GENEVA ROAD, C1960s

Loved this one! Chalky Hill was our usual route to the beach, or the Sunday afternoon walk in best clothes to 'watch the boat go out / come in'. It's forever associated with sweltering weather, being tired and having to face the walk back up - even with my younger brother or sister in a 'carriage' pram... Thanks Freda. Is it still chalky??

I grew up in Fort Road, so would trudge to Tideway out through the back gate to a lane that ran between Fort Road and Hillcrest and along to Chalky Hill and then up, and up, and up until finally reaching the steps down and across Gibbon Road. I will always remember the prehistoric sound of the foghorn echoeing from the end of the breakwater as I slipped and slid up Chalky Hill, and conversely slid and slipped down Chalky Hill on the way home. Also used to 'play' on the little triangular plot of land at the top where it joined Hillcrest. I believe it was the site of an AA gun emplacement during the war. The old postman, (and eventual South Road neighbour) 'Sargeant' had an allotment down on the opposite side of Chalky Hill from the Coastguard Cottages until John Thomas built a house there. Sid Cloak the barber lived to one side with Edgar Moore, the lifeboat coxswain, living on the other at the end of the row of the original coastguard cottages.

Thanks for sharing these memories Rob, were these during the 1960s too? Jackie - Editor

Hi Jackie, I would have started Tideway in '71 or '72, can't remember if I was 11 or 12. On occasion I would be joined on my morning trek by the other Fort Road kids:  Ian Fuller (Jean Cantell's - Studio Tempo fame - youngest son) Ruth Trunfell (of the clothing store family & budgie breeders) and Alexandra McIntosh (who lived in one half of the big house on the corner of Fort Road and Chalky Hill, of "the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo" fame).