we came home from school. It was not known. But she used to leave a key or something under a pot, and we used to go out and leave our windows open where you couldnt do that now. I dont remember any crime like somebody breaking into your house or anything. R. So you felt fairly safe in those days? C. Oh, yes. R. Do you feel safe now? C. Not like I did then but I think that comes with age as well. I think you get more aware of things as you get older. I dont like it at night when I have to come home in the dark (details not included) There are people who hang around and I dont feel as safe as I did. R. And what do you think of the relationship with the police on the estate.

C. I think its quite good but, being out sometimes in the day (details not included), Im not always here to see them. R. What was it like to be part of the community in Craven Vale, years ago? C. Good. I dont say they organised anything as such. We didnt have street parties as such but then we werent living here at the time of the Coronation. R. What about bonfire night and things like that. C. Yeah, I think everybody had their own individual bonfires. They always had a big bonfire up at the Race Hill but I think we all had our individual fireworks and we all looked at everybody elses over the garden fence. There was no where really to have a communal bonfire because every bit of land was built on or being built on, unless they went to the race course R. And do you think people got on with their neighbours. C. Yes. The kids obviously used to fall out like they all do but not the parents. These three houses have had people who have lived here for many years (details about neighbours). Us kids all grew up together and the parents all got on. They didnt live in each others pockets but they were always polite to one another. You never hear people falling out like you do nowadays. R. And what about entertainment. Do you remember what people did of entertainment in those days? C. We used to listen to the radio until we got the tele and we didnt get the tele until I was about ten, when we got our tele, a little black and white one. I think you just made your own entertainment indoors. You had the radio, you might have had a record player or something and you just made your own entertainment. I cant remember there ever being a communal thing for entertainment. R. What about cinemas? Did you ever go? C Yeah, we used too go as kids. Not very often, but we used to go at odd times. We used to make our own entertainment at home. R. When Craven Vale was built there was the Countryside the woods. Did you ever go up there to the woods? C. Yes, we were always playing there. We played all around here but we did go up and play. B. Pinching rhubarb. C. Yeah we used to like that. R. Where was the rhubarb? C. When the estate was built it was all allotments and so up in the woods was allotments when we were first here. So the whole estate was allotments. R. So good soil presumably. C. Yes. Plenty of things found buried in the garden like old bikes and things. 5

R. Is there anything else that I havent covered that you would like to add? C. No, I think youve covered all of it. I knew more than I thought I knew. R. You did, didnt you? Well, thank you very, very much. That was excellent. C. I just hope that it helps. R. Yes Im sure it will.