DEL WHITE
Chapel Street, 1959 or 60
By Andre Havard
I'm not sure if it's an age thing but I've noticed that several of the contributors here were in the same school year as me. Do we suddenly have a yearning to connect with our pasts when we hit our fifties? Just a thought. I went to Newhaven Secondary/Tideway in 1967.
Del White has been mentioned somewhere on this site so I thought I'd post this.
I've inherited the family photgraphs and have been scanning them over the last couple of years. I came across this one of Del White in fancy dress along with two unknown ladies. Maybe someone knows who they are? The girl to the left is my sister Emelia standing outside our house which was next to the beer house. It's still there as part of the white building in what is now the shopping precinct. Number 14 was owned by the owners of the beer house.
By the way, I never went in there for a drink until the day it closed. I was hitching a lift home from work in Brighton and was picked up by a member of CAMRA who was on his way to have a last drink before it closed. He told me that it was a beer house, not a pub. I'd been in as a child, usually to retrieve my dad and granndad and it seemed huge. When I returned for my one and only drink, I couldn't believe how tiny it was - just like somone's front parlour.
I'm not sure when we moved there, probably around 1957 - 58 but I know we left to move to Northdown Road in August 1960 so this photo predates our moving.
Our loo was at the bottom of the garden in those days and it was shared with Del White. He was supposed to share with the chimney sweep but he didn't want to as the sweep was sooty, if you know what I mean. I'm sure we also had drinkers coming out of the bar next door and using our loo from time to time.
I'm not sure who took the photo. I may have been my dad but it's unlikely as the subjects still have their heads in the frame.